A New Chapter

Below is a basic account of our big move from Maryland to Arkansas.

Day 1
After the movers finished loading up the truck with all of our stuff, we said goodbye to Maryland and started of on our half cross country trip out to Arkansas. We left Mon (1/27) afternoon and headed to Richmond to spend the night at our friends Scott & Danielle's house. We hadn't seen them in a long time, so it was nice to catch up with them. Stella had fun playing Wii with Uncle Scott. We unfortunately didn't have our camera handy so we have no pics to post from our stay in Richmond.

Day 2
The next morning we headed out after breakfast. We were going to head out in a southwesterly direction towards Charlottesville, but bad weather forced us to travel directly south to Durham, NC...Mama & Dada's old stomping grounds. We had lunch on Duke's campus at Mama & Dada's favorite place...the Armadillo Grill...they have the best Tex-Mex food, hands down!

After lunch, Stella got an ice cream cone from McDonald's which she was nice enough to share with her brother...

Des and Stella got to stretch their legs a little bit while walking around the Duke Student Center, and Des even held court with the ladies while his Dada was getting some coffee. Unfortunately, Dada didn't have the camera with him to document the lil' ladies' man in action =;)

We then said goodbye to Durham and headed west to Asheville, NC. The weather was still bad with lots of dreary rain, but we managed to make good time.

Funny story about Desmond...as soon as we got in the car and were driving, he would immediately take his shoes and socks off. I guess he figured if he is going to be in the car for awhile, he might as well be comfortable. Almost all of the pics we have of him in the car from the trip is of a barefoot Des!

He did this the entire trip and has been doing it ever since then, no matter how short the car ride is!

We got to Asheville by 5:30 pm and the weather was beautiful there with clear skies and no jackets needed. We ate at one of our favorite places...the Olive Garden. Stella was so excited about driving and getting to Arkansas that anytime we stopped to get out of the car, she would immediately ask "Mama, is this Arkansas?" Too cute!

The Gup enjoying his favorite pasta fagioli soup

Dada & Stella sharing a strand of spaghetti in the style of the Lady and the Tramp.

After dinner, we went to the nearby Asheville mall and walked around for awhile. Around 8 pm, we got back in the car again and drove another 3 hours to Cookeville, TN. The kids continued to do fine and eventually fell asleep in the car.

Once at the hotel in Cookeville, Des did not want to sleep in his pack-n-play. So rather than spend valuable sleep time convincing him to sleep in the pack-n-play, Dada and Des slept in one bed, while Stella and Mama slept in the other. Des was so surprised to be sleeping in the same bed with Dada that he would lay down for a few seconds before popping up and saying "Dada, Dada" very excitedly while patting Dada on his back. Then Dada would say "Lay down, it's time to sleep" to which he could comply, but only to pop up again a few seconds later. It was his way of saying. "I can't believe it Dada, you're actually letting me sleep with you?" He did this for awhile but eventually settled down and slept past his normal wake up time in the morning.

Since Des usually serves as our wake-up call, it meant that we all got to sleep in too. We were all so tired that we slept like logs that night.

Day 3
After breakfast at the hotel, we piled back in the car and headed out west once more hoping to make it to Nashville, TN by lunchtime and we did. We drove around Nashville for awhile and took in the sights and then stopped to have some lunch. The weather was still bad with a mix of rain and snow.

Amazingly enough, the kids continued to do well in the car. We were especially surprised that Desmond was not loosing his mind by this point, because we thought for sure he would. Watching DVDs while eating snacks really helped out.

These snack catchers that Mama bought for the trip really came in handy. The kids were able to eat their snacks without us having to worry about spills and messes.

Stella especially loved watching DVDs in the car and would often do so with her favorite blanket on her head. She was pretending that she was in a fort while watching the DVD.

After a leisurely lunch, we headed out west to Memphis, TN and got their by dinnertime. We got to see Elvis Presley's Graceland from the outside (not very impressive) and drove around Memphis taking in the city's sights.

We then had dinner and headed over to the famous Peabody Hotel to walk around for awhile. The hotel was very beautiful with gorgeous water fountains and gigantic flower arrangements that made for a fun time.

Stella thought these bronze dog statues were a hoot.

Stella really loves to through "wish" coins into wishing fountains and spent a lot of time doing so at this one.

We then said goodbye to Memphis and drove to Russellville, AR where we spent the night.

Day 4
We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the morning before we heading out west to our final destination...Fayetteville, AR. We had heard that Fayetteville was hit with one of their worst ice storms on Wed and that a lot of houses were without power, including the one we were moving into. As we got closer and closer to the city, we got to see for ourselves the extent of the ice storm. The following are pics that Mama took from the car while we were still driving. All of the landscape was covered with ice.

This pic below was the view from the end of our street leading up to our house at the top of the hill...wild!

Luckily, our house was still in one piece...no trees had fallen on it. It was just really, really cold inside =;)

The movers met us at our house on time and just before they finished unloading the last of our boxes, the power was restored...yippee!!!

We even got our cable hooked up in time to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers win their 6th Super Bowl! Of course, Dada had to dress his two good luck charms in their jerseys so that they could cheer on the Steelers properly!!!

"Touchdown!"

That was one heck of an adventure, driving 1400 miles cross country with two small children to move to a town left powerless by a nasty ice storm, but we made it. Now we are just settling in and are excited about this new chapter in our lives.