The Drive

The title sounds like I mean "The Drive" in a bad way -- It was not bad! No kids and endless hours with nothing to worry about except our truck's gas mileage and what music we were going to listen to --Now that is awesome!

We headed out Monday morning and our goal was to make it to Nashville the first day.

My machine, I mean my husband, of course got us there easy peasy!

He was focused, yet relaxed and we covered a lot of ground every day.

We saw a lot of beautiful country that first day -- Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee.

It was so pretty and green and I enjoyed it so much. I kind of couldn't believe how much I really did enjoy it.

I have never been a fan of driving long distances, but it was so fun and the no kid factor definitely helped with that...I will let you know how I feel next summer when we're driving from Austin to Salt Lake with a 2 and 5 year old.

After arriving in Nashville and being treated so kindly by the southern folks and staying at a clean, decently priced motel, we were off again! 

This was me the ENTIRE drive. I didn't put a foot to the pedal the whole trip.

I love my machine, I mean my husband!

The second day our plan was to make it to Austin, but we couldn't pass up a chance to stay with the Handys in Dallas!

We got there in the early evening and ran around with Jamie as she took one kid here, one kid there -- it was chaos! But awesome, organized chaos. I love seeing moms do what they do best. She is an awesome mom and it was so fun to spend time with them and see where they live.

We spent a good portion of the evening watching Julianne's softball game and it was just a beautiful night! 

They invited us to stay over night and it was so wonderful to stay the the "Four Seasons!"

Jamie took these pictures of her home in Connecticut and I always loved them hung in her kitchen there, but I think I liked them better here! She is so creative.

After a late night of chatting and catching up, we got up bright and early to head to Austin for our exciting day of checking the city out and unpacking our stuff into a storage unit.

We got things all set up at the storage unit place and headed downtown to check out campus.

 I have to say -- We were impressed! Brian had been there to interview, but being back confirmed his excitement about his decision and it made me excited about the awesome school he will be attending.

It was hard to imagine life there, but we did and it's crazy that it will soon be a reality.

This plaque was on a statue of a family right outside the business building and I absolutely love it!

I hope this is a part of Brian's experience at UT.

After checking campus out, we headed downtown to use a gift card that Kathryn and Kyle Price got us before we left Connecticut.

Welcome to Hopdoddy's.

One of the best burger joints we have ever been to.

If you come visit us, we will take you there. We got a Nutella and chocolate pretzel shake and it was awesome.

After our delicious lunch, we were able to go to around with a Realtor and get a feel for the rental market and the types of properties that would be available for us. She is LDS and it was great to have her input on everything from communities to schools to wards.

And our final stop:

Unpacking! 

Thanks to this beautiful lady and her sister, we had three guys come that got the truck unloaded in an hour. Ashley (a wonderful friend from Connecticut) was so sweet to hook Hilary and I up, and it really made all the difference to have a contact down in Austin. She got us in touch with the realtor we went around with, let me dump my food in her fridge, got her husband and two others from their EQ to help us unpack, let us shower after our sweaty escapades unpacking, made us dinner and offered to let us stay the night. 

Seriously? How awesome is that? I met her once for about three minutes the Sunday before we came because she happened to be visiting CT, and here she is opening her home and offering her services to people she barely knows. I have a feeling Austin is going to be a good place.

We didn't end up staying the night with Hilary, but made some good progress towards home. Once the excitement of Austin wore off, we had a one track mind and it was to get to Utah! We were excited to the boys and our family and we were pros at sitting in the car, so we (by we, I mean Brian) pushed through and drove all day and made it near Farmington, NM.

Before we got out of Texas, we were able to have some AWESOME Texas BBQ.

We were filling up at a gas station that had this restaurant attached to it and I went in to use the bathroom and came out and asked if Brian wanted to stay and eat here instead of the Chik-fil-a we were looking for. He said no and headed in to use the bathroom, but the second he walked in the door he turned around and said, "Just kidding, we're staying. It smells delicious in there!" 

It was so fun to get cute pictures like these on our drive because it just reminded us what good care our kids were in and that we didn't need to rush.

As you can tell, Mr. Thad loved being with his cousins!

These were our views for the rest of the way home:

These were definitely the prettiest of them, but we loved seeing a part of the country that neither of us had driven through before. It also kept us on the road because there wasn't much to see or do along the way, which was fine with both of us as we were itchin' to see those boys of ours!

This was a fantastic drive we were able to take together and I am so glad we were able to do it because of the awesome family we have. We couldn't have done it without them!