Raising Arizona

So we got home from Georgia last Tuesday night then promptly headed out to Arizona Wednesday night.  I think I am beginning to understand the meaning of whirlwind...and we have only just begun.  (Did I mention that we are going to Oregon in 2 weeks for one brother's wedding reception and another brother's baby blessing.  Yep we love 12 hour drives so much we want to do it again and again.)  Anyway we took the kids with us to Arizona for a couple of reasons.  First it was Easter weekend and it just didn't seem right to leave them on a holiday, second we were driving so we didn't have much of an excuse not to take them with us and third we couldn't ask Ben's parents to take the kids again after just having them for 5 days and we couldn't ask my parents because they aren't close enough for impromptu babysitting...although if we had asked I know that our parents would have gladly watched the kids.  This trip to Arizona was on again off again for about 3 days.  We loved Georgia and thought that going to Arizona was a bit pointless, but felt like we needed to give them a chance, Ben's co-workers all thought that he needed to see all of the programs before he made a decision so even though when Ben left for work Wednesday morning the trip was off by the time he got back home it was back on.  So why not get a head start we thought.  We packed up the kids and headed out around 9 o'clock that night.  We hoped they would sleep through most of the drive and that we would be able to get a good start on the driving.  Oh how wrong we were.  We left as a storm was starting but thought that we would get through it quickly.  Wrong.  We must have been in the middle of the storm and it was with us all night.  The kids did sleep for awhile.  The drive was really scary.  At one point we almost got in an accident.  You know one of those "thank goodness we said a prayer before we left" type situation.  We should have been in an accident.  We decided to stop so we could get off of the road even though we hadn't gotten as far as we had hoped.  We stopped in a little town with 2 hotels, one was full and the other had one room left but it was $80 and it had a broken T.V. so we decided to go to the next town which we thought was just a few mile down the road.  Wrong again.  We were on the road for another hour at least and the roads only seemed to get worse.  Then the best part...Van started throwing up.  Not just a little a lot.  We couldn't stop because the roads were too bad and even if we did there was nothing we could do in the middle of no where.  Of course at this point the other two kids had woken up so all three kids were wide awake.  I have to say the kids were really good through all of this.  I think they could sense how stressful the situation was.  So on we drove hoping to get some where, any where soon.  Around 2:00 in the morning we ended up in Pangutich Utah and stopped at a crappy hotel for the night.  We got Van cleaned up in the shower because of course there was no tub.  And cleaned up everything else the best we could in the little tiny bathroom sink.  At this point we are tired and very frustrated.  So as we climb in bed for the night Lillie says "I think we need to say a family prayer, because I think we are all pretty frustrated."  Sweet Lillie.  So we did and then went to sleep hoping to put the events of them past few hours behind us.  The next day was just more driving.  Until Joseph threw up on the floor of a convenient store bathroom.  Not very convenient.  Poor Ben had to clean it up.  Finally we got to Arizona.  The next day Ben met with faculty and got a better feel for the program.  While Ben was at the school the kids and I went to the Phoenix zoo which was huge.  I think in the three hours we were there we only saw about half of it.  Once Ben got back to the hotel we decided to cut our trip short and just head home.  We wanted to sleep in our own bed and be done traveling for awhile.  So just one day after arriving in Arizona we headed home.  After a long drive and a quick stop at the Grand Canyon we got home late the next night.  So now that we have seen all of the schools you may be wondering what is our decision.  Well we have made a decision but we aren't ready to announce anything yet.  I think we need a couple days to let everything settle and make sure we still fell good about it.  But we will let everyone know soon.  I know you are all so anxious to hear, so we will try not to prolong the suspense for too long.