What a day...and night!

Yesterday Jay & the kids went to the state basketball tournaments in Des Moines. Some friends of ours had a daughter playing so they wanted to see her. I had dogs coming and going, so I wasn't able to go.

Jay was getting the kids from school at 11:30. He and another dad were taking our 3 kids and their 3 kids. They show at both the county & state fairs and we are good friends with them.

School got out at 10:00 due to the incoming rain/sleet/ice which was to be followed by snow. Ashley & Chelsea brought Austin & the other 3 kids home to our place and Jay & the other dad decided to leave earlier to allow more time. You know, just because schools are letting out and the roads are getting bad doesn't mean they should go does it? I personally thought they were crazy, but they assured me they'd be fine.

They made it to DM fine and watched our friends team win so they will play again...Congrats to them! Jay called me and said they were going to watch other teams and would come home later. I kept sending them updated weather & road condition text messages.

About 8:00 Jay called and said they were heading home. Rod (the other dad who rode with him) has a wife who is a nurse at a hospital in DM. They were going to meet her and Jay would drive their one vehicle home, while Rod drove the other, so his wife wasn't alone. The roads were horrible and I begged them to just stay in a motel for the night, but noooooooooo.

Ashley is horrible when it comes to riding in a car. Always has been. She gets bored very quickly and then gets cranky and everything suddenly becomes "stupid". Austin gets bored and then tries to find ways to amuse himself, which usually involves tormenting his sisters....which causes fights....especially when he already has one sister who is cranky.

Ashley kept texting me asking how the roads were ahead of them. Then her messages turned to things like "this is so stupid that we're driving home. It's taking forever. Ugh." I knew that meant she had reached her "patience for sitting in a vehicle" limit and I thought "Oh Jay, it's going to get ugly!" LOL

I had the DOT road map up and kept updating it to get the latest road conditions. There were major accidents which kept closing parts of roads and/or exits and Jay & Rod had to keep rethinking things in case they needed to take an alternate route. Rod & his wife live down the road from us, so they would normally be taking the same exit off the interstate we would.

I got a text from Chelsea letting me know that they were getting closer to the Randall exit (the one we take to get home) and I felt a little bit of relief until the next update on the DOT site came a couple of minutes later. Here is what I saw:


Accident\Incident
Interstate 35 northbound: at Exit 133 serious accident with injuries.
Exit closed.
last updated today at 10:37 PM

THAT IS OUR EXIT! I was so scared! I immediately called the girls. I didn't want to call Jay because I wanted to be sure both hands were on the wheel if he was still driving. Ashley answered right away and said no, they were fine and had just taken that exit and there was nothing there. I found out later that Exit 133 is the Ellsworth exit, which is the one after Randall. Whew! Ashley informed me that it was still stupid they were driving home. I told her that, she is probably right so she should ask her dad to pull over to let her out so she can walk the rest of the way home. I'm guessing she didn't appreciate my sarcasm, because I didn't get anymore texts from her. LOL

FINALLY at 11:02pm my beloved husband and my 3 dear children walked in the door. I was so relieved and I sent up a thank you prayer to God for keeping them safe. Then I went over and gave Jay a love punch and told him to never do that to me again! LOL He informed me that from now on, no matter how short of a road trip it might be, all 3 kids were to at the very least bring their ipods along so they have something to do other than pick on each other and fight.

They ended up having a 3 hr drive home on a trip that normally takes 1 hr. Poor Jay was exhausted by the time they got home. He plopped into the living room chair and look drained. I made sure the kids all got into bed and when I came back, there sat my sweetie, asleep in the chair. I woke him up and got him to bed and then I went back into my office to play a bazillion hands of solitaire on the computer. I was still wired from worrying about them, and my brain wouldn't settle down.