So We’re In Colorado

We left for our trip after lunch and made the 10+ hour drive in, oh, about 10+ hours. I didn’t know, and nobody warned me, that if you have more kids you make more stops. I don’t like stops. It’s against my nature. When Du was on a business trip once, I made the trip from Virginia to middle Georgia (12 hours) with Reagan. She was about 2 and we stopped once, for about 20 minutes. No. stopping. aloud. Thankfully she was still in diapers and my bladder was akin to a camel’s ability to store water. Now that we have two kids we seem to be making more stops. And apparently having two kids adversely affects ones bladder performance as well. I’m just saying (I would never stoop to the astronut level to wear diapers on a cross country trip just to save time. I’m not that fanatical about not stopping).

 

So, we’re all still sane, which Ashlyn tried desperately to prevent. There were times when I could have jumped around the truck like a monkey and she still would have cried screamed her head off. And inevitably we would have crashed at that moment. There’s one thing you must know about Du. He thinks that if he just tells a 16 month old that she needs to quit screaming and take a nap that this 16 month old will comply. Honey, we have a 16 month old…and her name is Ashlyn…have you not been keeping up with her Modus Operandi? It’s her one purpose in life to make us pull out our hair. And she knows that we’re cooped up in an enclosed space with her. Why wouldn’t she pitch dozens of fits…right behind your head?

 

The one thing I should thank God about is the fact that there were no poopy diapers on the trip. Thank You God. And thank you fast food. Really. Because Kansas has apparently never heard of those baby changing tables. I actually did a “stand up change.” Ever done one of those? I made Ashlyn stand up while I took off her old diaper, prayed that she wouldn’t pee all over her pants that were pulled down around her ankles, and put on her new diaper. All while trying to make her stand still. This is Ashlyn we’re talking about. I should get a medal.

 

Here’s what we saw in Kansas:

And this was about it. Not ragging on Kansas or anything. In fact we’ll be doing something special in Kansas on our way home…

 

Here’s a frightful picture:

Yikes! That’s eighty-four dollars and five cents. Notice the 21 gallons. We must have been running on fumes. If we could harness that wind power a little better and somehow turn it into fuel I wouldn’t be paying these prices. And we wouldn’t be supporting OPEC (that apparently only spends around $21 to make a barrel of oil and then charges $138 for it. I know it’s capitalism, but I’d rather not give my money to them… and that being said, Du’s run the numbers and it would actually not be financially beneficial for us to have a Prius instead of a Durango…the Durango is paid off and it would take like a decade for the Prius to actually become economically cheaper for us. So the Durango it is…and just do the physics–a screaming kid has to sound louder in a smaller vehicle.)

 

And now, Sister Love:

Well, kind of. Ashlyn apparently doesn’t like kissing humans. She’s all over giving kisses to her dolls and stuffed animals and cats…but Mommy, Daddy and Sissy? Fugetuhboutit.

 

Oh, and I slept in until 9:30 this morning. So that’s 10:30 my time. I have such a great husband.