I'm a Suvivor, Not gonna give up . . .

Okay, I really don't listen to Beyonce' (is that how you spell her name?) But I love that song that Destiny's Child sings and it is quit fitting for this post. I just completed a three day journey with three of my friends, in three different vehicles, with eight kids under the age of 5, and two teenage girls to help out.

Man that makes me tired just thinking about it. We decided on a spur of the moment to go to the river for a "fun" trip with our kids during the work week. Boy, fun can't describe it. I have gotten to know these gals over the last few months really well. I have know two for longer, but we have just recently had the opportunity to figure out we really like each other :) Seriously, they have become some really special people to me. Therefore what is the next phase on a journey of friendship? Road trip!

We got to just hang out, point out the funny things about our personality and feed our children lots of sugar. I think my favorite part of the trip was just all the talking we did. We stayed up too late, and share lots of fun memories, laughs, and even some frustrations about different things. It is amazing how much you can share after the kids go to bed. I look forward to many more fun memories with these gals.

Now to the true story that didn't make even the slightest difference in our view of the trip overall. We leave Abilene a little behind schedule, because I was running late. We barely get out of the Abilene area when my vehicle has to stop because Syndey needs to go to the bathroom. We make it about another fifteen mintues or so and I literally have to pull over to the side of the two-laned highway to untangle my daughter's hair from her blue finger. That's my Syd! The rest of the trip up to Junction is uneventful and even almost to San Antonio, but then there is 5 o'clock traffic to contend with. I think that was when the four adults, I mean eight kids really got rambunctous. Chick-fil-a saved the day with face painting and good food. After running themselves ragged, the last of the kids went to sleep around 11:00 p.m.

Wednesday. On the way to Schlitterbaun, a vehicle loses battery power and we are stuck in the middle of the driveway entrance to Taco Bell with a dead Excurions, a suburban, Taurus, and one crazy looking lady (that's me . . .my cover-up was for the pool not the side of the highway)in a blue cover up with most of her post-partum body exposed to all who were driving down the major loop in New Braunfels. Thanks to a nice guy helping us get a jump, we decide to press on to the water park. We came out to find a window out (only down thank goodness and nothing missiong) on one of the vehicles. But my brother called to check on us and ask if we needed any help, how sweet!

Okay, so for the most part we really were doing well. Nothing had thwarted our joyful vacation. I decided to make one last bathroom break before I left and as I was departing the toilet area my brand new Mogul phone dropped. . . you guessed it in the potty. No phone for our long journey home. Then one of my friends accidently locked her keys in the trunk and we had to wait for a lock smith to come. No problem. Two blocks from the house, we remember we left a baby gate at the house. No spirits dampened yet! We decided to take a more well traveled route in case the car had any more problems on our journey. Well, that turned out to be another memory in the making. By the way did I mention a hurricane had landed in the area dropping an enormous amount of rain in the area? Any way :) an accident had closed this highway down. While we were trying to decide what to do I decided to begin to catch all the rain water that was entering my vehicle because we still hadn't remembered to fix the leak in the windsheild that we only notice when it rains. I had three drips going pretty steady and filled up about a 1/4 inch of my cup. What fun entertainment!

We turn around go back the way we came and really did pretty well until in Boerne I asked my children if they needed to go to the bathroom and of course no one did until about 30 minutes later when there was absolutely no bathroom, no bridge, nothing but the hurricane rain! Fortunatley I was able to use my friend's umbrella to keep us dry while I hoisted my daughter over the grass to go potty. Fortunately she only peed down one leg of mine! :) So . . . we make it home after 8 hours on a four hour trip and I get everyone dropped off just in time for the bottom to let out in Abilene. Pat thankfully gets us all in fairly dry . . . . and then there is a boil water notice due to low levels of chlorine in the water supply.

No problem. I'll just go to the store in the morning in the pouring rain with my three kids. I came out of the store to get back to the car for my battery not to start. Oh, wait no phone because of the toliet water. But wait! I now know how to jump a car from Wednesdays fun and the man sitting in his car next to me was waiting on his sister and said he would help. God was smiling at me as I learned to take these unexpected events, however I wish I always responded this way! By the way, when I got home I forgot to put the car in park and almost opened a new way through our french doors! Jacob asked me why he almost crashed into the house . . . what will people think! :)

One thing I mentioned to the precious, sweet teenage girls that rode in my car on this trip was that to only focus on the destination means you miss so much along the way. We really soaked in all that we experienced and found, that it made us laugh more than anything else, how much we really can put up with along our journey.

Now that I have barely scratched the surface of what those precious three days meant to four MOPS (mother of preschoolers) and their kids. We are already looking forward to our next trip. I hope to have more memories with people who know me for who I am and still want to be around me, even when they literally have a hard time understanding what words come out of my mouth . . . oh, wait I think that might be most people! :)