Surviving Our First Spring Break Road Trip

As if leaving for spring break with four kids for the first time wasn't stressful enough, we put our house on the market while we were gone so we had to have it "show ready" before we pulled out of the driveway. “Iron Fist Evans” insisted we leave by 10am Saturday and I was making a mad dash around the house, making sure the kids’ closets were somewhat organized and opening all the window blinds and hiding stuff (that quite honestly, I still can’t find and I’m starting to panic). We ended up leaving at 10:26 and old Iron Fist still won't let me forget it. And then we ended up having our first argument over navigation less than a mile from the house. Those are seriously our ugliest fights. And we weren’t even on the road 20 minutes when we got the first “Are we there yet?” from a very grumpy 5-year-old, who mercifully passed out until we heard him sobbing…

You never realize how few and far between exits there are until you’re on your first road trip with a child squalling that he has to pee. I was THISCLOSE to forcing Allen to pull over to the side of the highway when we finally saw an exit. There was no hint of a gas station or bathroom in sight, but — despite being disappointed to the point that we swore we’d never use her again — we were forced to ask Siri to help us. This time, she did. About 2 miles off the interstate was this random gas station where the little one found relief. But Allen decided not to fill up at this little run-down place. Surely we had enough gas to get us a little further down the road where it would make sense to stop and fill up our tummies along with the gas tank.

Remember that part about how you never realize how few and far between those exits are? The minivan basically gave up warning us that we were on empty. If it could talk, I’d imagine it was saying, “I’ve done all I can here. Good luck!” And yet again, we just took the next exit we saw without any promise of a gas station and trusted Siri for a second time. She didn’t let us down. And then we got our tummies full of Jack in the Box — I do believe this was the first fast food I’ve had in over a year and that Jumbo Jack did not disappoint. And after that, all was well and we were back on the road to Galveston.

Our friends offered us their beach house for the week and OH MY GOODNESS. This place was GORGEOUS. It had more bells and whistles than any house I’ve ever stayed in. And it’s a good thing, too, because we ended up spending a lot of time inside that house. Spring break during early March doesn’t equal warm weather at the beach. The kids didn’t care, though. They’d get in the water no matter what. I would be freezing to the point of tears when the kids would finally give up and want to go back inside.

We did do a fun dolphin tour you should check out if you’re ever in Galveston. I read a Trip Advisor review and some nice lady recommended the 3:30 one on Sunday afternoon because during that hour, the cruise ships leave port. That was so cool! The coast guard leads them out to sea with machine guns, which was a little unsettling. But it was fun to wave “Bon Voyage!” to all the ships’ passengers. And we saw a ton of dolphins. At first it was like, "Dolphins!! Dolphins!!!" with everyone screaming and running to that side of the boat. But by the end of the hour, it was more like, "So....There's another dolphin......." But they are beautiful. And it was worth the money and an hour well spent. But then we went to an overpriced seafood restaurant on the pier and realized that for the same money, we could eat every meal back at the beach house, so that's what we did. But I ended up buying so much food, we had to leave a ton of it there. Hope the next renters appreciate it!

Good news on the sale of our house. The first night it was on the market, we had 4-5 showings and two offers. We accepted one and now we're in the 5 day option period, which I believe is over today. We have a fairly short list of repairs to take care of and then we close on April 23. Then we turn around on April 27 and close on our new house! So now Allen and I have less than 6 weeks to argue about what we're keeping and what we're getting rid of. Like he said, "My stuff is good stuff and your stuff is sh**." But EVERYBODY thinks that. So now we just have to discern the good stuff from the honest to goodness sh** because I don't want to just keep moving sh** from house to house. I have to confess that I'm SICK over losing our walk-in attic and my beloved tupperware drawer. But our girls are each getting their own bathroom and we're all getting a pool, so I'll just figure the rest of it out.

Oh! And I had to pick up the phone and call my Aunt Vel back in SC last night because a message popped up from her saying that she was having dreams about me and all these random dead relatives of ours. She said, "I don't understand!" I DON'T EITHER!! What does that mean???