The Wanderers

(Warning ... as I was looking at my finished entry I realized how long this is ... so ... here's your warning ... it's really long ...)

Have you ever felt like you really don't have a home ... or that you'll never see your home or sleep in your own bed again? ... I have ... and even though, as I write this, I know - without a doubt - that I will be sleeping in my own bed tonight and that our wandering is almost over ...

Friday, Tyler and I spent most of our day not doing what we knew we needed to be doing to get ready to be gone all weekend. Oh well ... I did get the 45 cards finished and packaged for the order that I promised to deliver by Labor Day. Tyler did get some of his prep for Monday's locale done too ... What we did not get done was the packing, running the dishwasher, cleaning up the kitchen, changing the oil in the car, running a load of laundry, Tyler's haircut, picking up the appartment, and all of the prep for our Monday destination (more to come on that later).

Saturday, we got up late. We were shooting for getting up at 7 and being out of the house by 10. Unfortunately, we didn't get to bed till almost 2, so the 7 a.m. alarm didn't go over well ... we got up around 9. So, right off the bat - not gonna leave at 10. Fortunately, we decided that we were just going to set general goals and we weren't going to run around and make ourselves crazy all weekend trying to get somewhere. The only real deadline and time-table that wasn't our own wasn't till Monday anyways ... So, Tyler got himself ready and laid out his stuff to pack and took off to pick up somethings, clean out the car, and get the oil changed. Two of the three wasn't bad ... the line was uber long at the oil place. While he was doing that, I straightened up the apartment, cleaned the kitchen, ran the dishwasher, did a load of laundry, packed for the two of us, and got myself ready to go. So, we left a little bit before noon. That's not so bad ... we were impressed with how much we were able to accomplish in just about 3 hours. At about 2, we got to Gammy's house (my dad's mom). We sat and talked with her for a while. She sent us to the store for some milk, oj, and bread. The Buckeyes were about to kick off when we got back from the store. We stayed and watched the first 3 possessions ... already up 21 ... So, around 4 we headed for my dad's house. I called when we were on our way because he had told us he was getting off of work around 2 and we had originally thought that we'd be able to be there about the same time ... alas - not so much ... but, as usual, all works for good and dad hadn't gotten off work till around 4 anyways. So we got to dad's around 5 and proceeded to head out for dinner. We thought that we were going to get grilled food ... but we got better. Amish Der Dutchman buffet. Monday was my step-mom, Sylvia's, birthday, so dad decided to take everyone out to eat. The food was killer ... mmm ... Syl's youngest daughter, Jessica (who's my age), came too and brought my nieces with her. Amber is 6 and going to start 1st grade today and Kaylee is just a bit more than 1 and impossible to keep up with. (Might I say here that I miss seeing my nieces as often as I was able to when I lived closer ...) It was really great to see them all again. We hung out with Dad and Syl for a bit after dinner ... and were there much later than we had expected. We didn't leave till 11. So we finally hit my mom's house around 11:30 - and we still had a ton of work to do to prep for Monday. so it was about 1:30 when we headed to bed. Now, our bed at my mom's house is my bed from high school ... so it's a full. We're both tall and overweight - we have a queen at home ... it's always a squeeze at mom's ... So we fell asleep and set the alarm.

Which went off at 7 a.m. on Sunday. And we hit the ground running again ... We were cleaned up, packed, and out the door at 9. Destination? Tyler's family reunion - Dodoridge County Park, West Union, WV. Because of our school schedules, Tyler hasn't been able to attend regularly since high school. His mom and aunt did all of the work on it this year ... it turned out wonderfully! We pulled up to the shelter house just a bit after noon. The three hour drive went smoothly and felt quicker than expected. The food was good. The desserts were better. The time with family that we don't get to see as much as we'd like was best. :) We were there till 6 and helped finish the clean up. We headed back to Tyler's aunt's house to help her unload and put stuff away. She made us dinner and we talked and worked on the last of the prep for Monday. We went back to Donna's (Tyler's mom) home and stayed there. It was probably about 11 when we got there and we were up talking for quite a while ... it was probably 1:30 when we finally fell asleep.

Monday's alarm was at 7 a.m. again. But again, we were soooooooooo tired that we ignored it. And instead, we got up and ready around 9. Donna took us to breakfast (where we've never eaten so much food at once in our lives ... or at least it felt that way ... :P) and we sat with her and talked till about 11. We headed out for destination 5 for the weekend - Freshman Activities Fair, Ohio University, Athens, OH. So all day we had thought that the directions said it would take us about 2 hours. We knew we had to be there around 1 ... so we thought we were good. I looked at the directions again - we were wrong - 2 hours 40 minutes ... grr ... So we headed off into uncharted territory and hoped that we'd still make it on time. Luckily, the directions were wrong as to the time we needed. It took us just about 2 hours to get there, find the spot, and park. We set up our table and waited on Westy. The thing went well ... we got 16 names and made some other contacts (who are on campus, like the KP president) to try and help the fraternity re-start the chapter there. Tyler and I feel like all went well ... So we cleaned up the table and headed out at 6 p.m. Destination? Mom's house. We got to mom's around 7:30 ... took MUCH less time than we thought it might. As we pulled in, mom looked at me and said, "You look tired." My response, "Mom, we left our home in Findlay Saturday morning, since then we've put 540 miles on the car ... what do you expect?" So we had pizza, stayed up to watch the season finale of The Closer, and spent some time with my mom (since, although we stayed at her house on Saturday, she wasn't home). Mom went to bed around 10, I followed abuot 10:30 ... Tyler came up around 2:30. (One of these things is not like the other ... one of these things just doesn't belong ... :P) Again ... we set our alarm.

Which I don't know if it ever went off. I heard mom in the shower and got up around 7:45. I got to spend some time with her before she headed off for a dr's appt at 9. Tyler got up around 9:30. We're still at mom's ... it's just about 10 ... I wanted to be home by noon today ... eh - oh well ... I have to be at work at 2:30 today. I start my "Nanny Rachel" job today because the kids go back to school. I have to pick Sophie up at 2:30 ... my car REALLY needs cleaned out first ...

So that's been our weekend ... I know, it's nothing compared to our friends who moved states or continents recently ... but it sure was long and tiring for us ...

I really should get off of here and get ready to go ... we're almost home ...