Day One

If any of you have ever traveled with children, you know how much work it is to actually get out of the house. After a day of doing nothing, and I mean nothing, but laundry (I think about 10 loads by the time I was done) and then packing everything, I think we're all ready to go first thing in the morning. Well, then you have to get everyone ready for the day, which always takes longer than it should and then you have to get all the paraphernalia, people, stuff, etc. in the car. I have some hereditary disease where I have to clean my house before we leave on a trip. I think it's because my mom always did and I hate coming home from vacations so much as it is, that the thought of coming home to a messy house is almost unbearable. So, I do it to make me happier to come home. Also, I know that this is a bit morbid, but what if something happened to us while we were gone and someone had to go into our house? Needless to say, by the time I am ready to leave, my family's been in the car waiting for me for way too long. I go out into the garage to get something as I am preparing to leave and all of the kids are ready to go. At this point, they are waiting patiently, but by the time my rear is actually in the car and we are pulling out of the driveway, my entire family (led by Austin) is singing at the top of their lungs, "Here we sit like birds in the wilderness, birds in the wilderness, birds in the wilderness. Here we sit like birds in the wilderness, waiting for Mom to come." Off we go...finally.

So the kids are all excited to finally be on the road. We get no more than 2 miles when I get this nagging feeling that we need to get new tires before we drive out into the middle of nowhere. One of our back tires has had a slow leak for awhile and I just felt like we needed to get it taken care of. I almost didn't dare say anything because the kids (not to mention Austin) would be so annoyed, but I couldn't ignore it. So, our first stop was to get tires. Woo hoo! I was definitely wrong about the kids' attitudes. They thought it was the coolest thing ever that they got to stay in the car while it was being jacked up. Who knew?
Just about every time (it seems, anyway) we head down south, Austin likes to take a stop in Parawon where his dad grew up and his paternal grandparents are buried. So, we take a pit stop in Parawon and we head over to the cemetery. I have to tell you that Austin has a little obsession with cemeteries. Well, not really cemeteries, but as part of his geneological duties he feels like he needs to take pictures of headstones. It's not a bad idea, seeing as how you can get most of the accurate info that you need from one picture. So, we pay a visit to the graves of his grandparents (although it might sound like I am, I am not complaining about this...I think it's very sweet), but Austin then decides that we need to search out any and all other Orton's in the entire cemetery, something it feels like he's done a million times already. However, this time he did remember to take a picture of a headstone that he didn't have. It's one of his main ancestors (Orson Owen Orton, or as we so lovingly nicknamed him, "O to the third" or "O cubed"), so I guess it turned out to be worth it! Austin has passed his love of headstones on to Paige, who insisted on going around and picking up any loose fake flowers and decorating this particular headstone. It's all a little strange to me, but at least it's a productive and free hobby, right?:)