The Incredible Shrinking Vehicle

It was a cold, drizzly day. Yeah, you know where this post is going! :)

Grandma Forester was wonderful to keep my 3 kiddos while Jeff and I went to a rehearsal at Heritage Church. One thing led to another, and it was 2 AM before we arrived back at grandma's to pick up the kids.
We were so fried from driving and the kids were asleep, so we just crashed there, too.
We rolled out of bed pretty early considering what time we passed out and woke the kids up---we're going to visit Aunt Nelda, Uncle Alan, Abby and Marty!!

Woohoo! Oh, the excitement! Oh, the questions: What time are we leaving? Are we leaving right now? Can I pack my Nintendo DS? But I didn't pack Big Babe (stuffed dog)! Does our hotel have a pool? Can we swim in it? A lot? When will we get there? Will it be dark? Are we going to see them today?

Jenna just looked at us and soaked in all the excitement. "Wahooooo!" she exclaimed with gusto, throwing her hands up in the air for extra punctuation.

That's about where all the "Wahoooing" stopped for mommy and daddy.

Our late/early night before had thwarted our plans to pack everything up and leave at a decent hour. By the time we had driven home and packed just about everything we owned, it was after 2 p.m. before we hit the open road.

We sailed along pretty well---for about 2 hours--and then Jeff got sick. He was so nauseous he couldn't keep his eyes open, his body hurt, and any bump in the road made him clutch his plastic "just in case" bag a little tighter.

When you get sick like that, your vehicle feels like it just shrunk a bit. He insisted we should go on ahead and I would drive.

So now Jeff is sick....and Jenna is LOUD. God has gifted this little girl with lungs that WORK! We should change her middle name from Hope to Gusto. She's happy LOUD, she's mad LOUD, she talks LOUD, ....she's just LOUD! We try to shush her down with "Use your princess voice". She just smiles at us like a little princess.

When you get sick like that and you have loud children 2 feet behind your head, your vehicle seems to shrink a little more.

Jenna dozed a while....thank you, Lord!....and then the boys began grumbling with each other. Somebody forgot to bring their charger cord for their DS. There were several, "Too bad, you should have brought your own" comments and then "You're just mean" retorts tossed around.

When you get sick like that, you have loud children 2 feet behind your head, and the grumbling starts....your vehicle loses 9 cubic feet of space.

Jeff was groaning and clutching his bag, the kids are groaning and trying to clutch each other.....Mommy NEEDS a Starbuck stop. Actually, mommy needed 3 Starbuck stops.

When you get sick like that, you have loud children 1.5 feet behind your head, the grumbling starts, mommy makes 3 Starbuck stops, and everybody has to go potty.....your vehicle loses any aerodynamics it may have possessed and becomes an even smaller-sized box.

We finally arrived at Spring Mill Inn--it's an Indiana State Park lodge in Mitchell, IN--about an hour or so south of Bloomington. Definitely recommended! We've camped here before, but this was our first time to stay in the lodge.

We pulled in about 10:00 p.m. in our matchbox GMC Jimmy. Jeff dragged and shuffled his way inside and we checked in. One of the boys said the "S" word. Yes, you guessed it. He said, "Can we go Swimming now?" There's only a couple things Jenna loves more than Cinderella and swimming is one of them. In her mind, nothing beats a good Noo-Noo. (noo-noo is anything wet--including drinks).

You can now smile and envision us barely standing at the front desk with baggage hanging off of our baggage...and LOUD Jenna very excitedly jumping up and down "Yea! NOOO-NOOOO! ME!" "ME? Noo-Noo??" Amazingly enough, they gave us a room at the very end of the hall.

Daddy crashed in bed, and we proceeded on to Noo-Noo land for an hour. Then it was sleep.....oh, blessedly sweet sleep. But somehow...

When you get sick like that, you have loud, excited children hanging off your body, you've unfolded your body from a matchbox-sized vehicle and feel sleep-deprived......your room shrinks into a closet with a bathroom.