Captains Log...Day Two

Last night we hit our first major glitch of the trip when I discovered that Tess's pulse ox machine, you know, the one the tells us her heart rate and oxygen, was not working properly. Not exactly a comforting feeling when you have a kid who has needed oxygen at night more often than not over the past few months.

After tinkering with it for a bit (read: hitting it multiple times on it's side and possibly calling it a few colorful names not fit for print), it decided to let me win and started to do it's job. And thanks to Kim at Dr. Stephenson's office, a shiny new one should be waiting at our hotel in Xenia upon our arrival! Now say a prayer that our old one has enough life left in it to get us there before quitting for good.

But we are the Griswolds, excuse me, I mean, the Reidys, and we can roll with the punches.

And in that spirit we woke up this morning bright and early and raring to go!

Okay, so I rolled out at almost eight o'clock, just in time to give Tess her morning meds.  The princess HAD TO BE WOKEN UP at 9:15 so we could get her dressed and out the door. Yes, our little diva does love her sleep!

Meanwhile, the hubs braved the frigid temps and got Tess's car seat switched over from our van to the rented Suburban. THE BIG SUBURBAN. I want you to remember that. Suburbans are big, am I right? It was when he tried to get the wheelchair in the back of the Suburban that a warning flare went off in his brain. He heroically (stubbornly?) tried to ignore it and continued on with packing the dog supplies. Another warning flare shot off. This one was not to be ignored.

I knew when I heard the front door open and peeked around to look at his face that there was trouble afoot.

"We still have tons of stuff left to pack and we're already almost out of room."

Uh....WHAT?!?!

I informed him that, even though I had not been the one out in the cold, struggling with trying to move a car seat, a wheelchair and other irksome items, that there was no way he could be right. I mean really, it's a Suburban for crying out loud! Tons of space! More than enough room! It had all fit in our van! Load her up, baby!

"It's. full. No. more. room." He spoke as if trying to explain to a small child. I shook my head and again informed him that he was wrong. "It's not possible that our van is bigger than that Suburban. How can that be accurate?", I skeptically questioned while giving my best 'Oh Please' expression.

You can imagine how that went over.

The hubs huffed out a big breath and gritted out, "You go out, and you figure out how to load it up. The wheelchair had to be shoved in on it's side. You need to start prioritizing what you absolutely cannot live without."

Hello! I need everything, hence the reason it is all packed up in front of you waiting to be put in the...wait for it...BIG SUBURBAN!

So we both went out and surveyed the situation. Well, I pretended to survey while really just stood around pointing aimlessly at things that needed to get from one vehicle into the other and generally feeling very confused and cold. I'm sure I was a great help. The hubs quickly figured out I was going to be of no use with this dilemma and did his best impression of Tim Gunn (you know, from Project Runway) and "Made it work!". Yes, he got everything in, albeit a tad snug. Snug as in, there is no room for a dog. Anywhere. Well, we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it. Tomorrow's another day and all that.

So I set up Garmin for us and Toy Story 2 for Tess and we were off like a herd of turtles!

The drive was fairly uneventful unless you count almost being side swiped by an eighteen wheeler (TWICE) eventful. Not much to look at although it was pretty as we came in to Pennsylvania. We are here in Wilkes-Barre, PA for the night, all tucked in to our hotel room nice and cozy.

Anther six hour drive is the plan for tomorrow to get us to Mansfield, Ohio which is only 2 hours from our final destination.

It's supposed to snow. Naturally.