We were supposed to shove off at 3am one october friday morning. the plan was to get out of town before the school busses got going and things got crazy. thursday was a day of planning, packing, loading the van and getting the monsters to and from school. My best friend and i were going to be doing all of the driving and navigating for the trip. 14 solid hours on the road stood between us and the beach. we had planned on getting some sleep that thursday too, but we were too wound up and by the time the hubby called to say he was leaving work early, we had decided to leave as soon as he got home and changed his clothes. the kids were pinging and we knew that no one was gonna sleep anyway. the van was loaded, the kids were in their jammies (so were we..we had children to embarrass after all) and in their respective seats. the first round of caffinated beverages was placed within reach and we were ready as soon as he got home.

After a quick stop at her parents to say good bye (we had borrowed their van), we hit the road. I have never been so thankful for unlimited data in my life. I used google maps the whole way down and my facebook kept me awake so that i could keep her awake. The hubs was in charge of taking care of the kids. how many kids you ask? 4. ages 12, 7, 5 and 2. We had a van full. We had plans to stop when the van got to a half tank because my dad had warned me of a couple stretches on the route where there wasn't a gas station to be had for a couple hundred miles and cell service was questionable in a couple places too (hellooo...west virginia anyone?). When going to the beach, i usually go to delaware and crash with unsuspecting family for a night, then make the 6 hour trip to the outer banks the next day. not only were we not sleeping this trip, we were going on a route that i was largely unfamiliar with. It was going to be one hell of an adventure. 

We stopped in Barkeyville at the Sheetz because this chick needed coffee..GOOD coffee and this was going to be the last of it i'd see for two weeks. if you wanted a good laugh, you should've been there. i had on fuzzy sesame street pj pants, a spongebob tshirt and my hair was in pig tails. my bestie was dressed the same way. the kids were MORTIFIED that they had to make a potty run with us looking like that (mission accomplished). After the coffee run, we hit the road again and i think we were in the middle of west by god virginia when the hubs woke up...he had to go to the bathroom. the idiot thought we were gonna pull over. um....no. there were no lights of ANY kind on that road, he could wait until we found a rest stop and got gas again. turned out he waited until we got into virginia (oops).

Now, anytime the bestie and i get together, its an adventure. Nonstop giggles await the poor person who is stuck with us. this trip..it was even more interesting because we were over sugared, over caffinated and under slept. All was fine until we got near Hampton Roads Virginia. we follwed a toys r us driver who mustve been more tired that we were (it was maybe 1am) and all was fine until he tried to run us off the road for the third time. I looked at her and told her to put her foot into it, i was NOT getting stuck in one of the tunnels when he wrecked. the kids were asleep and i had to pee. now, i'm used to travelling, and can hold my caffeine pretty well, but that guy..lord. he scared the crap out of us one too many times. we passed him and when we had put a safe distance between us, we LOST it laughing..so hard that we woke up my oldest who informed us that there were people who were trying to sleep and could we please shut up. yeah...that backfired because we lost it even harder. 

If you've never been to Hatteras Island, you don't know the joys of crossing the Herbert C Bonner Bridge. it is, without a doubt, one of the most unsafe bridges in the country (its actually ranked worse than the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnels) due to its age..long story, ask me and i'll write a post about that whole mess. I kinda kept the part about how bad the bridge was to myself..i didn't want to scare my now exhausted driver. Oh, yeah..as we were crossing the bridge, my mom called to tell me that she was going to buy lunchables for the kids to eat when we got there (we were going to land down there around 4pm according to the orignial plans). I laughed and asked her when she was going to go get breakfast..she said around 7. I asked her if she minded waiting because we kinda left at 4pm the night before and i was in desperate need of coffee and pastry. Yeah..i'm 36..i was in a WORLD of trouble for that one. I didn't tell her because i didn't want to worry her. She wouldn't have slept and i needed SOMEONE to watch the kids when i eventually crashed from sheer exhaustion. 

By the time the sun was rising, i had posted that i was home. i consider that island my home. its where my heart and soul belong. well, guess who got into trouble again? yup..i had also neglected to tell my beach parents and beach grandparents that i was leaving earlier. hell hath no fury like worried beach family. oy. We had crossed the lego bridge (aka the new, new inlet bridge..thank you hurricane irene) over an on again, off again inlet in the Pea Island refuge. (its an army bridge..is supposedly temporary and scared the crap out of my bestie) There had also been torrential rain shortly before we got there and there was water everywhere. Hell of a way to welcome the girl to the island!

As i'm getting into trouble all around for not telling anyone of our little adventure, we finally arrive at the parental units house (well, their rental anyway)..we left early to squeeze out another day in paradise and ya know what? i wouldn't change a single thing about that road trip. it felt absolutely perfect and theres no one else i'd stuff 4 kids, a spousal unit and a bunch of stuff in a mini van with and drive 14 hours on no sleep.

this little post was inspired by my friends over at finish the sentence friday. i'm co-hosting our weekly blog hop this week with my good friends Kristi Campbell and Kerri Ames.

http://new.inlinkz.com/view.php?id=539178" title="click to view in an external page.">An InLinkz Link-up

This summer is starting off with a bang..and a snap..and a pop..and an ouch.

the minions have been off of school for summer break, or parent torture, for a solid week now. about 3 days into the hostage situation, one of us ended up with a broken toe, 2 scraped knees, an elbow that looks like hamburger, a case of shock....yep, it was me. this is how it happened.

Wednesday was a mild enough day, only a few choruses of "i'm bored..stop touching me" from the minions. fed the crabbies, dug out the 55 because i thought (wrongly) that one of them had died..still don't know that the issue was, but it stunk. BAD. sifted 210lbs of sand TWICE to make sure that i didn't miss any dead (and therefore REALLY stinky) crabbie type family members. got that tat put back together with everyone back where they belonged. decided to take 5 and some advil to recover from that little escapade when the furry, barking family members decided that they wanted to go out. Fine, i got their bark collars on them and proceeded to put them in the outdoor kennel. well, Stupid decided he didn't want to go in there and took off on me. little jerk only got as far as the neighbor's ac unit when something spooked him and he headed back towards me. the oldest minion yelled at him and he came by me so i made a grab for him. an ill fated grab for him. i missed. he, wisely, ran into the house (with my oldest right behind him). yup, i face planted right into the gravel of my driveway. thankfully, the oldest saw me, came right over to me, took my phone out of my back pocket (because he knows i'd cry if i killed my brand new phone) and helped me roll over. by this time, i was shaking..shit, i knew what was going on..i helped my hubby study for his first responder class. i was in shock. i quickly elevated my legs on my son and kept talking as i laid down and waited for the shaking to pass, which it did pretty quickly. i knew my toe was busted so i had him take my sneaks off and sure enough..it was black and blue and somehow, cut in two places as well. that explained the shakes. i sat up (with help) and looked towards the house. it was only about 3 feet away. might as well have been a mile. he helped me gimp to the recliner and quickly set about cleaning me up (i looked like a toddler who was learning to walk on the gravel). by this time, the hubs was texting me on his lunch break as usual when i asked him to call me. i told him what happened and he did as good of an assessment on me as he could from 20 miles away. i'd live, but was given strict orders to take some advil, drink lots of water, ice and elevate the foot and oh, yeah..do NOT nap. i sent a friend a text and she came up to check on me and hang out for a while in case i needed to go to the er. (no, i never ended up going..its the joy of having medical people in your contacts list) by the time the hubs had gotten home from work, i was miserable, but he surmised that i'd live. didn't sleep real well wed night..thursday sucked, today..well, i'm miserable. had to go pay the mortgage and go get supplies (its payday). that involved way too much walking for me. as i type this, i'm sitting on the front porch because its too blasted hot in the house, my foot is elevated and iced and i'm drinking lemonadade. the older you get, you realize its not the fall itself that hurts..its that quick stop on something hard that does! if this is how my summer is going to go, i'm going to need an air conditioned bubble!