The Last Supper.........and the First Leg of the Journey!

John and his comrades finally arrived in Clovis yesterday to officially begin this journey of ours. He arrived with his dad (Mike aka Grandad) and a work friend who is also in the process of making the move to Alaska, Beau. It's really nice to have a sort of caravan going so that we can look out for each other on this trek. Mike is riding with Beau to keep him company (and I'm sure that there is no shortage of storytelling going on :-)) and the kids and John and I are packed, literally, into the Acadia. There is not one spare inch for even an extra cheerio at this point!

Last night we had a great get together when John, Mike and Beau arrived at my brother's house. Missy, my sister-in-law, made an awesome lasagna with elk meat and my best friend Jennifer also came for all of the fun. Upon arrival, to Justin and Missy's, poor Grandad was immediately suckered into playing with all of the kids outside on the swing set, but it was such a beautiful evening, he didn't put up much of a fight. The kids all worked up an awesome appetite and ate really great before heading back to keep playing for the last few hours that they had together. Jensen was going to be spending the night with his cousins and had been talking about it all day. While the kids were playing, the adults continued to watch football and chatter about any meanless, but humorous thing that we could come up with. Not long after Grandad and Beau retired back to their hotel for the night, Jensen came out to say that his tummy wasn't feeling too well. Assuming that he was absolutely exhausted from all of the playing of the previous week, I snuggled him up and rubbed his back, and before I knew it, he was sound asleep in my lap. Love it!!!! All of sudden, he kind of stirred and sat up, and the next thing I knew, he was throwing up elk lasagna all over himself, me and the couch. GROSS! As quick as we could, we got him into the bath and rinsed off, and he seemed to almost instantly be feeling better. I washed my clothes off as best as I could, but it was an obvious party ender, to say the least. We decided not to take any chances and didn't let Jensen spend the night, but made him come back with us. Bummer all round for the cousins. As we were loading into the cars, John had the Acadia to drive back to Mom's, I had Mom's car with both the kids and her, and my friend Jennifer was also heading out. I felt bad for having to just say a quick goodbye to Jennifer, but I was really stinking. Gotta say though, she didn't seem too upset. She said that she'd just give John a hug instead and that could count for us saying goodbye. The thing is......she seemed more than willing to throw me to the side in order to say goodbye to John :-) I do believe that I'll have to have a word with her later lol!!!! On top of that, Mom got into her car with the kids and I, and started gagging from the wretching smell coming from me. This from the lady who has raised 6 kids! She jumped out, and said that she'd rather ride home with John. At this point, I'm really getting a complex. It's was a sad ending to what had been such a pleasant evening, but the good news is that Jensen seems to be completely fine.

This morning, we got up and managed to get the cars loaded and hit the road pretty much on schedule, and pretty much on schedule means gold stars all round for this motley crue. We are currently in Durango, Colorado and are staying the night here before heading to Mesa Verde tomorrow for some sight seeing and then up to Salt Lake City to see Jenna. It was actually a really great trip here today, and I am soooo proud of how well the kids behaved. As for John's behavior with this kids, that's another story. About 2 hours into the journey he decided that it'd be a "fun" idea to let Jensen and Molly have a lollipop. Now Jensen is no problem with a lolli, but Molly who is 18 months is another story. The memory that stands out the most is the lolli literally hanging from her bangs and sticky all over her mouth, hands, and clothes. Then, not long after lunch, we stopped and John told Jensen that he could have a special treat. The special treat that he chose was an ice cream bar. Not really the kind of thing that I consider road trip food for a 3 year old! I keep telling myself that one day he will learn.........I will accept all prayers that anyone has to offer!

We're all in good spirits and still enjoying each other's company, and I'm just certain that any hour now, my children will warm up to Beau and quite treating him like a leper. He's really being a good sport with all of us. I will close by saying that even with a rather unfortunate ending to last night, we all had a wonderful last supper in Clovis thanks to Justin and Missy, and a wonderful first leg of our journey today. Good night, and until next time..........