Road Trip 2009.1 - Wheeling, WV

You would think that right after the holidays... we would want to stay home, settle back into a routine - you know - JUST REST. Nope, not the Hanks Gang. Instead, we decided to plan our first road trip of 2009!

We wanted to meet up with the Patton-Schmidt family... and since we needed a good half way spot to meet... we settled on Wheeling, West Virginia. On Monday of that week, Tim and I had our first "DISH" installed at our house. Instead of our usual 3 channels... we are now the proud owners of over 100 channels. No, I have no idea WHY...we still watch the same three channels. However... I decided that the SMART thing to do would be to check out the WEATHER CHANNEL. You know... make sure that we would have good driving conditions, and such.

Yeah - a lot of good that did.

We headed out on Wednesday morning... initially it was a beautiful day to travel. (keyword: INITIALLY)

On the way... I started to realize a few things that I forgot. Like, a bathing suit. It wouldn't be fair of me to go to a hotel and let Jane be in charge of all TEN kids. So just the other side of Columbus, I stopped to get the kids lunch, and hit the local Wal-Mart. It had started to spit snow when we went in to the Wal-Mart... but by the time we came back out (no bathing suits to be found...) there was a good 1/2 inch on the car! Uh, oh.

We decided we better get back on the road and head towards Wheeling. UGH. Four (4) hours later... we pulled into the Spring Hill Suites... thankful to make it in one piece. :)

We had such a great time! The kids were all so excited to see one another. It had been almost 2 years since Jacqueline and Sara had seen each other, a year and a half for Karly... and the last time we saw the boys was on our pick up trip in April of last year! It was so good to finally see them all here, in the USA... with their forever family!

There was plenty of action... we made a run to Target (bathing suit acquisition), swam in the pool, watched movies, stayed up way too late, ate lots of food, played games, danced, did "hair" and make up... and before we were ready, it was time to head home.

Let me just say... the trip home was MUCH quicker. The roads were clear and the sun was shining.

Despite the fact that we had to say good-bye...it was good to know that this good-bye was just a prelude to our next road trip. I'm already starting to make plans...