We Made It!

Ann & I made it cross country safely. I am blogging from my new place in Eureka, CA! It was quite an adventure and I hope to be able to share it with all of you soon. We drove over 3,000 miles, through 12 states. The weather varied from beautiful blue skies to rain, sleet, snow, hail and tornadoes! We visited the awesome Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a restored pony express station, Buffalo Bill Cody's ranch and saw some of the most beautiful scenery in this country. We took over 600 pictures! I hope to be able to share them with you soon.

I start work tomorrow. I'm a little nervous as I usually am the night before. Excited Nervous. Ann & I went and scouted out the place I will be working as well as the route to get there. I'm always glad when the first day is done.

I hope you all had a nice Memorial Day.

Ready to hit the road!

Well,almost . . .

I survived being a single aunt of 3 kids for 4 days. These kids are the best. I have so many new memories with them from this weekend. Richard offered to buy me lunch from his school and bring it home to me and when I refused, he made me cereal for breakfast instead! Lucas slept in my room 2 nights and Richard 1 night. Jacqueline is so full of new words and so determined to be grown up already. She has the sweetest smile with a head tilt and clasping of the hands when she asks for a treat at the end of a meal. Lucas still loves to do crafts and asked me several times a day when we could do crafts. We played Webkinz, both with the stuffed animals and online. We watched Madagascar, ScoobyDoo and Caillou. It was a great weekend. I'm exhausted!

I unpacked the backseat of my car and repacked it to make room for Ann's luggage. I unpacked the front seat to make room for Ann! LOL! I'm leaving some clothes that don't fit and my winter stuff, here in DC. My brother has a little section of his attic for my stuff. It's a growing section. The more I travel the more I realize I don't need as much as I always bring. And I've been working on consolidating each time I move.

I've done tons of research for this trip. But with all the mayhem taking care of the kids I haven't printed any of it out yet. I'm hoping tomorrow to print out a few things on the laptop downstairs. If not we will wing it!

The car is mostly packed and I will be picking up Ann from the airport tomorrow afternoon. I can't believe I am driving cross country starting tomorrow. Sometimes this traveling gig feels surreal to me. It's been a year and a half and I'm still loving it. I cant' wait to see what comes next. Who will I meet? What new friends will I walk away from this assignment with? What new memories will I add to my life?

Wish me luck and send me safe travel prayers! I will blog as I can to let you know of the grand adventure!

Many celebrations this weekend

I'm back in DC, babysitting the kidlets. We are having a ball. My dad calls everyday to check on us, its hilarious actually, because we're just fine. Jacqueline misses mommy in the mornings but once she gets her day going shes done fine. The boys have been a huge help in keeping it all together here. I'm enjoying every minute of being with them that I can because I know it will be 3months before I'm back here for any length of time.

My brother's birthday was yesterday. Happy Birthday Du! The big 41! We had a birthday dinner of crabcakes and grilled steak and ice cream cake Wednesday night before they left. (And I passed on the cake!).

Rich and Barbara's 10 year Anniversary is today. 10 years, I can hardly believe it. 10 years ago this weekend so many members of our family treked up here for a great time with the Rich, Barbara and the Deily clan. Congratulations Rich and Barbara!

This weekend is graduation weekend at Fresno State. My best friend Dakota is graduating Magna Cum Laude! I'm soooo incredibly proud of her. I'm disappointed I'm not able to be there. But I have been thinking about her all day today and will be tomorrow too. Congratulations Dakota!

I worked on repacking my car some today. Lucas was a great help bringing things inside for me to work on to condense and figure out what is staying here in my brothers attic and what is heading cross country on Monday. I plan to spend bits and pieces of time working on the car so that it is ready by Monday and there is room for both Ann and her stuff. We'll see . . .

Packing!

Can you believe it? It's time to leave Jacksonville already. I've been working on packing a little at a time after work the last week or so, and it has really paid off. I've already got the trunk about 90% packed. I'm taking a break as its still in the low 90s here (at 8pm!). The back seat is next. First, of course, I need to clear it off, lol. Then the luggage will go out. Once those big pieces are in the rest of the smaller boxes and bags will fill in the holes and spaces. I'm totally psyched that I'm moving along so well this early in the game. I don't plan to get on the road until Monday morning.

We had a nice, delayed Cinco de Mayo yesterday as my going away party. It was delicious and fun. I've made several friends here. The team at my facility was fun to work with, and I am going to miss them. I won't miss being the director of rehab, not at all, but I will miss the fun people.

My cross country trek begins a week from Monday. I still have a good bit of research to do for that trip. I've done the preliminary route, but I need to do more research on fun sights to see and things to do along the way. And of course to map out the accessible scrapbook stores along the way! If ya'll have any suggestions of fun things to do along Interstate 80 please let me know.