Onward and upward!

We made it!!!!

And life has never been better. 

Let's start from the beginning.

The original plan was to have me fly out to Virginia with Solana and meet up with Adam, but a driving partner for Adam fell through.  So we packed up the family, put the carseat in the middle and drove the uhaul pulling our car. And it worked out perfectly! We, like most rational people would be, were practically terrified of pulling a 30 hour road trip with a very energetic, loud, active toddler, but Solana was so much better than we had anticipated. Actually, it was one of the best times we've had as a family. We sang lots of song, listened to lots of music, took lots of videos, and talked a ton.  For Solana, it was a whole new world of sitting in the front seat, comfortably nestled between mommy and daddy, who were constantly, inescapably within arm's reach. Adam was super husband on the trip and drove that big rig the whole way. I kept offering, but he insisted. (I think he was more scared of me driving the uhaul than him being exhausted, which was probably a good thing because it was a 26ft. truck pulling our Volvo on a trailer.)

So we said goodbye to Texas and took off on our adventure! And the closer we got to Virginia the happier we became.  Last year wasn't the easiest, but we had 2 great people that helped us through it all.  

 I think everyone needs a Matt and Heather in their lives. They are your best friends who love you no matter what. You tell them what's in your brain and they don't judge you, they understand you. You have them over for your first time making sushi and they are brave enough to try it. And a 100 more stories like that. You get the point, they are incredible! We were sad to leave them, and we miss them a lot.

Please pay attention to how excited Solana is in all the these pictures. She was so happy to be using her legs again.

"land!"

 Our favorite place we stopped was Asheville North Carolina, do you see how beautiful it is??! We fell in love with it. Years ago, my company sent me out here for a furniture trip, and we visited the incredible Biltmore Estate. I fell in love with North Carolina at that time and have been so excited to finally take Adam. We we arrived too late to actually see the Biltmore Castle, but we parked Big Bertha (yes we named the Uhaul) and walked around.

Okay so we were all a LITTLE excited to out of the truck and we were only a day away from Virginia.

Us and our stuff....and we have too much for 3 people folks. I know I am going to look at this photo in 4 years and think that we had nothing, cause I'm sure I can double what we have in that amount of time.

We didn't take a lot of pictures, just lots of video. After about 2 days of driving you don't really want to just pull over for a photo. But when we arrived on day 4 I wish I had, oh well. 

It really was one of our best family experiences, driving across the country, the three of us squished together across Big Bertha's front bench, through rainstorms, getting lost in Atlanta, and slowly grinding our way up and over the Appalachians.  It was a wonderful journey and we're so happy we made it!