En Route

We had some good times on our drive south!  We broke it into two days so neither was particularly long.  Although it's easier to travel with an infant than a toddler, in my humble opinion.  The drive back from Michigan was a little....louder....than the drive up :)

On Saturday, we drove just a little off the beaten path to make a stop in Lafayette, IN to see TWO of my former roommates.  They both live in the same town now, what are the chances?!?  So it was very nice to see them both, even though we were running a bit behind and got there later than we had wanted.

Our first stop was to see Renee and Andrew Gaarder.  Renee and I lived together in Provo while we were getting our master's - at Marinda's place!  Andrew and Renee met in the same ward that Andrew and I did, so it was fun to all visit together again. 

They have a HUGE dog, Moses, and Eve loved him.  It's hard to say who she loved more - the dog or all the pig paraphernalia that Renee has :) 

But she couldn't bounce on the tummies of the pig stuff like she could the dog!  He was so good - just sat there and took it as a baby jumped up and down on him. 

Ignore how gross I look from several hours in the car, but here's Renee and I.  It was so much fun to visit them and see their darling apartment! 

Next, we drove just a few minutes (they're seriously that close - even in the same ward!) to see Lori and Cody Short.  Lori and I lived together for three years at BYU. 

Unfortunately, Cody and Jack, their oldest son, had to leave shortly after we arrived (we were running at least a couple of hours late at this point after staying at Renee and Andrew's longer than planned), so we visited with Lori and Grayson, who is a few months older than Eve. 

No chance to bounce on their dog, but a playmate her own age - Eve was in heaven!  Grayson shared his toys and Eve shared her goldfish - they make a great team!

Grayson even found my shoes before we left and took them for a spin.  He was remarkably steady in them!  And such a cutie!  Eve was smitten :)

Again, we were so glad to be able to make the stop - even if it wasn't very long - and it was awesome to visit with Lori again!

After that fun break, we got strapped back in the car and finished our drive for the day - to St. Louis.  I'm pretty sure I took pictures of that on our way up a few months ago, so I didn't bother this time.  We stayed at a hotel there, right next to a cigarette shop in kind of a creepy area.  We made a wrong turn trying to get into the Holiday Inn parking lot, and ended up in the cigarette parking lot.  A couple of guys approached the car, trying to ask Andrew something and get him to roll down the window.  We booked it!

They had a guard watching the hotel parking lot, so even though it wasn't close to our room, we parked under the lights by the front entrance.  And prayed our car wouldn't get broken into with all our stuff sitting in plain sight. 

We survived that night break-in free and went to church at a local ward the next morning where Andrew ran in to a girl he went to high school with.  Small world.

Then it was back in the car for the final stretch to Dallas.  Well, not quite to Dallas.  We stayed for a few nights at my grandma's house about an hour north of Dallas while waiting to close on our house. 

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful.  Eve passed the time by catching up with friends and family....

And trying to keep us from getting lost....

We arrived safely that evening and began the fun process of closing on a house, moving in, cleaning, unpacking, and starting work.  Thank goodness we had help!