Wedding Week

 This week has been quite the big one prepping and traveling for the wedding!

The first goal was to get out of our very slippery driveway :D.  On Saturday last Quinn led a group to break up and shovel away a good section of ice from the steepest section of driveway.  Hyrum, Piper and Hava helped me do some more on Monday and Hyrum gave it a final go-over on Tuesday.  The temps dropped to right above freezing the night before we were scheduled to go, so I was a little nervous.  Drew came home early from working at Wendy's the night before we left so the timing was tricky.  

We managed to get up the driveway (miracle!) but when I tried to turn around I got stuck in the mud.  Yikes!  The kids helped push me out and I carefully maneuvered back to where I started without turning around.  We loaded up and were set to go around 5 am the next morning.

Penelope was pretty excited to get going and screamed until around 1 am...perfect! Oh well.  I am glad I got a nap earlier that day.  We loaded up and were off!  I drove for a couple hours then let Hyrum take over once we were a few hours in. I then pumped milk and slept.  Yay!! Hyrum navigated perfectly to our first stop, Mammoth Caves, KY.

Masked up and socially distanced outside the cave

I loved the external terrain.  Hard to believe over 400 miles of huge caves are beneath our feet!

Penelop was cozy and managed pretty well, especially considering we ran out of expressed milk about 1/3 of the way through...yikes!  I fortunately remembered my parents making a binki out of a bottle nipple by putting something in to block the excess air coming in.  She fell asleep finally about 20 minutes after the milk ran out. A miracle!!

The descent.  It was so beautiful!

Everyone divided up into buddies.  Liesl was ecstatic to be Drew's!

On the way out again.  So fun!

I loved this shot of the two of them. If you can zoom in any more, you can see Xai's little cheeks puffed out like little balls :D.

From Mammoth Caves, we began the drive down to our hotel (and pool!) in Arkansas.  We had planned on stopping at a specific location along the way for a cultural dinner of authentic southern cooking for Hyrum's class.  However, as we headed southwest, we discovered there was a traffic incident that was adding an additional 1 hour and 30 minutes onto our drive.  Yikes!!  No thank you. We found a closer cultural experience to hopefully wait out the fix-up time.

Loretta Lynn's Cafe was just the place!  Look at those southern options....

For those like us how had no idea who Loretta Lynn was, she's the lady in the background picture. 
This little community was built up around her fame.  Still not sure why she is associated with the place, but it was fun and the people were darling.  

Our little hostess was darling and kept hopping between drinks and misunderstandings, like..."what??? I thought 'country fried steak' meant BEEF?!?" (Three very disappointed girls discovered that country fried steak actually has nothing to do with steak...other than it's meat.  Sort of.)

They even had some cool tourist trap picture posing places for us. 
(We decided against that wasp infested telephone booth.)

Drew's craziness is contagious :D.  Love it!

The "normal" shot for me.  Still love it!

Well, the accident was still there with an over an hour delay.  Needless to say we didn't pull into the hotel until around 10 pm after a diarrhea accident, Hyrum pulling into a red-light intersection, baby Nell not sleeping well and three-year old having a meltdown about what music we were listening to.  When I stormed into the hotel lobby (with two mismatched shoes) and the unfortunate woman behind the desk decided to be cordial and ask how my day was, I didn't mince words.  "Absolutely dreadful.  The best thing that is going to happen is hopefully going to bed." (Remember that little one not sleeping well?)  I was throwing a big girl tantrum and my kids were amazing.  They always teach me so much about compassion and kindness. Hava kept telling me she loved me and cuddled with "the porcupine" (me).  Drew jumped up to help with whatever I could have possibly wanted.  Hyrum was a steady driver (other than the red light incident, from which we quickly recovered) and Piper did a 5 hour stint in the back keeping the three littlest happy.  

Truly, they were magical and wonderful. I had some expectations I had to evaluate, like my irrational hope to make things better by sheer will and planning. Sometimes things just don't work out and, per Quinn's favorite Elder Holland maxim: "there is no situation so bad that whining about them won't make it worse."

I definitely made it worse but here we are.  We survived.

We enjoyed some time with Quinn's cousins, the Bryners, the next evening with pizza, fruit and breadsticks.  It is amazing how some people seem to never change. It was delightful!

We slept at my cousin's house (Texas is rife with cousins apparently) and had a delightful time with them.  They have six kids nestled in the ages of my own and love to laugh, talk, play games, watch movies and basically do things that my kids like to do!  The little boys were in heaven on Friday playing laser tag and nerf gun wars while we chased around doing last minute wedding stuff (like chewing out Kroger's).  My cousin, Liz, was amazing at keeping us fed and keeping her cool while we traipsed in and out with our chaos and mess.

The drive home was epic. We dropped off my parents at the airport and headed out for a 17 hour drive.  Whew.  We stopped over for about 1 hour in a misty Arkansas park to get a stretch around 7 pm, while we cleaned out most of the last of the food from the trip.  (Planned pretty well, if I do say so myself!) I had polished off the mini Cadbury eggs (my favorite) earlier that day so wasn't too hungry.  

Quinn slept in the back of the van for a few hours while I drove until I couldn't stay awake no matter what I put in my mouth or on the radio so he switched up to the front around 10:45 pm....and drove until morning! Whew. So great to be home!

Nell is super happy to be home. She got a good nap and is happily bouncing. 

Tova is happily married. She and Ben headed south to the Gulf of Mexico for their honeymoon and I'm super happy for them!

I reflected on Isaak's life and bore testimony during church about the role of Christ and His Atonement in helping me through that hard time.

We video-chatted with the most adorable little grandson ever! He's a darling.  Oh, and his parents. :D  I love this Sunday tradition of chatting with them.