Our trip to Tennessee post 1

This is the first of many to come about our trip to Tennessee. There is too much to write about all at once. I hardly had a down moment so I don't have a single picture yet, I am waiting on some from the other bridesmaids and my in-laws.

So... I will start with the trip home.

We decided to leave Tennessee at nap time, drive until dinner, let David play at a McDonalds Playplace and then get back in the car and be home around 2am or so (the trip took 15 hours on the way there with 4 stops)... we left at 12:30pm Iowa time and the trip started out great with David taking a 3 hour nap. I also got to sleep for 2 hours, which was desperately needed since Elizabeth ate at 10pm, 12am, 2am, 4am, 6am, 8am, the night before. After nap we stopped for fuel and to feed Elizabeth. Then David played great for another couple of hours in the car.

When it came time for dinner, around Louisville, KY we pulled over at what we hoped was a PlayPlace (we had already passed 2 we knew of so we were pretty hopeful). However, it was not a Playplace. A lady inside gave us directions to one that was, which we decided was worth the 10 -15 out of the way to let David run off some energy. However, when we got to that McDonalds, the lady had been incorrect and it wasn't a PlayPlace either. However, the people inside promised us they knew where one was... so we decided after all this driving out of the way we might as well go for it, since it was back in the right direction anyway. After another 2o min we did find a playplace and we let David play for an hour an half. We left around 9:00 after putting on pj's and taking a bird bath in McDonalds sink (we also left David's favorite shoes behind in the cubby hole).

Shortly after entering Indiana, only an 1 or so after dinner, Phillip started asking me if I smelled something burning. I told him no and kept driving. Pretty soon he was frantically yelling at me to put down the windows and pull over. Praise the Lord there was a rest stop 1 mile away and so I put on the flashers and drove slowly to the rest stop. We had a small electrical fire inside the van, back where the trailer wiring was done (by U-Haul). Phillip was put on hold and/or transfered with U-haul 7 or 8 times just to find out that they wouldn't help us and we were stuck. So my wonderful awesome husband went to work rewiring. We were at the rest stop for almost 2 hours. David amused himself by playing outside with all the bugs under the lights, watching the semi's saying "way cool," making friends with the truckers, "reading" all the brochures, and lining them all up on the floor from one door all the way across the whole floor to the other side. He truly did great and so did sister and so did daddy fixing every thing! Thank you Jesus! By this time though we were almost 4 hours behind schedule and not really well rested since we were planning on being home by 2 in the morning! Only by God's grace did we make it home! Phillip and I took turns only going an hour or so we were so tired. We pulled over and tried to sleep, but David and Elizabeth kept waking up as long as we were stopped so we decided to head on. We finally made it home at 7:19am Tuesday morning--almost 19 hours later. The trip itself was 800 some miles and should have been 12 1/2 hours of driving time, but with all our stops, electrical fire, and speed pulling a trailer, we turned it into 19 hours.

Stay tuned for more posts about the wedding and more!

Can you believe that the kids and I are leaving tomorrow for a wedding in Texas? 52 hours later we are seriously getting in the car for another 14 hour or so car trip for my cousin Shawn's wedding.