The weekend of general conference we headed to Utah for the annual Shelley Boys Spike Elk Hunt. I decided to tag along and go visit my mom and J.D.'s family. Getting started for the trip was almost a joke. Literally.
Friday- J.D. had to work... ALL DAY. The frustrating part about that was the fact that he had gotten off early almost every day that week. Of course they would work as long as possible the last day of the week, the one day we wanted him to get off early. He was told it was going to be an easy day and would probably get home around 4..... ya right. More like 10:30. Now, to make matters worse, J.D. took the truck keys with him. which have the storage keys. which meant I couldn't get him packed to go until I could get all the orange and hunting stuff out of the storage. Plus, my sister Jori needed all the maternity clothes back since she is starting to get a belly. SO I got as much packed as I could.
I had to get the truck a temporary registration sticker (THANK GOODNESS it was only $3.00)(More of a Thank GOODNESS as you will find out why later on in this post.)
J.D. gets home. Showers. Packs. We head to the storage unit. Digging through everything as fast as we can. Cop shows up, "It's too late to be cleaning out your storage unit." Well, we had to explain everything. Then show him we were really the owners of the storage unit. Then we had to show him that the truck was registered. Then he finally left and we found everything within the next 5 minutes, not even kidding. Had the cop not shown up, we probably would have been out of there much quicker, but he stalled us another half hour. UUGGGHH!
To the gas station to fill up. J.D. had to vacuum out the work truck really quick and wipe it down since some coworkers were coming to get it the next morning. We also wiped down our truck in the mean time. We take the work truck home and we are off.... at 12:30 am! We were really hoping to get most of the miles done in the night so the kids would sleep, but that didn't happen.
I took the first shift.... the dvd player and radio stop working. SO, no music or movies for 17 hours +. Perfect right. Everyone falls asleep as I try and make it to Billings without falling asleep. Driving without sound is soooo boring. HOWEVER, on my little drive I saw a shooting star! I thought, "Oh my! I've got to make a wish! I've got to be specific. If I could have 1, just 1 thing right now what would it be???" I put a lot of thought into this wish. Finally I figured out how to word it so I could get exactly what I wanted without wishing for 2 things by putting an 'and' in there. SO my wish....
"I wish my kids would be good on the road trip."
Well folks, my wish was granted. The boys did PHENOMENAL! We drove and drove and drove for 4-5 hours at a time. Then we'd stop and play at a church or Mcdonalds for 1 hour, then drive again for 4-5 hours. It was unreal. I couldn't believe it, but my wish seriously came true.
We got to Highway 20 at 7:30. Jori picked me up and drove me and Monty to St. George. J.D. and Dawson headed over to the east side of Escalante to hunt and camp.
I didn't hear from the boys for a couple of days. I had the grandest time with my mom. We crafted. We talked. We listened to conference. We went for walks. We lounged and I got to nap. We ate lunch together. It was so nice!
We spent a ton of time lounging in the back yard in the beautiful warm sun!
Monty LOVED it! Jori had to cut my hair outside and I laid Monty in the grass. He laid there the whole time and then some! He just relaxed completely and didn't move. He was so content.
He is so cute!!
He crawled around a bit afterwards and he wouldn't let his knees touch the grass. It was so funny!
We played at the park and just enjoyed the time we had together since it was so short.
AND THEN...... 11:30 pm on Monday night I get a call from J.D. The 4 wheel drive won't work. We already knew the engine would have to be replaced soon, but now the 4 wheel drive, and electrical for the dvd/cd player. SO J.D. explained that he didn't think we'd make it back to Montana with the truck..... So he hustled down the mountain the next morning and we went shopping for a new truck in St. George. We couldn't find anything. We headed to Holden. On our way we looked in Cedar City and Fillmore. No luck. We called Delta... no luck. So we enjoyed our 1 1/2 days in Holden.
We got lots of cuddles in with Grandma ...
and Grandpa!
The last night we were there we got to see Aunt Loni and her girls! Monty was loving Collins and Destry. Dawson got to play with all the cousins and was too fast to catch any pictures. Therefore, most pics I have are of Monty and the family.
Big loves with Loni.
Big loves with Destry.
And big loves with Collins.... except by this point Monty had enough loves. :-)
On our way up to American Fork to see Chet and Bobi Sue, we kinda had some more issues with the truck. We pretty much had to buy a new truck to get home, or walk..... I wasn't walking that's for sure!
We stopped at 4 dealerships and no luck. We had decided that we could probably make it home at least if we had to... even if it meant going 40 mph the whole way. However, the last dealership in American Fork that we went to had exactly what we were looking for. In fact, they had a whole lot to choose from. We immediately walked up to this one and we were sold. We test drove it to Chet and Bobi Sue's since there house was 5 minutes away. J.D. dropped me and kids off and I left our fate up to him. Around 2 o clock he pulled up with this and all of our crap in it. lol!
We had to have a step installed and a dvd player. So we got to stay the night at Chet and Bobi Sue's! Which was SO nice. We needed that time with them since we haven't got to spend hardly anytime with them since we moved. Our kids played and played!
Monty learned how to crawl up the stairs!
He ate so good too!
Then sadly, it was time to go.
Dawson was excited to try out the new dvd player....
J.D. was looking mighty fine in his new ride. (He was the most excited because he can now start his hot shot business. I think he is definitely hot enough to be a hot shot driver.... haha)
On the way home we saw more bucks than we have ever seen before! It was absolutely crazy! We made it home at 7:30 Saturday morning and had to get ready for Dawson's soccer game. Short, but sweet! We miss our family so much and can't wait until it's time for us to move back.
We are sad that we didn't have time to visit any friends, but next time!
