Oregon- Day 1

So, Tuesday evening, just as I was leaving work for my 5 day weekend, I started feeling... not so good. Isn't that just the way of things though? It's unavoidable. Irony is everywhere. Since I'm a tough chick, I went to dance class anyways, which was pretty miserable towards the end. Emily was also not feeling very well, and I considered cancelling the trip, but like I've said before, I'm no quitter, so we just went with it. I even stayed up till 11 packing, but I have to admit Patrick did more than his fair share.
I set the phone alarm to go off at 3:30, and went to bed, for only 4 hours. That is less than HALF of a normal night for me, so when I woke up I was not so pleasant, or even lucid really. We actually left the house by 4:05, but we have a leaky tire, so first we had to stop to get it some air, then we had to stop at Safeway to get some Excedrin for Patrick's toothache, so we really didn't leave town for another half hour or so. I had been all set to go back to sleep, but I just couldn't. The kids slept off and on until the sun came up. We stopped once for coffee and potty, then again for breakfast. We all stumbled into McDonald's to join the other groups of travelers still in their pajamas, washing up in the bathroom, changing diapers, and grabbing breakfast. But me, I wasn't in my pajamas, I was still in my dance clothes from the night before. Way stylish.
I was still able to breathe well enough to taste my Sausage McMuffin, and some man told me that I have a beautiful family, so not a bad stop. We stopped a lot. We stopped again about an hour later because I had to go to the bathroom, then again for Patrick, and for snacks. Then, even though we were only an hour or so from our destination Patrick wanted to stop again for lunch. I was against spending more money, but let them get Taco Bell. The trip took us over 9 hours total.
I still felt like crap. I couldn't even really appreciate how cute and homey my mom's new house was, I just saw tiny, and crowded, and cold. There was no comfy place to sit yet, a couple of space heaters, and a man working on the plumbing, so no toilet and from what I could gather, probably no hot water till Friday. I wanted to cry.... but there was coffee. Sweet blessed coffee, to warm me up and soothe my sore throat.
My mom put me right to work assembling her tv stand. I usually like projects like this, and it was a sit down project, so I went with it. What else was I going to do, a shower was out of the question. After first putting a piece on upside down, and then having my brother break a piece off, I finally finished it. The electrician came and replaced some fuses and I could've kissed him because that meant hot water, and a working stove.
I went to take my shower in the *freeze my ass off* bathroom, and it was blessedly hot right up until I put the conditioner in my hair, at which time it turned instantly freezing. I shrieked and flipped the faucet off. But now I had a head full of conditioner. I shivered and pouted and missed my house for a minute, before turning it back on and rinsing as fast as humanly possible in the stream of ice.
Now I was cold and hungry, and still a little pouty, but I got everyone to agree to pizza. I found numbers for 2 pizza places in my mom's new tiny town. One was disconnected, the other rang and rang and rang, and for the 10th time in an hour I missed the city, where the pizza people always answer the phone.
My mom was suggesting burgers, but I'm not a quitter, so I grabbed the GPS, found a pizza place 20 miles away and whined to my husband, who cheerfully volunteered to go pick it up. It took an hour and a half, but he also brought me back pretzels. My hero. *swoon* He also spent a good part of the evening bathing Cali, finding all the kids their pajamas, setting up beds, reading to Cali, and getting her to bed. He was the first to come to my mind of things to be thankful for.
I spent the rest of the night listening to bickering, shivering in front of the space heater, watching Night at the Museum, and finally sleep, blessed sleep.