My weekend haul

I went to South Carolina over the weekend to gather the last of the personal effects I had stored at my parents home (oh, and some other loot as well). I left Saturday morning and, when I realized that I could be at the Charlotte airport just an hour before my parent's flight arrived, I offered to pick them up. Of course I used up that extra hour and more at a local outlet mall and arrived an hour late. Oops. In the end it was kind of okay because my sister, Julie's flight was delayed by hours so we had to hang out in the area anyway. I was with my family a very short time, roughly 24 hours from the time I met my parents at the airport till I pulled away from their home with a van and trailer full of treasures (or as Andrew might say: stuff/junk/crap). We worked hard. There was no time for swimming, playing pinball, or visiting the local teahouse--all things I will miss. While I was gone Drew was working too. He took Lizzie and Alaina to birthday parties, a soccer game, and church. He also taught my primary class for me. So nice. I was a little nervous about pulling the trailer for over 450 miles, most of them after dark. I thought it would be hard to go freeway speeds, but just as my dad said I would, I was soon comfortably barreling down the road. Things went pretty well, only a couple snags. Snag #1: within a few feet of my parents driveway my queen mattress toppled out of the trailer (we were on our way to Walmart for rope).

Snag #2: just after Richmond (seems like we always have bad luck between Richmond and DC) I hit stop-and-go traffic and my van started to overheat. I panicked. I prayed. I called my dad. He told me to put my vehicle in neutral and rev the engine when I'm stopped. It worked. I'm so grateful my Dad knew what to do and that I could turn to him for help (later Drew said the same). The traffic added an hour to my journey and as soon as I broke free of it, I began to spot lightening (naturally). I worried about my un-tarped load. The miles couldn't pass quickly enough. I pulled into my driveway around 1:30 a.m. Monday morning and was in bed by roughly 2 a.m. We unload everything upon my arrival and as Drew lifted the last box out of the trailer the rain started to fall. Once inside, Andrew said, "Thanks for going to get all that stuff." I said, "So, are you thankful for ALL the stuff?" His answer, "Well, I'm thankful for the essentials." The next morning when Alaina saw everything piled in our living room, she cried. I think Drew may have felt like doing the same. At one point during the unloading, when I had just pulled a set of metal stars out of the trailer, Andrew looked pointedly at the stars, then at me and said, "Jill. Why?"