Road Trip

This picture here at the top with Zoe in the window was taken on my last night in my room at my parent's house in Alabama. It was a very strange feeling knowing we would be leaving that house, and for good this time. It was also emotional knowing I was leaving and taking the boys with me and my mom still had a long road ahead of her. There's no easy way to handle living oceans apart. 

We rented a van and drove through the night back down to Florida to put the last of my belongings stored at my parent's house on a pallet to be shipped over to us in Exuma. It was also a lot cheaper than flying. Summertime discounts are always necessary :) Dallas and I were excited to be driving a fancy new mini-van. The life of luxury for a night! We made a pit-stop through Auburn for a dinner at Moe's with our friends, the Foshee's and Chris & Laura O.! It was a blessing to see all of them even for the short time that we were with them.

You may barely notice the cricket in the cup just below this...Wheeler helped the boys catch that while we were out in the parking lot in Auburn. They wanted a 'pet'! And, instantly had plans of taking it on the airplane all the way home with them. after our precautions of securing it, yes we played along, the cup spilled about 5 minutes down the road. We fully expected the cricket to keep us annoyed all night, but luckily he was a quiet little crickey.  

After full bellies, we headed for the long haul and the boys dozed off. We made a few quick stops along the way, but made pretty good time. I hate doing the 24 hour rentals because you are constantly adding up the time in your head and calculating how much time you have left on your rental and so on... but it was necessary because we didn't want to pay for two whole days when we would only actually use it for three more hours or so beyond our rental time. And of course, at about 3:15am we got the flat tire on the interstate in the middle of nowhere with no 24 hour tire shops nearby. SO, we got to ride with the doughnut on for about 4 hours until some tire shops opened up. Which slowed us down a lot, but we made it. 

I don't even remember taking this cute one of them in the buggy at Target, but I love it :) We dropped off our stuff at the mailboat (which is the photo that looks like one big construction zone--right by the Fort Lauderdale airport) and managed to pull into the rental car return at the Miami airport at the exact time our car was due back... SWEET! We all just about passed out in the shuttle van from the airport to our hotel for the night in Miami. We enjoyed a little swim in the pool and by about 4:30pm we were all fast asleep in the king sized bed in our hotel room. You could say we were all a bit worn out. We got up the next morning and flew home to Exuma. 

The boys took no time at all to get out their toys, make a mess, and get settled back into their home.