It Wasn't Meant to Be (from New Orleans)

We decided a month ago or so that we needed to take a trip to New Orleans to see Ryan's family. The long drive is torture, but we're adults and sometimes you just gotta suck it up. So he scheduled two days of vacation and we arranged to spend one night with his elderly aunt and the next two nights with his dad and stepmom.

So many things have gone wrong, I really don't think we should have come.

First, the elderly aunt got the date wrong (even though I made sure I wrote it down in the card I sent) and is currently off gambling with her friends on the Mississippi coast somewhere. So not only did we not get to stay at her house, but we won't get to see her at all. On the upside, she can't really complain about not seeing us often enough because we tried.

Second, when I tried to move the car around to make loading it up easier, I discovered that we had a dead battery. Ryan took off work early to go get a new one and we wound up leaving an hour later than we originally wanted to.

Third, we forgot that disconnecting the battery means that our stupid "anti-theft" stereo gets locked up. We discovered it about fifty miles into the trip. Do you have any idea how long a six hour trip can be with absolutely no music? And since we refuse to pay the local Honda dealer $50 to reset it for us, I guess we've got six hours of misery coming up for the trip home, too.

Fourth, Liam came down with a 102 degree fever last night. And we can't tell if the permanent wet spot on his shirt is from snot or drool. I know it's not vomit because that hit me and Ryan instead. He is super grumpy and will only sleep if he's being held (by me, which is both annoying and heartwarming at the same time). I think I slept about three hours last night.

I can't imagine what more we're in store for if we truly weren't meant to come here. Plague? Pestilence? Fire? Flood? I just pray we can make it back home in one piece.