Our Mini Trip to Alabama

Cody, the kids and I headed off to Alabama on Wednesday the 14th. We made it to Syracuse that evening to break up the long haul of 16 hours. We got a decent start out on Thursday. Joe was gracious enough to take care of the lack of water in the shower. The pipes were not frozen but the motor to to the pump was. After his quick fix I was able to get a shower and we got on the road. It was -10 degrees when we left and only hit 0 degrees by the time we made it to the outskirts of Kansas City. The drive was pretty uneventful with Cody and I trading off every few hours and the kids sleeping most of the way. We did really miss the van on this trip. We decided to take the Blazer because we planned on dragging some of our stuff back, that we left in at the house. We rolled into Florence about 10:30 that evening and was welcomed by mom and dad and a warm meal. YUMMY! The kids took off looking for their old toys to play with and had a fit when we told them it was time for bed. On Friday morning, Cody had to take some stuff back to his Guard unit so we took off to Moulton while mom and dad took the kids out for a day of adventure (Heart's Cry, Keepers, etc.) On the way to Moulton Cody nearly scared the heck out of me when he pulled a U-ey. I thought he was crazy, but soon figured out what caught his eye. We stopped off to look at a pop up camper. We have been talking for some time about getting a camper but they are pretty expensive. We took the number and drove on down the road to the Guard unit. Cody turned in his stuff and we must have been caught up in some Moulton drama. While we were standing outside the unit two cop cars flew by, a fire truck and a emergency helicopter. We didn't ever figure out what was going down. After that we headed back to check out the pop-up. Long story about the guy but I am pretty sure he was right out of broke back mountain. LOL. We ended up purchasing the camper site unseen. The winch was broken but we bought it on faith. That evening we found a winch at Wal-mart and spent the rest of the evening, into the morning getting the darn thing up (Seriously, we worked on it until 1:45 a.m.) It turned out to be in great shape other than some just normal wiping down and cleaning. :) Score us....we are looking forward to some camping this year.

Day Two:

We headed out with mom and dad, Luke and Charlotte in search of the real winch which took us on a dead end journey. So after giving up on finding the real piece mom and dad took us to Swamp John's, yummy! That evening we went out with Consuela, Sarah L. and Jimmy to Olive Garden and then went bowling. My hubby kicked butt......and I got my butt kicked. :) We had a great time, those are some of the best co-workers ever and I miss them dearly. Just so everyone knows...Julie didn't die, she did make it home from Memphis! :) Cody and I realized how old we are getting when we came rolling home at 9:00 and immediately went to bed. :O LOL.

Day Three: We went to Church and the kids weren't too bad. :) They are slowly getting trained from the church up here. They were so used to going to Miss M's room but we don't have that here in North Platte so they are learning to shhhhh and behave in God's home. For lunch we took Sarah and Tim out for lunch (The Best Neighbors Ever). It was so nice getting to catch up with them. Cody finally had someone to berate Democrats with. :) That evening mom made up some of the best potato salad and devilled eggs for a dinner that I was "making" for Nicole and Joey. So I made the burgers and mom still helped with that. :) It was nice to meet up with Nicole too...my best friend since 9-10 grade? Joey made it by later after finishing up camping and we had a good time catching up.

Day Four: Monday we just spent haning out and as Cody said, "Sarah napping" but hey, I was tired. :) We got the camper down and everything packed up. At the last minute we realized that the camper didn't have running lights.....and some cut wires and an hour later we realized that it was a bad fuse. :) We said our goodbyes with Mom, Dad, John Pearson and Emily and got on the road. We stopped in Memphis that evening to see Monica and family and once again to get a yummy dinner! HA!

Day Five: On the road again.......a stop in Kansas City to Chad & Sam and then on to Syracuse.

Day Six: Back to North Platte with two tired adults, two non-tired children and a camper!

We want to thank everyone that we got to see, we have a great family that will house us and feed us in exchange for a little "grandchild/niece/nephew" time. :) I guess that is like holding an ace. We miss you all and were glad that we were able to catch up with you all.

Love, Cody, Sarah, Luke & Charlotte

P.S. I forgot to take pictures so you will have to get those from MawMaw's site.