Adventures of August

If you've been following this blog and our family for awhile, summer time is never a time of relaxation. If anything, we seem to be even busier than the norm. Ty found out the end of May that he was tasked to attend a school down in Montgomery, Alabama from July 26th- August 27th.

Pros: We could go with him and not have to say goodbye for 6 unnecessary weeks.
Cons: Alabama in the summer time?! Really?!

I decided to bite the bullet and if I've said it once, I've said it a million times, make the best of it!

The travels started about 2 weeks before Ty's class began. Our family is very blessed to have a lot of other family members strategically placed across the United States and trips like this gives us an opportunity to visit with them. Our first stop off was Wyoming (standard), then it was on to Nebraska for lunch with the Hesselgesser's (my aunt and uncle) and a few more hours up the road to Omaha for dinner and a good night's rest with the Wilson's (another one of my aunt's and uncle). We spent the following day shopping and playing with cousins (The Hutchinson's) there in Omaha, and then first thing the next morning we left for Oklahoma. All of the family down there had never met Whitleigh and last saw Carter when he was just 14 months old! We spent two great days with them enjoying some much needed catch up time, some fabulous home cooking and got our first taste of "southern heat."

Originally, we had planned to leave Oklahoma and make it half way to Montgomery but decided to surprise Mr. Carter with tickets to the Cardinals game in St. Louis. It was only 4 hours out of the way and when you are traveling 36+ hours in total, what's an extra 4 hours?! We woke up before the sun that morning and started making our way to St. Louis. Once the kids woke up, we broke the news to them and needless to say, Carter was pumped!

The game was great. I don't think we have ever spent so much money on drinks and snow cones in all of our lives, but still very fun. For dinner we enjoyed some of the best BBQ we had had in a very long time. The next morning we explored the Arch and had some more BBQ from Pappy's and then hit the road. Destination... Memphis.

We pulled into Memphis fairly late but were excited to be staying right next to the Grand Ole Opry. That night, Ty and I sat down at the computer to plan out our day which was going to include touring the Grand Ole Opry, but unfortunately due to all of the flooding that Tennessee had in the early spring, it was closed until November.

Plan B. We woke up and had a good breakfast and let the kids wear themselves out jumping on the hotel beds. We decided to get all the way to Montgomery that evening because the Montgomery Biscuits (minor league Baseball team) were having a special "Meet the Players" night. We made it just in time to get checked into the hotel and walk to the stadium. Carter again was in baseball heaven getting to walk down on the field and shake the hands of all of the players. he got the entire team's autograph and even exchanged some baseball talk with one of the players. If you know Carter, he's a die-hard Colorado Rockies fan and just to happen to be wearing his Rockies hat that evening. The Montgomery Biscuits are the minors to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and so one of the players teased Carter by saying, "Hey, what's with this Rockies hat? Lemme guess, Tulo's your favorite player?" Carter smiled a little and said, "Well, usually he is but since he broke his hand, #17 Todd Helton is now. But, Cargo isn't too bad either" The player's mouth dropped wide open and the one next to him stopped mid-autograph and started laughing out loud. The player reached his hand out to shake Carter's and said, "You're a good man my friend... I like you!" Made. Carter's. NIGHT!

The next afternoon we moved into our very humble abode there on Maxwell AFB. It was small, filthy, and had no Air Conditioning. "Just make the best of it, Gretchen," was running over and over in my mind. The first night was miserable but thankfully the maintenance came and got the air conditioning to work early the next morning. It was night #3 when we had our first unwanted house guest. It was late and Ty had got up to throw something away and saw something very large move out of the corner of his eye. I could tell he saw something just by his reaction and immediately freaked out. Shocker, I know. He killed the roach and promptly put it outside. I didn't get much sleep that night.

Two days later, I opened the cupboard door to get a snack for the kids and there another one sat, hissing and flapping (AAAAHHHHH!!!!) his wings at me. I'm actually pretty surprised to be here telling ya'll this right now. Another freak-out session ensued which didn't end well because by the time Ty got over to the cupboard to kill "it," he was gone. We TY, emptied the entire cupboard and never found where he was. Three days later, Ty (thankfully) found him in our popcorn box. That afternoon, I had to get out of the room so we all went out to dinner and then to another Biscuits game. Once we got back and were pulling into our parking spot, we noticed a very large Raccoon sitting in our spot. Ty proceeded to back into our spot and made the comment, "He'll move if he knew it was good for him." This yielded to another freak out session by yours truly (see a theme here?) and all I remember screaming was, "NO HE WON'T, HE'S GOING TO BITE US AND CLAW OUR ACHILLES WHEN WE GET OUT OF THE CAR... AND THEN KILL US!" Both kids, burst into hysterics (thanks Mom) and Ty stopped the car. Very annoyed, he pulled forward and drove us towards our front door. He told me to take both kids in while he parked but unfortunately I had done such a good job of scaring both kids that now neither of them would get out of their car seats. So, I whipped out another good parenting tactic... LYING. I told them that raccoons liked crying and that he would come closer if he heard either of them doing it. The screams and tears stopped almost instantaneously. I got them both in to our room and then I waited patiently for my lecture from my husband. He came through the door about 30 seconds later and told me something along the lines of, "STOP SPREADING ALL OF YOUR SILLY FEARS TO OUR KIDS!" He was right and I did feel pretty silly for reacting that way. Little did I know that 5 minutes later, I would completely redeem myself.

The kids got into their pj's and sat down on the bed to play a quick game of Go Fish. I sat down at the computer to check on some things but as I waited for the computer to load, I notices through the reflection on the computer screen, something very large on the wall behind me. I remember thinking as I turned slowly around in my chair, "I've never noticed a spot there before..."

Yea, it wasn't a spot. It was another roach. Ty had just went in to use the restroom and I calmly stood up, walked over to the bathroom door (all eyes on the roach) and knocked very quietly.

"What?"
"Ummm.... I need you to come out here asap please," I said quietly.

Thankfully he understood the tone I was using and I told him that he'd need to kill the monster crawling across our wall. He smiled and thought, "No way, after the day we'd just had..." Sure enough, there the roach was and Ty disposed of yet another one.

We all left the next morning for a very unfortunate reason but I will say, I was not sad in the least to say goodbye to that room or Alabama for that matter.

Please Dear God, never send us back there again.