So I am way behind on my blogging I know and I apologize. It’s been a crazy month. Although we have been officially moved onto the bus for a few weeks now, it was not until Friday that we actually left Colorado for new adventures.

The challenges continue daily, but we are definitely getting better at diffusing them from crisis to benign irritants. On Friday we were delayed from leaving Golden, CO for six hours waiting for a repair to be done. We had to drive all night in order to be in Albuquerque the next morning, so we were a bit stressed. We ended up treating ourselves to a night in a hotel because, once again, the water wasn’t working on the bus. Bugs, bugs, bugs.

Albuquerque to be honest was not my favorite place. We did meet a few incredible people…Maria and Nick from Whole Foods and Kent Ponder an extremely interesting man and professor of linguistics. I am always in awe of how before I leave each place, even those that don’t result in any measurable success; I know exactly why I was there. I am convinced that I was in Albuquerque specifically to meet Mr. Ponder…so ponder that.

We decided that we desperately need a nanny on this trip with us. Brock felt that I should put an ad on a nanny site and I honestly thought he was out of his mind to think that anyone worthwhile would come on this crazy adventure for the next 10 months for 250.00 a week. Within 24 hours we had 49 applicants, a dozen of which were highly qualified and 6 of whom we really, really liked. Go figure. We couldn’t find a qualified nanny to save our lives when we were living in a beautiful 4,000 square foot home in Evergreen, Colorado. We made a decision on who we are hiring and are just waiting to find out if she can start when we need her…yesterday…Ok, latest end of March.

As you are probably realizing about now, these blogs will act as a trip journal…sometimes serious, sometimes entertaining…but always real.

So here are the funnies so far. As a person with an advertising background, I always notice both incredibly good and incredibly bad (or odd) billboards. The two that stuck out so far (one in Albuquerque and one in Arizona ~ the part that still looks like Albuquerque) are:

A billboard for Cracker Barrel restaurant that went like this: A visual of a big spoon of corn…yes niblets with a headline that reads “Coming up Fresh.” Now I don’t know about how other people read this but for us “corn” and “coming up” when you are on a bus with kids…well it didn’t work.

The other one was a billboard that said ” 241 Fake Discounts” I got it…the whole knock off’s for sale, but they really didn’t do well with the wording.

The classic line of the day however, came from the mouth of a babe named Cruz. We were at an absolutely horrible Chinese restaurant on Route 66 (I know we deserved it) and we were all reading our fortunes. Of course Blaze at 4 can’t actually read but he pretended and made up a fortune that sounded believable. Cruz decides to follow suit and holds his up and reads it. His words exactly “You will soon have a wet diaper.”We laughed ourselves to sleep in a very barren landscape…but we laughed and woke up happy.

I am in awe of this journey. Sometimes I’m not sure how I got here but I like where I’m going. I’m in awe of the people we meet, the best and the worst. I am in awe of how close I feel to Brock after so many things that tried hard to tear us apart. I am in awe of my kids and feel lucky to know that if you keep your eyes open and your heart as well, you will find a gem in every day no matter where you are or what you have.

God Bless