Road Trip part 2

We thought things would settle down a little when we got to Greeley, but actually things just got busier. Here are some highlights.

1. I totally forgot how much happens in the days before a wedding. I guess it's been way too long since mine. I thought I'd just hang around the hotel with Damien and the kids except for the rehearsal/dinner and wedding. What was I thinking? I had fun with the bride and other bridesmaids getting manicures, trying on our dresses, running errands, having a mild, mini bachelorette party, etc...
2. While I was out gallivanting around town, Damien was back at the hotel with kids. Kids who had slept in 3 different hotels in 3 nights. Actually, they did really well. They hung out at the hotel some but also tried to get out. We wished the hotel had had a pool but we can't expect much for $55/night on priceline.com! They found some of the great parks in the area. I have a great husband!
3. Of the 8 bridesmaids and groomsmen, I was the only one who was married or had kids. At first I thought it was strange since we're all in our 30's but it makes sense because single people are more likely to be friends with other single people, right?
4. Caiah has become deathly afraid of thunder. We were supposed to have dinner outside with the bridal party on Thursday night when it started raining & thundering. He was shaking profusely at the thought of going outside. If we took him out he cried at the top of his lungs saying he was scared. We finally get Orin over his fears of things and now Caiah is starting.
5. The bridesmaids all took the bride to get a manicure & pedicure together. Now, I've only had one manicure in my life (for another wedding) and I did not like it at all. I know they sanitize their tools, but it totally grossed me out. Plus, she made me bleed which wasn't pleasant and grossed me out more thinking of other people bleeding on them. I had never had a pedicure. I wanted to go along with the "fun" so I did both. Luckily this was a much better experience. Although, totally not worth the money. Paying $35 to have your nails and toenails painted seems overpriced. I can clean and scrub my own feet, and have my husband rub them for a lot less. I don't think I'll be getting another until I'm a bridesmaid again. :-)
6. What do you do with leftover bridesmaid dresses? I can't remember what I did with them in the past. Goodwill maybe? I wrote 3" heels for the first time ever. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't fall down the steps at least. I'll have to wear them again to get more use out them.
7. On the morning of the wedding we were all just getting out of bed around 8:30am. I was about to start getting my makeup on because I was being picked up in about 30 minutes and suddenly the hotel fire alarm started going off. It was LOUD. And our room also had two of those blinding flashing lights. The kids freaked and started yelling that there was a fire and we had to get out. We didn't smell any smoke but there was no way the kids would let us hang around in the hall until we figure out if this was real. So we joined the other guests outside in the parking lot. We were all barefoot, the kids in their underwear and a shirt, and me in my PJs. Fun. About 5 minutes later the fire truck shoes up. About the same time the alarms go off and we are told we can go back in. Apparently someone left an iron on clothes and it started smoking so they pulled the alarm. Ok, maybe pulling the fire alarm was overkill. The elevator somehow got broken in all of this. Not a huge deal except that we were checking out that morning and had to lug all of our stuff down three stories. I really felt bad though when I saw a man walking very slowly up the stairs with a cane. You forget how useful elevators are until you don't have one.
8. The wedding was beautiful. Amy and Richard's story is really neat and it's cool how God brought them together. Damien opted to not even attempt to go to the wedding and try to handle keeping both kids quiet. He met us at the reception. It was outside which made it easier with the kids. When Damien showed up it was Micaiah's turn to have a fever. He just sat on our laps the entire time and ate watermelon. And Orin entertained the other guests at our table by showing off his subtraction skills.
9. I thought this was a neat idea. Since all of the family and bridal party were from out of town, after the reception was over at 7pm we all went to a restaurant for dinner provided by the bride and groom. It was just one last time for everyone to be together. Micaiah hot the entire time. With all of the restaurants and moving around I was proud of the kids for their behavior. By the last day Damien was saying "Maybe I should have just stayed home with the kids and have you fly up." Well, it was a little late by that point. But how were we to know how crazy it would be and that both kids would be sick.
10. After the dinner was over at 9pm we decided to start our drive back. We figured we could get in 3 hours so that Sunday would only be a 10 or 11 hour day. We ran into fog. It was insane. I had never seen such thick fog and for so long. Damien kept having to slow down because he couldn't see past the front of the car. We made it to the border of Colorado and Kansas and found a hotel (albeit a questionable one) to sleep for a few hours. I hate when you're in a non-smoking room that totally reeks of smoke.
11. We woke up Sunday morning and were about to get on the road when Caiah started throwing up all over the hotel sheets. We grabbed the closest thing we could - the ice bucket - to catch the rest. So now an ice bucket is another thing in a hotel that I will never use. Well, at least not unless it has one of those disposable liners. Here are a few other things I that gross me out in a hotel: the floors (I always walk around in slipper or socks and take them off when I get in bed; the remote. I never touch the remote without giving it a good rub down with an antibacterial wipe. the blanket and comforter. I keep them on top of me but only let the sheet touch me. Sometimes I worry about the towels - like maybe the last person used it but folded it and put it back on the shelf so it didn't get changed out. It's not that I'm worried about getting sick or something. It's just the gross factor of all of that stuff that gets to me.
12. If you hit a bird in Kansas going 70+ mph it may get stuck in your car's grill. And if you try to pull it out by it's wing it will rip off (yes, totally disgusting and even worse if you had to do it). If you try to get it out with a stick, it may fall down into some strange part of the car that is completely inaccessible. And if you take it to the Mazda dealer the man might laugh at you when you tell him your problem. But luckily, he'll be nice when he sees the actual problem. He'll find a way to get the bird out and even run your car through the car wash - all for no charge.

So in a matter of about 5 days we drove over 1,700 miles, stayed in 4 hotels in 5 nights, and spent about 32 hours in the car. Whew! But we made it. The kids have had a pretty rough week getting back into routines and catching up on sleep. We have had plenty of extra crying and fighting but things are starting to get back to normal. I'll post pictures from the rest of the trip in a separate post.