The van was a little "packed" when we hit the road, late due to the nurse following me. Noelle & Michael are in the very back with their "back-pack o'crap", Jack & Riley, tummies full, are quietly wondering "how long will I have to sit in this thing" on either side of Amy, I'm getting comfortable so I can take a nap and my mom is at the helm.
I don't remember if it was mom or Amy who asked "who wants to sing 99 Bottles of Beer"? The next thing you know, mom, Amy & both kids able to speak are singing. Michael suddenly changes the song to "99 Bottles of Water on the Wall". Noelle continues to sing the beer version. Michael says "Noelle, you can't drink beer" and Amy says "I could drink a beer".
Everyone had eaten breakfast before we left so our goal was to get to Council Bluffs. I crawled on the floor and slept in front of Amy and the boys. We stopped at McDonalds to grab a bite and feed/change the twins. When we were done, I went out to the van and saw that one of the back tires were low. We went to a gas station next door to put some air, (that you breath for free, but have to pay for to put in your tire) and I saw that we had picked up some sort of nail! This is the second time in less than a year that some sort of road garbage has decided to attach its self to one of my tires.
The first place I see is Wal*Mart. I get out of the car, go over to ask how long it will take to fix and the girl smiles and says three hours. Knowing that we can't wait more than 2 hours and 59 minutes, I start to look for some place else to go. Suddenly I saw the beautiful Chevy bowtie symbol and headed in that direction. I walked up to the body shop manager, hair looking wild and some sort of stain on my shirt I picked up from the floor, with my entourage in tow, and explained our situtation. He looked at us, checked out the tire and said they could fix it. He looked at me again and then those behind me. I'm sure he looked at us and had two thoughts; this lady talking to me looks like she has been sleeping on the floor and how fast can we get these people out of here before all four of these kids go nuts. We were out of there in less than 30 minutes! We were on the road and back on schedule.
We stop by to see gramma & Ronnie, unload the TV and air conditioner and visited with them for a while before heading to the hotel for some much needed rest. Saturday we spent a wonderful day visiting with gramma and mom was able to catch up with a couple of her cousins. We had a great lunch with some burgers Amy & I picked up from a burger stand by the lake. Later, back at the hotel, Amy took the boys swimming. Jack really didn't care for the pool. Riley on the other hand is like Michael & me, part fish. It will be a lot of fun to swim with him when he is older.
Sunday, we headed for home after saying good-bye to gramma & Ronnie. All the kids were accounted for and the load was lighter. It was a nice, uneventful trip home. We will have enough time to recover before we hit the road in September to head to Minnesota.
<---nail in the tire (yes, I take pictures of everything)
