I decided to try adding a little vlogging to my blogging. Just in time to witness a ridiculous road trip. Keep in mind I have driven to New York City and back with several stops in between. This one is going to be epic! Why? Because this one is 13 people in 1 car for 22 hours! That's right 9 kids, 4 adults, 6 tires, 1 car and lots of potty stops. 

So after being snowed in a week we had 2 days we could get out and get things done. We knew another storm was coming on Wednesday, so we went to the store, my Dr's appointment, and things liked that. Come Tuesday night I felt a strange severe pain, unlike anyother while being pregnant. After no baby movement for a few hours I called the hospital, sure enough I had to go in. So here we are packing up the kids at 3 in the morning knowing full well the storm was just starting. The 30 minute drive took close to an hour. Of course the baby started moving just as we were pulling into the parking lot which already had easily 5-6 inches of snow on it. After an hour of tests everything was fine and we were ready to go home and go to sleep.
One problem. It is was so bad outside there was no way we are making it home. Luckily Steven's sister only lives 10 minutes away, so we headed that way. We had several close calls in our little car but finally made it to their road. Only we got stuck within yards of their driveway. After digging our way out to only inch forward we call his sister who comes to our rescue. We had to park our car down the road and stay with them 2 days. It was fun having company while being snowed in this time. So Steven made his way to dig out our car getting home by Friday evening.
I am looking forward to 2 weeks of nothing but sun!

While being snowed in we may not of had milk, bread or cheese we had plenty of food. Although my kids live off those things. The lack of cereal, pb&j's, quesidilla's, grilled cheese, and chocoalte milk was the end of the world!
I have been raised my whole life with the concept of food storage. Since we have been moving so much I have had to untrain my brain to buy extra.Usually if a recipe called for corn i would buy several cans of corn, not I have to only buy what I have planned for the week.
kadan was dieing with no bread. PB&J's are his favorite staple. So I decided to make bread. Although I didn't have a bread pan, I thought why buy one when we would just move in about 6 months? So I did what any other young mom would do, call her mother for suggestions. The end result was bread from a can. Thanks to her idea and my ingenuity we actually got to have PB&J's for dinner. What a treat my kids thought that was compared to oatmeal, stir-fry, tacos, bean burritos, soups and egg everything (we did have 2 dozen eggs.) They were in bread heaven. My husband and I also thought taste of warm fresh bread was refreshing as ever.
Then after 6 days of no milk (this was devastating for our 2 yr old) Steven finally decided to backpack the 1.5 mile trip to the store. Luckily he ended up getting a ride from a nice neighbor. Now I am also doing what I hated that my mother did; 1/2 dry milk mixed with 1/2 real milk. The kids haven't noticed the difference, and its stretching our only 2 gallons of milk. This is also cause the store had no milk so he ended up buying the last of it from the gas station.
After all this I have much thanks to give. Thanks Mom for many lessons on food storage. I am thankful for still having running water and electricity. Thanks Santa for the wii this Christmas. Thanks strange neighbor for the ride to the store. Plus many lessons learned and patience tested.

This is out our Kitchen window.

            

This picture is sideways and out our front door.

This is out our back door.

After visiting Utah for 2 weeks we made the trip back to our Oklahoma home. We arrived at 1 am Tuesday morning just as the snow started to fall. We thought about stopping at the stroe to get a few things for breakfast, but we were so tired and the roads were VERY icy. We could not beilive our eyes to what we woke to. I've been in snow storms before but not like this. With wind at 25 mph we had 4 ft drifts all around. The pictures were taken in the morning and it only got worse through the day.
Being that we were gone for 2 weeks we had no milk, bread, produce or cheese. 4 days later we still have plenty of food but are running low on patience. The kids have had good and bad moments (as well as Mom and Dad). We are grateful for electricity and running water though! Maybe we should have just stayed in Utah another week!

Yesenia and her doll toys.

My Grandpa and his wife Betty sent the kids a singing dog. They love it. My daughter just wants to sing and dance to it. We'll see if mom makes it to Christmas before it gets hidden?!

After our side trip we went to North Carolina for 2 weeks. It rained most of the time and we were ready to go home, only we had forgotten where that was exactly. Steven accepted a job with his sister in Oklahoma. So we went back to our old home, Utah, for a few weeks. We switched out our summer clothes for winter clothes. By now we are professionals at packing up our car. We can get quite a bit to fit into small places. We also fixed the car up a bit and prepped ourselves for one last road trip, well for at least 6 months.
Everyone told us the route we were taking from American Fork, UT to Denver was the long way so we decided to try their way. It added 2 hours to our trip. Instead of an 18 hour car ride we decided to make it 20 hours.
Although it took longer than we would have liked we finally ended up in one place and we're ready to settle a bit. Now the adventure of staying in one place for a while begins. While we make Oklahoma a home, we will see who wins Stevens business for next summer and where we will go...

We are finally making ourselves at home, getting use to the new job and its crazy work schedule. We love how green and beutiful it is here, but lots of green also means lots of rain.

When I "kissed" the rock with the side of the car, the rock also gave the door a bear hug. This resulted in a slightly tweaked door. When we finished our drive from Oklahoma to Kentucky we put rags in the door to keep the constant air flow noise out.

The noise we have gotten use to. The wet arm when driving in the rain, not so much. We keep a rag under the seat to dry off a bit. The worst part is a day later when the sun is shining again. Why you ask? Because of the mildew smell it leaves behind I answer. Nasty. The whole car has that gross, stuffy smell. Steven was regretting not calling the insurance company right away when driving around in that all day.

On our last night in Oklahoma Steven and I decided to run to Sonic and get some drinks before we watched a movie. It was dark outside and I hadn't done much of the driving, so I forgot about this elephant sized rock at the end of the driveway. I quickly turned left out of the driveway only to feel the tension of the rock against the car, and hear the air exiting my front left tire. We hopped out of the car to our surprise we saw the scratch and the tire quickly flattening. I tell Steven to hurry and re-park it (out of the way) before it goes flat all the way. I was very nervous about Steven's reaction and relieved when he said, "Hey honey, at least you didn't swear when you hit the rock." Thanks hon!

Luckily we gave our self a whole day to get ready to go to Kentucky. Steven spent it getting a new tire. This was an issue because we just bought all brand new tires before we left and were trying to find a Big O due to the warranty. I packed our stuff while Steven was out feeling awful, and the rock was relieved to have a new view 2 inches to the left. Luckily we found a cheap tire and Stevens family provided us with a car roof carrier to take the tire with us. The Big O was to far out of the way and not worth driving to for a free tire, although there was one in Louisville.
I will never live that down when I go visit his family. My first car oops since we had been married.

Steven's Sister and her family lives in Oklahoma. We hadn't visited them for a while so we took the opportunity and took slight detour. We went to the zoo, aquarium, and saw some family history. Stevens dad took us on a tour of his memories and where family graves were. It was fun to hear his Indian culture and family genealogy.
They also took us canoeing which was so peaceful and relaxing. That was my favorite part. We went and had a picnic, enjoyed the outdoors, and canoed down the lake. Steven even chased a beaver around with his brother in law. Steven loved this a little too much. He is already pricing out canoes.
I am sure our family was ready for us to leave but we were ready to stay another week.