We lived to tell the tale.

It's taken me a few days to recover, but the girls and I made our epic trip and have lived to tell about it. I may spread the joy out over a few days worth of posts.

The actual drive itself wasn't bad. It took a while, with my pregnant bladder and the baby who likes to use it for a punching bag. We had to make 3 stops on the way there. But one was really just to find Natalie a pair of crocs which she suddenly insisted on having, since we were driving past an outlet. Anyone who knows me and my own shoe issues knows I am virtually powerless against a shoe request from my children. Besides, she didn't have a summer shoe that had a back strap. So I made it a potty stop as well. To which Ella said, "MOM. We just. stopped. so you could go potty." Yes, honey. I'm aware. Now hush up, and try again because as my Aunt Ruthie always says, "You never know when you'll see another one."

We were really zipping along then, until we got very close to our last exit. And Natalie said, "I think I might have to go potty." And I said, "Right now, or can you wait 10 minutes til our next stop?" "I can wait." No sooner had we passed Last Chance Exit, when we ran into road construction. The freeway was down to one lane. Yikes, hopefully this won't be a problem. And then I saw all the brake lights. And I started to drive 5 to 20 mph. For nearly 10 miles. Thankfully, Natalie was distracted by the movie Bambi, which the girls had never seen. I figured it was high time I introduced them to the cruelty of the world that is Bambi. We survived the 10 miles of crawling traffic to our exit (at the end we passed the guy walking the center line while something was being sprayed on the new tar, and I felt a little better that there was a good reason we all drove so slow). We stopped for our last potty/dinner break.

As we were waiting in the drive thru Ella said, "Mom, I didn't see the sad part in the movie." I had prepped them a bit before the movie that there was a really sad part, because the Bambi book they have at home doesn't actually have that part. So I said, "What do you mean you didn't see it?" "I don't know. There wasn't a really sad part." "Ella, Bambi's mom got shot and died." "Oh that, yeah, I know."

Well. Fine. Nevermind the fact that I got teary in the front seat, not even able to see the movie, because all I could think was, "She never got to see her baby grow up!" In Ella's defense though, Disney has totally desensitized her with all the missing & killing of mothers. I think Ella was 5 before I let them watch the first scene of Nemo. Turns out, it's not a problem for her.