Kristy, Kristy, Bo Bristy, Banana Fana...

Weekend before last LB, HP, Blake and I went on the yearly grand adventure to my good friend Kristy's house. She lives in Georgia and about every six months we try to get together. We take turns making the trip. I usually see her this time of the year and she tries to come around Hailey's birthday.

This was the first year that LB has been able to join our little adventure. Most of the time she is busy with school and work and what not. But, this year we were able to steal her away for the weekend! We left out at a decent time.
Planned Departure Time= 10:30 a.m. Actual Departure Time = 11:30 a.m.

If you knew us...well, Lori rather, you would know that in itself was a great feat. Now, it is only supposed to take 3.5 to 4 hours to get there. Granted, I have NEVER made it in under 5 and with traffic and construction it has taken me even longer. I felt confident that this time we would get there in a timely manner because we were leaving so early and most other times I would be leaving from work and hitting rush hour taffic in Atlanta....icky.

Not even two hours in my check engine light comes on. WHAT? Who? Where? That has never happened before! So I pull off at the next exit and pull out the handy dandy car manual. Hmmm....let's see. Plenty of Oil. Check. Gas cap on tightly. Check. Next step is take the car to a dealership!? Grrr....

I called Brad to get moral support and that turned into...just get it fixed. lol (to his defense he was asleep when I called) I saw a big rig shop across from where I stopped and decided to see if there was anyone nice enough to look at my car, just to see if there was anything obviously wrong with it that I wouldn't be able to see myself. I drove over, got out of the car and knocked on the little greasy plastic window a scraggledy looking man was sitting behind. He motioned for me to come inside. I peeked in the door and told him my situation and asked if he would be so kind as to just look to see if he could tell one way or another about my car. A ton of help he was! He looked at it alright. Told me my "brain box" (I assume he was talking about the computer)didn't sound good and sent me on my way. Lori and I were laughing so hard (after he couldn't see us of course).

After contacting a friend that lives in Anniston (which was only a few miles away) and finding out that there was a dealership there, we headed that way. We drove past EVERY dealership (at least 6) possible and didn't see a Toyota place. We stopped at a Walgreen's so I could go inside and just use a phone book to call the place and find out where in the world they could be. While the lady behind the counter reached for the book I mentioned where we needed to get too and it just so happened that the man standing in line new exactly where we needed to go and would let us follow him there. HOW NICE! Right? That was until we realized we were following a man in a big truck from TEXAS that knew we were having car trouble "over the hill" in the opposite direction of where my friend told me the place would be.

Even though I kept saying....why are we still following him? We kept following him. Lori and I came up with tons of stories about the guy on the way there I bet we rode around for 30 or 40 minutes. Thankfully, he took us strait to the dealership and did a little U-turn and waved good bye as he pulled out. {Mr. Man, if you are reading this, Thank you so much!!!!}

I was not at all happy about having to wrestle with two bored kids at the dealership. They were real nice and when I told them that we hadn't had any lunch (or breakfast for that matter) they offered to shuttle us to the Quintard Mall while we waited for the car to be looked at. SWEEET!! So that is just what we did. We had lunch, looked around and even splurged on a Great American Cookie.

After that we were shuttled back to find out that my car didn't have a safety issue. I just needed a new catalytic converter....something to do with emissions. So, off we went (again) to Kristy's house.


YEA! On the road again.....I am so glad we are on the road again! By this time it is....near 3:00 if I remember correctly. We are hauling it too. Not only did we not want to be on the road forever but Kristy had a Bunco night planned with her friends and we were invited to come. It seemed like an eternity but we finally pulled up in her drive way around 7:30 p.m. (They are an 1 hour ahead of us)

We unloaded our things and attempted to get the kids settled in. Kristy had arranged for a nice lady named Gina to keep the kids for us. She had Blake, Hailey, Kristy's little one Helen and her daughter. She sorta reminded me of the Mom off of The Incredibles....except maybe on speed. :)


I called once (well, it actually took three calls) to check on the kids and the screaming and crying and hollering and phones hanging up let me know that they were at least, all still alive. lol

The trip up was eventful. Our time at Kristy's was nice. We visited laughed and laughed at people falling down or comedians on you tube. This is Brian saying:


"I KILL YOU!"

LOL Funny huh!?

The kids played well and LB and I even ran off to have pedicures on Saturday.
We also were able to visit with the people at Monroe Church of Christ. A great place if you are ever out that way.

This trip was fun...one to remember for me. I know I am a bit long winded but it was such a weird trip up I had to share. Thank you Kristy for allowing us to come and visit! Here are some more pictures to of us. Mostly of our last day and the ride back home. We went to church, had lunch, drove for a while, stopped to feed Blake, stopped a wee bit later for some ice cream at Maggie Moo's (one of my favorite stops) and then we were back just in time for services at our home congregation!