Have you ever seen the Beverly Hillbillies? I have. I specifically remember the father puttering up to a mansion in an old car overloaded with family and belongings. That was amusing.
You know what's more amusing? The way we looked when we made the long journey from Hugoton to our new home. The trip took a total of five days, but we stopped for 1 1/2 days in Wichita for Memorial Weekend. As if a family of six being displaced from home five days isn't challenging enough, add two dogs and a u-haul trailor to a van with an air conditioner going on the brink.
We looked into shipping our dogs Cotton, an 82 lb. golden retreiver, and Dixie, a 62 lb. chocolate lab by airplane to Louisiana. I quickly found out that Cotton exceeds the 70 lb. pet shipping weight limit. We decided, with much arguing, that we would put a hitch on the minivan (see where the hillbilly is coming in?) and rent an open U-Haul trailor so we could put the dog kennels on the trailor. Travis spent a whole afternoon saying words I can't repeat while trying to get the hitch on our minivan and wiring for brake lights. He's my superhero, though, and, like always, he pulled through.
Have you ever been embarrased to ride in a vehicle? I hadn't been until the van was hillbillified and people would pass us on the highway and gawk. We get enough looks when people see we have four kids so young, but this put us over the edge of the "crazy" cliff. There we were. All six of us were packed in a minivan pulling a trailor with what looked to be two bird dogs and a lot of "junk" (actually valuable to us) that was haphazardly stuffed in cardboard boxes. Each time we stopped for ANYTHING it took us at least a full 30 minutes. We drove through one heavy downpour after another in northwest Texas, so our cardboard boxes were all mushy and falling apart.
The smell was another thing. Put six people in a minivan on a hot, humid day and have two of them repeatedly poop their pants and another repeatedly need to make sure he didn't poop his. I changed about three of Jillian's dirty diapers while we were chugging down the highway, just so we wouldn't have to stop AGAIN. No matter how quickly we would change diapers and stop at a trash can to throw them out, the smell still lingered.
Travis and I splurged and got the kids those portable dvd players, which were worth every penny we paid for them. Dawson has a new love for the old Disney movie "Chitty, Chitty, Bang-Bang." I think I have the songs memorized because his little earphones were too big to fit into his ears.
We pulled up to our closing for our new house ten minutes late and a dirty diaper fell out of the car just as our realtor came out to greet us. By then I wasn't embarrassed. Just happy to be "home."
You know what's more amusing? The way we looked when we made the long journey from Hugoton to our new home. The trip took a total of five days, but we stopped for 1 1/2 days in Wichita for Memorial Weekend. As if a family of six being displaced from home five days isn't challenging enough, add two dogs and a u-haul trailor to a van with an air conditioner going on the brink.
We looked into shipping our dogs Cotton, an 82 lb. golden retreiver, and Dixie, a 62 lb. chocolate lab by airplane to Louisiana. I quickly found out that Cotton exceeds the 70 lb. pet shipping weight limit. We decided, with much arguing, that we would put a hitch on the minivan (see where the hillbilly is coming in?) and rent an open U-Haul trailor so we could put the dog kennels on the trailor. Travis spent a whole afternoon saying words I can't repeat while trying to get the hitch on our minivan and wiring for brake lights. He's my superhero, though, and, like always, he pulled through.
Have you ever been embarrased to ride in a vehicle? I hadn't been until the van was hillbillified and people would pass us on the highway and gawk. We get enough looks when people see we have four kids so young, but this put us over the edge of the "crazy" cliff. There we were. All six of us were packed in a minivan pulling a trailor with what looked to be two bird dogs and a lot of "junk" (actually valuable to us) that was haphazardly stuffed in cardboard boxes. Each time we stopped for ANYTHING it took us at least a full 30 minutes. We drove through one heavy downpour after another in northwest Texas, so our cardboard boxes were all mushy and falling apart.
The smell was another thing. Put six people in a minivan on a hot, humid day and have two of them repeatedly poop their pants and another repeatedly need to make sure he didn't poop his. I changed about three of Jillian's dirty diapers while we were chugging down the highway, just so we wouldn't have to stop AGAIN. No matter how quickly we would change diapers and stop at a trash can to throw them out, the smell still lingered.
Travis and I splurged and got the kids those portable dvd players, which were worth every penny we paid for them. Dawson has a new love for the old Disney movie "Chitty, Chitty, Bang-Bang." I think I have the songs memorized because his little earphones were too big to fit into his ears.
We pulled up to our closing for our new house ten minutes late and a dirty diaper fell out of the car just as our realtor came out to greet us. By then I wasn't embarrassed. Just happy to be "home."
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