2019 :: week 25

June 16

Happy Father's Day to Anthony! It was an unconventional Father's Day in the sense that Anthony actually had to work that day. He did not have his traditional pre-church meetings, but he did have to leave right after sacrament meeting to meet with the SMEs (subject matter experts)in town for the weekend. Part of his job involves creating tests and the SMEs write the bank of questions that will be used on the new test. Because all of them have jobs, weekends are the best time for them to assemble.

June 17

Lauren and Henleigh put on a show for the boys this morning. I typically don't let the kids play in the house too often (I'd prefer them to play outside as much as possible), but it was hot and the kids were very good.

June 18

Will played in his last baseball game Tuesday night. It was a cooler evening and the rain held off just long enough for his team to complete their game. Will has continued to be a great defender this year, making some of his teams best catches and put-outs. What has been extra fun is that he is hitting better than ever before!

June 19

We have had a dumpster this week to get our junk out of the basement. It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate over nearly eight years when you have a hard time throwing things away. I have fallen in love with this thing. The basement is cleaner than it has ever been.

June 20

Elliott drew these people on our driveway. He is becoming quite the sidewalk artist. In the past few months he has gotten quite proficient at drawing people, people in cars and writing letters. So far he can spell his name, mom, dad and Will. Thursday was a busy day. It was the 18th day in a row that Anthony worked this month and we were busy with last minute prep for our road trip to Florida.

June 21

Friday did not go quite like I had planned. We are driving to the Orlando area in Florida for a family reunion with the extended John family. Google maps said it would be about twenty hours of driving time. We decided to split it into two days of driving, putting the longer day first. Anthony reserved a hotel room for us in Marietta, GA, which is twelve hours away from Overland Park. Unfortunately we hit several snags along the way and had to stop early. We got a slightly later start than we hoped because we were up later than we planned. Then it started rain around the time we hit downtown Kansas City and it didn't stop raining for much of the day. At times it was hard to see and we had to slow way down or pull over. In St. Louis our tire popped! Miraculously we were able to put on a spare and buy a replacement in about 90 minutes. We were low on gas and pulled off the highway in Metropolis, IL, because we could see the highway starting to back up. As we drove into town we found out the power was out and we couldn't buy gas or food. Also, the source of the backed up traffic was a downed semi-truck on the bridge over the Ohio River. It would be at least two hours before the debris was cleaned up. The closest alternative bridges were closed due to construction and high waters. At this point our car indicated we could travel approximately 66 miles on the gas left in our tank. Because it was getting into the evening we decided to cut our losses and spend the night at a Motel 6. We were lucky to get that because their power was out, but the clerk was willing to hold on to our credit card number and charge us when it went back on. The first few hours were rough because it was very humid and we had to sleep three to a bed (the floors were tile). In addition to no AC, the water was also connected to the power and we were unable to get fresh water, sharing the small amounts that remained in the water bottles I packed in our van. We survived, but it was a long day where everything seemed to break not in our favor. In spite of the setbacks we still felt very blessed. Our tire popped in a big city, despite the fact that we spent most of the day driving in rural areas. When it happened we were less than four miles from a tire outlet that was able to replace our tire very quickly. We got off the road, discovered the root of the traffic jam and were able to find a place to spend the night instead of getting stuck in the mass of cars and running out of gas. We were able to find a place that would let us stay for the night on an IOU in a small town with limited options for lodging. The town we were stuck in was called Metropolis, and there were allusions to Superman all over town.

June 22

Saturday was a long day of driving. We had to make up for lost time, despite a long day on the road Friday. I had hoped to get to my sister Melanie's home by 3pm, but we didn't arrive until about 11pm. It has been awhile since we did a road trip with a nursing baby and between that and the weather we just didn't make great time.