We’ve Made it to Virginia

We’re here, but not anywhere near settled in. The road to get to Virginia was NUTS!

Instead of leaving Friday after the boys got out of school, we left Saturday morning and headed to my sister-in-law’s in Chicago. Right as we were crossing the border and made it to the first toll booth, there were long lines to get through. Unfortunately, people were cutting in line. I had 26ish miles of gas left. By the time I got to the gate, I had 5-7 miles left. I asked the toll lady for the nearest gas station and she said the first exit would be gas.

Lies, all lies!

We got off and there was NO gas station in sight. All I saw was farms. We drove around for about 5 minutes on 0 in my gas tank. I found a “neighborhood” with a few homes and saw a car in a driveway with it’s lights on. I went to the driver to get directions. Santa was sitting in the front seat! He gave me directions, but he wasn’t clear either. I ended up driving into a State Park but only so far as seeing the sign. We turned around with me in tears afraid we were about to run out of gas.

My sister-in-law called and tried to console me. And after driving around for about 15 minutes I finally found a gas station. UGH, it was miserable!

The next day we headed toward OH where we were going to stay overnight and meet up with some blogging friends for dinner. About an hour away from dinner my phone stopped working and it was my only source for directions. My Google Maps was having issues and caused my phone to freeze. So, for about 15 minutes we were driving blind. My son called his sister for basic directions and then we took the wrong exit. OY!

My phone started working and I went to my Maps app again, not knowing at the time that’s what caused it to freeze. As soon as I started using the Navigation again, the phone froze, I couldn’t turn it off, I couldn’t swipe my screen…nothing! I finally remembered how to do a hard shut down and was able to get the phone up and running again! UGH! We had dinner and made it to the hotel.

In the morning we went down and had breakfast and I realized my youngest son had pink eye. We talked to the front desk at the hotel and I thought they said the hospital had an urgent care or clinic in it. Nope, it was only an ER. Good news, there was only one mom with two kids ahead of us!! Short trip, right? Try again.

An hour later we were ushered back into the ER rooms where every room was FILLED! I nearly died when I saw all of those people. My oldest son had been having issues with his stomach for about a week so I figured I’d have him seen as well. Two hours later we finally left with a prescription for eye drops and told to keep my other son hydrated. I went to fill the prescription at Rite Aid because I saw that place first and at the window was told it would be an hour. I just stared at her. Then I asked her where the CVS was. Thankfully it was only across the street. We waited about 15 minutes and were finally on the road after 4 hours.

When we hit PA, W. VA, MD we hit a major snowstorm and ended up going between 40-45 mph for about 2 hrs. There were accidents everywhere! We finally made it to my moms around 7pm Christmas Eve. I spent the rest of the night wrapping all of the Christmas presents that I’d had shipped here. Needless to say, it was a late night!

I’ve got the boys settled into their room. The bathroom is pretty much taken over by us and I’m just waiting for my room to become available. My mom has to totally clean out the room so I can move in. My family is definitely making a lot of changes for me so that I can get a new start. I’m very thankful that they’ve opened their house up to us! Big changes for everyone!

We’re not 100% settled in. The boys should be signed up for school this week (they’re so excited…not). I’ve gotten a new job! Excited and scared to death all at the same time with that one. Life is just a bunch of constant changing right now.