MONDAY
Jon and I spent Sunday night separately with Ruby and I at Uncle Bob and Aunt JoAnn's house and Jon down in Quantico. The reason for this was that we had the final inspection scheduled for 8am and he didn't want to have to get up early and make the drive back down there. I kind of wish that I had stayed down there with him just to have one last night in our house, but getting good sleep was more important since we had an eight hour drive ahead of us. As I was getting ready to leave to go down and meet Jon, I got a text message from my best friend saying that she would be driving to Tennessee too (our first stop)! She has family in Nashville and she had been going back and forth about whether to go out and visit and she ended up deciding to go. We decided not to caravan just because she left a little bit ahead of us and didn't need to come as far south as we were before heading east. Somehow though, we all ended up within a few miles of each other for almost the entire drive!
Ru and mama the morning of the first big drive!
These always make me nervous!
Jo's little tribute to Lu. Brobie came along for the ride.
Random sights along the way
Jon and I got on the road Monday morning around 10am. It was later than I had planned, but it ended up working out beautifully. Ruby fell asleep as soon as we got on the road and slept until we were ready to stop for lunch. She then sat contentedly in her seat for another couple of hours until we needed to stop for gas. I nursed her while Jon filled both cars and then she slept until maybe the last ten minutes of the drive as we were looking for a place in Knoxville, TN. I had been keeping in contact with Lisa and she decided to stop in Knoxville for the night as well. Her girls were tired and hungry and the weather was predicted to get a little rough. I was super stoked that we got one last evening with them because her family was my hardest goodbye.
Max and Ruby hang out one more time before a long goodbye
Hanging out, waiting for dinner to arrive
One last photo op with Max and Emy. I'm going to miss these two darlings. I love how they both look kind of terrified. THEY LOVE ME, I SWEAR!
TUESDAY
We said goodbye to Lisa and the girls one last time and headed back out around 8am. We stopped about an hour outside of Memphis to have lunch with Jon's great Aunt Sue and her son at Cracker Barrel. I'm glad we were able to stop and I enjoyed being able to meet more of Jon's extended family.
We continued east after a good lunch and made it to Memphis around 1pm for the Graceland! It was my second time doing the tour and I enjoyed it just as much as the first. The house itself isn't all that large (at least, not compared to what celebrities have nowadays), but it's the way he decorated it and the details. It's really beautiful.
We had originally planned to stay overnight in Memphis, but by the time we finished the tour, Ru was exhausted so we decided to see if we could push a little further west. She fell asleep as soon as we buckled her in and we ended up making it to Little Rock, AR!We found a hotel and then went out for a surprisingly good Mexican food dinner before crashing at the hotel.
WEDNESDAY
We slept in a little bit and I think we left the hotel close to 9am. We got from Little Rock to Mt. Pleasant, where we stopped briefly to see some longtime friends of Jon's family, Larry and Zena. They took us to lunch at a delicious local BBQ place and Jon got to look at a bunch of old cars in the salvage yard that Larry owns. It was a nice visit and again, good to meet people who have known Jon for a while.
We continued on and drove through Dallas and on to Abilene before we got tired and hungry. We had Chili's for dinner and then hung out at the hotel until bedtime.
Ru does some driving!
Ready to turn in after a long day
THURSDAY
We were ready to go by 9am again and Jon suggested that we try to make it all the way home. At first I thought he was insane because it was a 13 hour drive not counting gas, food, and nursing breaks, but once we got halfway I started to feel like maybe we could do it. We were both missing the older two girls and eager to make it home, plus Ru was being unbelievably cooperative and I was fine pushing through as long as she was ok. So we set our sights on Phoenix!
Still in a good mood!
Well, I don't know what happened, but we hit Las Cruces, NM and I suddenly developed an awful headache. At first I thought my neck and shoulders were stiff from being in the car for so long, but later on I started to suspect that I was allergic to something in the air. I had the air blowing in from outside and along with the throbbing pain in my head, my eyes started to feel like they were swollen. We pushed a bit further to Deming and when I didn't feel any better after dinner, we resigned ourselves to waiting until morning to finish out the drive.
FRIDAY
We hit the road early and and were home by 2pm after one stop for lunch at In & Out (the place Jon missed the most). 
The girls were ecstatic though we could tell that they'd had a lot of fun with grandma and grandpa. We hung out at the house for the rest of the afternoon and then took the older two to dinner while grandma and grandpa spent some time with Tiny who I think was thrilled to be out of the car.
Overall the drive out went exceptionally well especially with Ruby. I expected A LOT more screaming and having to stop, but she did fantastic and I don't think I could have asked for more from her. I think out of the entire five days and 2300+ miles, we only had to make two stops specifically to give her a break. Other than that, she was fine just stopping when we needed gas and food. The hours flew by really quickly and nothing went wrong with either vehicle (not that we expected anything, but you never know). We did have one small incident with a blown out tire flying out in front of the van. It happened so quickly that I didn't have time to react and I hit it. I was shaken and the front bumper is going to need some repairs, but I'll take that over an accident or having some kind of major car breakdown in the middle of nowhere or running out of gas which almost happened to each one of us on different occasions......
I was a bit disappointed that we didn't really get to enjoy more of what each state had to offer, but I think I may have been unrealistic in that expectation. When I mapped out our trip, I had us stopping in specific locations for cuisine (Memphis BBQ, Tex-Mex and TX BBQ) and activities (historical sites, museums, etc). While it would have been nice to do those things, it was really more important to take advantage of Ruby's disposition and get as far west as we could each day. I also planned on us being on the road by 6am each day, but 8-9am worked much better because she was in a good mood at that hour and I think that we needed the extra few hours of sleep. If we'd had like two weeks to get from VA to AZ, it would have made sense to spend more time in each state and do those things, but with an arrival date of "ASAP", it just wasn't possible.
We've been having a good time here in Phoenix since we arrived! It's taken a few days to adjust from feeling like we're just on vacation to realizing that, hey! We actually live here now! It's getting a little bit more real though as we've been on the hunt for a house and Jon started work yesterday (and had a great day). We are really hoping to find a house soon and get into a good, solid routine. Unfortunately, the fact that we are currently staying in a city that is two hours away from where we will eventually be living has made it complicated to enroll Arianna in school so for now, she's signed up with the Arizona Virtual Academy through K12 which is an online public charter. They will provide us with the curriculum and materials and she will be doing school online at home. As many of you know, I have gone back and forth about homeschooling since Ari started kindergarten and I've always been too afraid to try it. Right now, this makes the most sense though. If Ari still really wants to be in a classroom after we move, we will look into enrolling her at the school that I'm sold on in that area. If K12 works out, it's portable and we'll stick with it! Right now though, our priority is finding a house.
PS: I finally got Ruby's eight month entry up! You can view it here.
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