June Travels

In mid-June, we headed back to the east coast for a few days. 

This was coupled in with our PCS move from Kansas to Missouri, so there was as strategy involved.

I was planning on leaving with Wells in my car on a Tuesday, stopping at my parents' house for a day or two, and then continuing onto West Virginia for Scott's sister's wedding. Then, heading back to Missouri.

Scott's timeline was to leave Kansas on a Friday (with dogs), get to West Virginia on Saturday (for the wedding), stop and pick up a bunch of stuff he left in Pennsylvania last summer (including a giant enclosed trailer that we needed in order to finish our full-DITY move to Missouri), and then be back in Missouri on Tuesday. 

This is what that all looks like, if you're tracking the movements: 

I am telling you the specifics because sometimes I think people make life seem real stress-free-like on the blogs and the Instagrams. Everyone has a Dislike Follow or two. It can be quite frustrating to know the blood, sweat, and tears that go into it, while some people make it look like everything just slid into place with white-glove service. Reality is what you will get a heavy dose of here. We're just really good at the messy stuff at this point, I think. Four years ago, I would've passed out at the prospect of all of this but, after 4 moves in 4 years, I'm kind of getting pickier with what I will fret about and what I will not. Worry and stress, yes. Hand wringing, no. 

So I was supposed to leave with Wells for this cross-country road trip and, coming up on that day, Wells had been running a very low fever for days. Not even like 99 degrees, but 98.9 and he was congested and coughing and miserable. Then...I got it, but had totally different symptoms: sinus pain, sore throat, absolute exhaustion. I was really hoping I'd just be better by wedding day and, if not, I would just stay in the hotel room by myself or stay at my parents' house and Scott could grab Wells. There wasn't much I could do about it, truthfully. We couldn't not go. By Friday, it was definitely a sinus infection...just pressure and pain, not necessarily a gross cold or cough and no fever. By the time we hit Pennsylvania, Wells was as good as new. 

We went to show Wells amusement park rides. He had an absolute blast and I'm surprised I was able to tear him away. These are the exact same rides I went on as a toddler, so that's why I wanted to go (well, that's kind of terrifying right?)

He did NOT like having that wristband on. He treated his arm like it didn't work and did everything with his left hand. It was very awkward. 

We headed to West Virginia next, where Wells got to play ring bearer for the first time. 

(the wedding was, perfectly, at a farm)

I did not expect him to make it through the ceremony and he did not. We watched from afar. 

We spent a lot of time in hotels, just me and Wells. He's getting really good at it. My parents gave him this garbage truck as an early birthday present and it joined us in every room. 

He wanted the truck to be covered up, on the floor, and to have juice* before bed. 

*Sometimes I feel like the Juice Czar. He gets juice so, so rarely. When we're driving somewhere that's more than 30 minutes away, he does not get milk in the morning. Wells still gets so carsick, so this does seem to help. He gets like 25% juice, 75% water in a cup instead. So we always travel with a few juice boxes. 

The garbage truck got full-strength juice.