18/22

18 is the number of hours it took for us to make the 8 hour trip from Winterset, IA to Nashville, IN on Friday. And 22 is the number of straight hours I was awake in order to make the journey. It really did make night feedings of a newborn seem like a piece of cake! Friday was the day we dropped the kids off at Ben and Kari's and headed east to move Jerry and Jaime. Jerry and Dave drove the UHaul truck and pulled Jerry's car. Jaime and I drove Dave's truck with Jerry's motorcycle in the bed of the truck and we pulled Jaime's car behind us. All was going well until we hit Peoria, IL and the brakes and power steering started to go on the UHaul. I will now take this time to fully explain what the brand "UHaul" really means. It means U load your own stuff, U haul your own stuff, U sit around Peoria, IL for 5 hours while UHaul's customer service is of no help and U fend for yourself trying to get their recommended service garage to replace a part it takes them 4 hours to get from across town. Needless to say, we don't like UHaul! Even through the truck incident, we all stayed in good spirits, made each other laugh and just kept naming all the ways the situation could be worse! By 7:30pm, when the service garage still couldn't give us a completion time the guys sent Jaime and I ahead. By midnight Jaime and I were taking cover from tornadoes in a rest area 30 miles west of Indianapolis. The adventure continued as the rest area lost power and the maintenance staff opened up the tornado shelter. Luckily, we didn't have to use them! We pulled into Nashville, IN at 2am and slept like babies! And, the guys were able to get the truck fixed, avoid the storms and make it into town around 2:30am.

It was a rocky start to the trip but the rest of the weekend went great. We were able to get Jerry and Jaime settled, meet many of their new friends, see their new town and church. It was truly fantastic and all I could say to them at the end of the weekend was, "You made the right choice. We love you and are proud of you guys."