Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Fashionably late.... always. But not fashionably. 

This should have been written 2 months ago.  It finally dawned on me.... "bribe the kid with veggie bacon.... duh".  So here I am pounding out our "move story" while Honey Badger chomps away on veggie bacon, Little Bear is playing (probably buying more) games on the iPad in her room and Tim is working. BTW, it's Sunday... but FB didn't hire him for nuttin. However, we are going out soon... speaking of...that babysitter better get here asap! 
Anyway, I'm trying to piece it all back together, because well, I've traveled a lot since our big move, gotten little sleep, drank too much wine, and just completely forgotten many details; probably for the best.  It was baaaaaaad.

I will spare as many details as possible, because nobody actually cares.  But, I need to document.

TRAIN
1. We stayed in a hotel our last 2 nights in Baltimore, since the movers came and took all of our junk.
2. We then took a commuter train from Baltimore to DC where we then loaded onto Amtrak... thank God for sleeper cars.  If you plan to be on a train for longer than 8 hours, do first class... there is no other option!
3.  We spent one night on that train and were dropped off in Chicago.  We spent half the day at Navy Pier where I got frost bite and left my newest hat in a taxi cab.  COOLIO. 
4.  After we walked up and down Navy Pier (on the inside), we hopped a cab back to Penn Station where we loaded onto a different sleeper car to finish the second and last left of the train trip to Texarkana.  Yes, Texarkana has a tiny train station (on the Arkansas side, ewwww.  KIDDING!). But, it is small and gross. 
5.  All is fair in love and train trips:  and why wouldn't Gabriel and I both puke on the train?  I mean, it only makes sense for an already stressful move/trip to become even worse, right?  Only for the Rice's.
In all we spent 2 days and 2 nights on the train.
We made it to our hometown in what felt like millions of tiny pieces.  But, wait, we're not even to our final destination...uggghhhhh.  Everyone ended up getting sick over the course of that week we were in Texarkana; Tim, Sophia, and my mom. 

AUTOMOBILE
We then rented a car and drove 3 hours to visit Tim's parents.  We brought the stomach bug to them too! We felt real awesome about that....
On our final day in Texas, we said goodbye to Tim's family and drove another hour to the airport in Dallas to FINALLY board for San Francisco.

PLANE
My mom went with us, because NOBDOY wants to fly with Honey Badger.  Adults MUST outnumber the children.  It's my only rule when traveling.  Nobody saw Tim the entire flight... that Joker sat about 10 aisles away from us.  I don't blame him..but i was pissed, haha!  We're obviously dumb for putting Gabriel on a 4 hour flight his very first time flying. They did great considering they hate me, their ears popped for 4 hours straight, they were starving the entire time, and were never comfortable... at least that's what it seemed like.  In reality, they both slept for an hour (seemed like 15 minutes) and were overall happy.  It's so much easier traveling with Grammy..thanks mom!

LESSONS:

I learned two extremely important things during this move. 

1. I hate traveling. (although I will be doing it much more now... awesome)
2. Lollipops solve nearly everything.  Let me explain this one a bit: 

A kid barfs on a train?  Lollipop= he's happy
Siblings fight in the car over a movie? Lollipop= I get to listen to music instead
Your kids scream during the descent on a plane? Lollipop=it's suddenly a peaceful landing

You're welcome. 

Pictures coming soon, because well..i ran out of veggie bacon.  GOTTA JET!