B’s blog

We took a new way to Iowa this time and got to experience Oklahoma. One of the towns we passed through was Carrie Underwood’s hometown. I can’t remember the name of it though. Our trip so far has been great. We loved visiting with friends but felt really rushed. I would have loved to spend more time with everyone. Wednesday when we were heading to Sharon’s, we stopped by the Christian bookstore to pick up a gift for my sister for the wedding. While in the parking lot, our van ran out of gas. It said it had 1/8 of a tank left and within 30 seconds it shut off and was completely empty. Erik approached an older lady, most likely in her 70’s, and she agreed to take me to the gas station to get some gas. We had to go twice before the car would start because the gas can I got only held 1 gallon. The lady’s name was Carol, she has 5 children and we talked about how traveling with kids was for her when they went on family vacations. She was very sweet and before she drove away after our van started, she said, “I always say everything happens for a reason and today I went shopping for a reason, to help you!” She was our angel! Today is Thursday and we get to see my parents, my sister, and Reed tonight. No one in my family has seen Evan yet and they are going to be amazed at how big the other kids are. The trip so far has been going super fast. I’ll be sad when we have to leave on Sunday.

Today we are taking off for our big journey to Iowa, 15 hrs drive time in a car with 4 children under the age of 8, the youngest being 4 weeks old. Should be interesting. Prayers for safe travels but also for patience and sanity. I’m on the verge of losing both of those even before we start the trip. We are on baby time so how far we get depends on how Evan cooperates.

I’m going on record that Jordin Sparks will be the next American Idol. I like her. She has a great voice and the last name of a very special friend of mine (MEGAN!!) but I really like Blake too. The judges hit it on the head when they said, “Blake wins for his performances, but Jordin can out sing him.” Maybe they didn’t say that word for word, but I’m saying it.

Today was a busy morning. We started by going to Braden’s 3 yr well child checkup. He’s 41 inches tall and 38 lbs! He’s gonna be tall like his dad. I did a height predictor from babycenter.com and it says based on how big Braden is now at age 3, he’ll most likely be 7 foot tall by age 18! Can you imagine what size shoe he’ll wear or how much he’ll be eating by then? I’m gonna have to get another job! He already wears size 10 toddler shoe. Jaelyn wears 1 1/2 and Avery is 5 1/2. Big kids! Evan is 10 lbs 2 oz at 4 weeks old.

After Braden’s appt we went to Awards day at Avery’s school. He got 6 awards! Let’s see if I can remember them all…he got an award for being on the Honor Roll (All A’s all year!), Best Behavior (based on behavior throughout the year), Independent Reader (he’s a 2nd grader reading at a 5th grade level), an award for passing 2nd grade, running a marathon (based off of accumulated laps (26 miles) they run in P.E. throughout the year-he finished his up around the start of the 4th quarter), and then the last award was because he was ranked 2nd in his class based off of how well he reads. Oh and he was elected Class President for Ms. Pady’s class! He had a VERY good year and we couldn’t be prouder of all his hard work.

Then we ran to Sonic to get something for lunch, stopped off in the Kroger parking lot to nurse the baby, picked up my bridesmaid dress, ran to Target to get kids’ new shoes, then to Kohl’s, the Joann Fabrics, then to my mother in law’s to visit, and then back to school to pick up Jaelyn. UGH! That was tiring! Now I’m catching up on emails and about to start my packing.

Remember we leave Friday so no blog posts unless Erik can someone get on a wireless connection out in Carlisle at Jim’s like last time. If so, I may post while we are gone.

This is the final week of American Idol and I’d really like to see Blake win it. Just because he is marketable and his voice is unique. Also maybe because he looks just like Erik’s cousin Brandon! Here’s the proof!

The afternoon went much better once Braden realized we were on our way to Mountasia, the mini-golf-gokart-arcade place and after a 45 minutes nap. He even managed to hit a hole in one on the 3rd hole! My 3 year old can putt better than me! He’s a pro already. After a very busy weekend, we made it through and now it’s Monday. Only a few more days until we leave for Iowa. Jaelyn has her program at school at 9am on Friday and Avery and her get out at 11:30a so we are planning on hitting the road as soon as we pick them up. We’ll hit the start of Dallas rush hour so we want to make good time to hopefully get ahead of that. We plan on driving until 9p or so, getting a hotel and finishing up the trip on Saturday. Since we don’t know how far we’ll get, we can’t make reservations. I hope this doesn’t bite us in the butt because of Memorial Day weekend/graduations. Shoot, I may have to rethink this.