Whirlwind Adventure -- Part One

Or at least that is what we tried telling the kids.  It sounds better than "we're going to spend two weeks in the car!"  That wasn't our original plan either.  The original plan was simple -- Court would be gone for five days to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for delivery of the Robonaut.  Not wanting to be stuck at home with nothing to do, I planned to take the kids to my parents house in Alabama.  But why stop there?  From Alabama, we would go up to Illinois to see family.  Court would fly up there and meet us and we would all drive back down to Texas.  Easy breezy...yeah, right.  Here's what actually happened.  (Get comfy, this could take some time and a few blogs to cover.)

My mom (a.k.a. my hero) decided that she couldn't possibly allow me to attempt to drive the kids all the way to Alabama by myself, so she made plans to fly out the Saturday before Court left.  The week before the big adventure, my father got an interview with Texas Medical Center for a position in Houston.  Things went swimmingly as he was able to fly out with my mom.  We had a good weekend of house hunting and visiting the Children's Muesum downtown.  The interview also went well until the CFO informed my father that she was a die-hard Cubs fan because her brother onced pitched for them AFTER he told her of his love for the Cardinals.  No worries though because his current company decideded they weren't ready to give him up and offered to let him work from home in Texas.  After 2 long years, my parents are finally making the move to Texas. Woohoo!

My dad flew back to Birmingham Monday afternoon (he says he had to get back to work, I say he was too chicken to ride with three kids for 14 hours).  My mom and I packed the kids up early on the next day and took off.  Then we got "the call."  Only a few hours into our trip, my cousin Alicia had called to tell my mother her father had passed away.  He had Alzheimer's and he death wasn't really a surprise to us.  But that didn't make it hurt any less.  After a brief stop to let the children play, have lunch, and regain our composure, we continued on to Alabama. We took turns crying and driving the whole way.  Needless to say we were blubbering, puffy-eyed messes by the end of the day.  We spent one day in Alabama so my mom could pack and get her hair cut.  Her favorite hair dresser had an open appointment so we took Courtney Jr. for her first haircut.  She did awesome, which is no surprise because she loves doing anything girly.  I'll end this entry here with some pictures...but stay tuned because we're just getting started...