Once in a while it is fun to take a trip with just my mother and I, leaving my kids home and heading off…. Mom and I decided to head to my cousin’s wedding this time. – End of May! My mother’s dogs had to be left with my children, the youngest of whom is afraid of dogs…..
We headed out on a Thursday around lunch time and off we went. We did pretty good time, making it to Arkansas by time for bed. Heading out the next morning we made it to Texas. Visiting family was fun, but we found that the couple had already gotten married – something we hadn’t known ahead of time. This was the public ceremony.
We planned to stay at my aunts…. No idea the address, still don’t know, even after spending a night there. After following my cousin to my aunts, I planned ahead and dropped a pin in the GPS. Lucky for us… As we had no idea where we were and my aunt doesn’t drive. That evening we headed off to the rehearsal dinner with my aunt. (45 minutes away)…. For us, we don’t normally do late evenings, I don’t see well in the dark, and it was a strange town… Heading back after 11 pm, the GPS was all we had to go on…. And the GPS was telling us we couldn’t get there from where we were, but it could get us close….
After several questionable neighborhoods, and all of us saying we really didn’t think we would make it, we did find my aunts. Turns out being a retirement home, and late at night, no noise is allowed. Tough for me as I have a hard time hearing. I also speak louder since I can’t hear myself as well….. That did not go well…. add to that two bigger women trying to stay in an unfamiliar soft full bed… And it added up to no sleep at all for the night! What a long night. At one point I tried to convince my mother that letting me sleep on the floor was a good idea, but my allergies are bad and as soon as I got to sleep my mother woke me and got me back in the bed…. She tried the couch. Ha it was a loveseat….
We were still saying the next morning that we were shocked that we made it back!…..
On to the next morning when the home my dad stays in called to tell us he had fallen. They thought he was ok, but…. So then I tried home to check on my family. My husband had taken a bike ride, leaving my 7 year old with his brother (19) and the little one had been throwing up since 3 am. Hmmmm what was he thinking? THEN we found out they were taking my dad to the hospital…. (Note: My dad is ok now)
At that point we gave up and started packing the car. We were going on no sleep, we had seen most of the family, and we thought it best to head back… My mothers phone though was having issues, and there was an Apple store nearby in a mall, so we decided to run past on our way out of town. We did think it was closer than it turned out to be…. I had set up to see friends at the mal, but we didn’t get a chance to meet up with them. Next trip to Texas….. – The issue involved my mothers phone refusing to ring when I called her and not notifying her when she got a text from me…. Anyone else no problem, but me it had something against. We still aren’t completely sure what the apple store tech did, but they did get it fixed. I know they had to go in and have her sign in to something in her settings. We had been trying for a month to figure it out and I had been texting my children and having them send her a text to get her a message when I was desperate.
The store took a few minutes, and I tried to get my mother to let me see a couple other cool things, we just don’t have things like that in other parts of the world…. but it was pretty much apple store and a bathroom break and we were out of there…. We did drop by the Swatch store for a few minutes to see what they had new…. My grandmother had gotten me a swatch when the store first opened and I still have a thing for that brand. I found the new thin swatches and would have had a new watch if it wasn’t for my apply watch. I really want the climber flowery from the classic thin collection. I also looked at their new watches that recharge their batteries by the movement of the wrists.
Driving home took forever. I had promised my little one a game that it turned out wasn’t released yet. So that took a little while. We did get it figured out, but finding something to get that would make up for it, wasn’t easy…. My mother’s car malfunctioned, similar to mine….. Hmmm I got the blame…. And We stopped a few places for food. We really shouldn’t stop and eat so much.
By the time we were through Arkansas, we had upset several family members for leaving early…. and I’m probably more in the dog house now for writing it down…. but the point of traveling is to try a few new things. My son also doesn’t ask for much, I also never leave him – so the whole guilt of leaving him necessitated bringing back something.
I found a note in his school journal after I got back about how sad he had been that I was gone….. It is good to be back, much as it’s good to go places with my mom and see her.
