Homeward Bound

The last couple weeks since mouse wrote have been a flurry of activity. Each weekend Daddy flew a smallish plane to be with us, but this last weekend his trip was one way, instead of round trip. This last time, mouse was busy packing up the kids -- some picnic food -- more about that later and canned fruits.

The last couple weeks mouse got a pressure cooker, some mason jars and canned some fruits for winter. These fillings aren't really for traditional pies and are better suited to things like puff pastry. It'll be q huge time saver for mouse. Also canned some green beans, zucchini and even tried a few pickles. All the jars were packed up in a few boxes. Also baked a loaf of bread, grilled a whole chicken, made a slaw and baked a cake. All that was stored in the fridge along with a batch of iced sun tea.

Clothes were just tossed into bags (everything would need to be washed and the kids and mouse spent our last night at the lake eating hot dogs and s'mores. We stayed outside for as long as we could.

In the morning Daddy rode up in a cab, as per his instructions mouse was already loading the van.  Clothing was in bags -- along with other bedding stuff -- which Daddy packed into the small trailer. The two coolers were filled with ice and loaded with food.

We weren't on the road an hour before the sandwiches and sodas were dug out and passed around. Daddy had our course well-plotted and hotel reservations made -- we took two days to make the journey home. The first place was gratefully just to sleep -- it had no real amenities, save for being dog friendly. That evening we lit candles and celebrated Shabbat on the road -- eating the chicken for dinner.

Day two was the long haul. We stopped at rest stops end fed the kids fast food -- we had a contingency plan to stop if everyone became travel weary and all was fine until we were probably 50 miles from home. Then the screaming began.

We stopped at a rest stop and she refused to return to the car seat, kicking and screaming as though she were being beaten! People gave us sympathetic looks.

Daddy had to more less force her into the seat and buckle her in. The screaming didn't stop until we got 5 miles from home -- when the baby just fell asleep!

Poor Daddy had to feel extra frazzled. Our nerves were very raw and we were sniping and snipping at each other. We'd lost any good naturedness about 200 hundred miles before and now were just running on mental determination.

We arrived home super late to a spotless home. Thank you so much for the comments while mouse was out of touch it means so much to both of us! And will be catching up on everyone...actually looking forward to it!