And We Are Off!

After we finished packing up the U Haul and trailer we headed over to Mamma and Daddy's for dinner. It was so good to have everyone together and be able to eat Mamma's delicious fried chicken! :-) And then after dinner the tears ensued. LOTS of tears. I knew this would be the hardest part about leaving. It was bittersweet for me to be spending the last night with my family. Emma had really had enough of saying goodbyes and she was over it, poor thing didnt' even want to tell all of her Aunt's goodbye but me and my sisters shed enough tears for everyone and then some. We "slept" (not really) in the bonus room and then the alarm went off at 4:30 am. That is an ungodly time of the morning  let me tell you, especially after a night of no sleep and a swollen face from all the crying! Mom and Dad met us in the kitchen downstairs to wish us well, pray with us, and tell us goodbye. Yes, the tears came again! I have always been close to my Mom, she is one of my best friends and knowing she would be nearly 800 miles away was difficult, but at the same time we were ready as a family to begin our new journey and excited about what God had in store for us.

  

Thankfully at first I had the van to myself, (aka the tears!) but those little boogers thought Daddy's UHaul truck was way cooler than Momma's van and I drove nearly the entire day by myself. Which was cool with me, I had my Kari Jobe or Chris Tomlin playing and got my worship on!

 When we stopped for lunch I figured I would prove to everyone that I really was along for the ride. Please excuse the photo (agian, the tears, those dang things mess me up!). 

We had a GREAT first day. The kids were fabulously behaved and so excited to "get to the mountains". We only had one small snag that happened near Chattanooga where 75 split, Alex went one way and I went the other! OOPS! I will NEVER forget his face as he veered to the right and I veered to the left with him shaking the walkie talkie in the mirror at my as we went separate ways. HA! Obviously I didn't get the message to go right. Oh well. Only 15 minutes later and we were back where we needed to be, and of course laughing about it, well I was anways! We made it all the way to Dalton the first night which was farther than we had hoped and we were ready for an evening to rest and chill as a family. We had dinner at Outback and then swam in the pool and then slept SO good on those awesome pillow top mattresses!