Almost There

We drove from Cheyenne to Lincoln, Nebraska and then to Amana, Iowa without any major issues. The weather was amazing until we got to Nebraska, other than the wind on the highway. It's been rainy and cold here in Iowa. We have electric hooks though and two powerful space heaters, so we've been staying nice and warm. The driving has been going well. Ben usually leads with the truck and trailer and I follow with the Escape and the dogs. We find places to stop and run the dogs, but generally we stop as little as possible. I'm almost done listening to the 3rd book of the Hunger Games...that's a lot of driving time! There's been a cold that has passed between everyone in our family. I thought it was so great that I didn't get it. I held out for a long time, but it hit me hard. I'm trying to sleep a lot and take it easy.

Just when I was so sick of driving, we stopped in Amana for 3 days for a flyball tournament. It was awesome! We had lots of fun and the camping was great with full hookups. They even had inexpensive breakfast and lunch to buy. The Amana Colonies happens to be a tourist attraction, with lots of restaurants and shops with handmade goods. It was originally a self-sufficient religious, German colony. Our extent of the experience was going to the Ox Yoke Inn for some German food. The food was very good, aside from the peanut butter chocolate pie that was most definitely pudding pie and our extremely overly attentive waitress. I'd love to go back and check out the furniture shops and wineries. On Sunday night we met up with my friend Amy from nutrition school for dinner at a gourmet restaurant in Cedar Rapids, called Class Act. It was fun to catch up and have some time away from the trailer!

The Ox Yoke Inn

 

A generous flyballer made us a few cocktails

 Ben had a Walking Taco for Lunch. It's a bag of crushed up doritos with ground beef, cheese and lettuce. Apparently a popular midwest food that I had never heard of!

Today we had a long drive from Amana to a campground near Toledo, Ohio. Even with a three day break, it was a long, tiring day. I am ready to be done with this drive and get to Massachusetts. We are in desperate need of clean laundry and groceries. Tomorrow we are driving to Upstate New York. I cannot wait to see Finley. We miss her so much, but she is handling the situation as if nothing happened. We talk to her every night and she sounds very happy. She is sleeping and eating a lot as usual and enjoying undivided attention from her Gran and Pop. 

on the road

Well we are finally on the road. We left on Friday. It's been really chaotic, but exciting! Getting our house ready to sell was going really well until the last day. We were able to put Fin in daycare for several days, which was very nice because while she was eating snacks, playing and napping we were cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and some packing too.  We stayed at La Quinta for 3 nights, which was nice but made things more complicated. We had a hard time organizing everything between the truck, trailer and moving truck.

The last day was pretty awful. We thought we had just a few things left to do, but of course everything takes longer than expected and I ended up leaving with the dogs and Finley at around 3 pm. We then realized that Ben wouldn't be able to leave until 7 pm and our planned stop was 5 hrs away...which even with stopping in Portland for dinner would leave Finley and I and the dogs by ourselves at the campsite for several hours waiting for Ben with the trailer.  Luckily, we were able to cancel the campground reservation and get a hotel reservation. Fin and I met Brooke for some yummy Thai food and then headed down to Salem to good old La Quinta. Unfortunately, they didn't have any dog friendly rooms and it was too late to change hotels, so the dogs ended up staying in the trailer. It was a long, long awful day, but so nice to finally be done with the house and on the road.

The next day was so much better. We went to Mt Shasta and got into town at around 5 pm. We set up the trailer and then took the dogs to the dog park and Finley to a playground. We decided to skip cooking and went out to a local pub for dinner. It was a nice relaxing evening in the most amazing weather. Later that night Finley woke up in the middle of the night coughing, but went back to sleep after some cuddling and some heat in the trailer.

The following day we got to Reno at around 2:30 pm. We had some time to finalize the paperwork for selling our house and relax with Gran and Pop. The dogs loved running in the nearby golf course and we took care of lots of errands and organizing of the trailer. Finley enjoyed her sleeping arrangements and caught up on much needed sleep..she had been going to bed at 11 and waking up a 8 am. A girl needs at least 12 hours of sleep! We traded cars and now have a Ford Escape, which is a bit bigger and 4WD. I'll get used to it quickly with all this driving! We celebrated Finleys birthday on Monday with an ice cream sundae and we said goodbye until May 3rd. Ouch!

This morning we left before Finley woke up and heading out of Reno at around 9:30. We arrived in Salt Lake City at 7 pm, but lost an hour so we were in a bit of a rush to get the dogs some exercise, heat up leftover ribs make by Pop along with some frozen vegetables and finalize the organization of the trailer. We put all our clothes "away", put away the extra toiletries that we aren't using, organized the dogs closet and put a new memory foam mattress pad on the bed. Whew. Tomorrow we are going to Cheyenne, Wyoming - a 7 hour drive.

craziness

Next week at this time will be our last night in Seattle! Ahhh! We've gotten a lot done since I last posted. The garden and painting is basically done. The garage still needs some work, but thats Ben's department! The kitchen is packed and we are using the cooking stuff from the trailer. I cleaned out the food cabinets, packed some stuff, set some aside for the trailer and made a bag for donation. Based on the food we have left, we will be having Matzoh ball soup tonight and Enchiladas tomorrow night. I HATE wasting food, so when I went food shopping today I bought as little as possible and will try to eat only food in the house. It makes for some interesting meals!

This past weekend we left Finley with her grandparents for 3 nights for the first time! I missed her. A lot and missed her even more when I talked her to on the phone and she said "hi mama" in her happy little voice. The thought of leaving her for almost 2 weeks is terrifying, but we have no choice. It also doesn't help that we will miss her birthday! She would be miserable in the car with us for that many days and will have so much fun with her Gran and Pop.

With all the craziness going on, we took a trip to Victoria for a flyball tournament last weekend. Our friend Sue came to visit for it and we completely took several days off to tour around Seattle and take the ferry to Victoria. We went to the Pike Place Market and the Duck Tour here and visited the inner harbour in Victoria. Of course the ferry ride speaks for itself.  I needed that little break! I didn't think about all the things that are stressing me out and then when we got home it hit! We are leaving so soon!

 
 

23 Months

Finley is a very busy girl. She still sleeps very well, from 8:30-9:30 and naps from 1-4. Yeah that's not a lot of awake time, but when she's awake she really lives it up. She is non stop trying to feed the dogs, empty cabinets, put various clothes on, play with the dogs, "reorganize things", open and close doors. She seriously doesn't quit. The only time she stops moving is when it's time to eat and then she goes big too. The other morning she was eating cereal with fruit and I was eating a leftover Reuben sandwich. She was asking for some and I said you won't like it, but gave her a piece of sauerkraut to try. She liked it and ended up eating 1/2 my sandwich. Lately she's been really into being held, which is fine most of the time, but hard when Im trying to get something done. At least she doesn't care who it is that picks her up!