And finally

Oren is napping and I didn't want to wait to post the rest of the trip until tomorrow...


So after leaving friend's house, we headed to SiL's. We thought Nebraska was going to be just as awful driving through as Kansas, and it well could have been, but there was SO much traffic and road construction that it distracted you from potentially boring scenery. Seriously... that must've been the only road going east b/c it seemed like every damn car and semi were on it.

We got to... wherever the hell it was a little late, but DH wanted to try this pizza place he saw online called Fong's Pizza. They have some interesting Chinese style pizza toppings and were pretty good. SUPER busy in a small downtown location though so if you decide to go, expect to have to wait to be seated.

The hotel was fine. Nothing special really, but at least it was clean. BUT the assholes next to us royally pissed me off. We got in to our room around 8pm. Still fairly early and still bright and light out.
Surprisingly enough, the kids actually weren't being loud. DH did accidentally spill the drinks out of the cooler when he was trying to drain the water out of it, but that was the only loud noise we made. We're not rude jerks.....
8:30pm and we get a phone call in the room telling us that there was a complaint about noise.
F-ing seriously you assholes?? It's 8:30... get the fuck over yourselves.
By 9:30 we were all in bed trying to get to sleep when someone across the hall from us had their yappy ass dog start barking up a storm for at least 10mins. I wasn't even mad.. just thought it was sweet justice for the assholes that called to complain about us.
Anyway, other than that.. the place was fine.

The drive to SiL's was such a PITA though. GPS took us through mostly backroads and UGH..... 2 lane BUSY back roads that you can't safely pass slow drivers on is frustrating as hell. It took us 2hrs longer than expected to finally get to her house.
Thankfully she and her family don't live on a military base, but they do live in a military neighborhood.
Will say this about military housing/neighborhoods... they're not afraid to spend money on some nice playgrounds for the kids and you actually feel really safe walking around the neighborhood.
And lemme say.... SiL's baby is frickin ADORABLE!!! Holy crap that baby girl is just straight up cute as hell! Bright red hair, cute little upturned nose, chunky cheeks and legs. So cute!
MiL keeps saying how spoiled the baby is.... meh.... it's whatever is working for SiL and if that means she carries her everywhere, sleeps with her... whatever... then go for it SiL. Do your thing.
DH and I both giggled a bit at SiL though. Could definitely tell she's a new first time momma with how 'perfect' everything has to be with her LO. lol It was cute though and that little girl is a lucky one to have such a wonderful momma :)
After relaxing a little, we all walked to the neighborhood little playground so the kids could unwind some. Then came back when SiL's husband got off work.
We then went to some place called Silo that they liked. It was ok. Good, but not great.
We were supposed to leave for the road again by noon the next day, but we were all procrastinating. We headed to the nearby Jelly Belly tour thing, then after spending too much on candy, went to some Wisconsin cheese castle thing. Finally left after that. Think it was around 2 when we finally did leave.
Sigh... wish we could've visited with them more.
You could tell SiL was a bit homesick and lonely. She didn't have anyone around her there so just hung out at home with her baby all day long. Would've been nice to visit with her more, but she and her family are coming down when this LO is born so we'll all get to see her then at least.

We had one more stop at a hotel before we eventually got home. The drive away from Sil's was AWFUL. For some reason GPS decided to take us through the outskirts of downtown Chicago. That wouldn't have been that bad, but we caught every single GD traffic light and that is NOT an exaggeration at all. We seriously caught every single red light... and there were a ton of them. And don't even get me started on the condition of the roads. Just royally F-ed up.
SO much traffic, SO much congestion.
We were going to get to the hotel late anyway, so we stopped to eat dinner then finally did reach the hotel at around 10:30 or so.
I did actually drive some, but I am not comfortable driving at night any longer. My eyes start playing tricks on me and I just don't feel safe driving. And it figures that when I started driving, about 10mins in and a frickin deer almost runs out in front of us. Sigh. I saw it climb over the metal railing and could only keep saying "Don't do it.... Don't do it you stupid ass deer!" It ran in front of us but thankfully quickly stumbled and turned back around before I got to it.
Anway... wish DH had let me drive more just to give him a break, but oh well...

Then after that, it was time to drive home. Driving back through Tennessee was nice... even though we did get stuck behind A LOT of stupidly slow drivers.

We could definitely tell when we were home b/c the driving just got more frustrating as the drivers got dumber.
Apparently SC needs those "Keep Right unless Passing" signs everywhere b/c the people here don't understand that.... at all. SO many people in the left lane going at or even below the speed limit with the right lane next to them clear for them to scoot their asses over. SO MANY.
And there are 3 types of drivers in SC.... the ones that go at or below the speed limit. The ones (such as myself) who go 5-10 over the limit depending on traffic and where. (I do go the speed limit in neighborhoods... I'm mostly talking about highway driving here)... and then the ones who go 20+ over the speed limit and think that fraction of a second matters to get to wherever the hell they're going in such a hurry.

Anyway... I could go on and on about the driving here like I have before, but... maybe next time lol....

We came home to a house covered in dog fur lol. Our oldest mutt sheds clumps of fur in the summer and it was ALL over the living room. SO GROSS.
MiL said one of them peed in the living room and Pippin (the chihuahua mutt) had pooped in his pen a couple of times, but that had been it as far as messes were concerned.
So glad that MiL and FiL were able to take care of our pets for us.
They didn't do such a great job with my container garden though /cry.
With the extreme heat and probably them not watering quite enough.... my poor plants look frickin terrible. Probably just going to rip them up and try to restart some.
It is ridiculously hot here though so I'm not entirely sure container gardening is even going to work. It might just be too hot to do any kind of gardening that's not the traditional sort.
We'll see what happens.

We have to go to Home Depot to pick out our new stove anyway so I'll try to pick up a couple of new plants then and keep my FX for them lol.

Speaking of which... DH ordered the door knobs and the fan for the baby's room last night. And we had a message that the furniture was in so whenever we get that paid off, we can pick it up :)
Now I just need to work on the design of the graphics for the room and pick out some colors and yep. :D
DH needs to sand down the walls, add floor boards and add the closet stuff. Still lots of work left to do, but it will get done.
And like I said before... baby is going to be in our room for a couple of months anyway so it doesn't really have to be done before baby arrives. Would just be better since I'm sure neither of us will want to do anything when baby is here lol.


And yep... that's pretty much the whole trip. I'm leaving out a ton of stuff probably, but it really wasn't too exciting. I mean, it was fun, but nothing spectacular happened or anything lol. Just mostly a lot of driving :P