Amazing Race Of The Leonard's

My mom and I had a slight delay before we head the road. As you earlier read, my mom's clutch went out on her car just hours before we were to leave. There is no way that anyone could have seen this coming and trust me we did have her car taken in and worked on before we planned to leave so you can imagine how bad our mechanic felt when we were bringing it back in. He was incredible though. Craig pulled all of his guys off what they were doing so that they could get my mom's car up and running that day. He is closed on the weekends and it was Friday so you can imagine how thankful we were.

My dad and brother headed out right on schedule. They left Friday right around three in the afternoon. My mom and I hit the road running bright and early (4am) Saturday morning. My brother and dad's delay came at about that time in the morning too. They called to inform us they locked the keys in the truck and had to wait for a locksmith only to remember that Cory had OnStar after they had already called the locksmith. So OnStar unlocked the truck and the boys waited patiently for the locksmith to show up.

The trip was long but I think it is safe to say that the dogs and Ethan did better than I did. I think that I was so exhausted and didn't even know it until I sat down in the car for the long trip. Once my body realized that I was going to be sitting for awhile it took all I had to stay awake. I felt horrible for my mom who ended up driving for most of the trip.

The dogs did amazing! They did even better than I thought that they would. The only time we had to stop for them is when we stopped to get gas. No extra stops and that made it really nice. They slept for a lot of the trip. Poor Miracle decided by the time we got to Nebraska that she didn't want to be in the car anymore! She was really cute though and we got her back in the car only to get pictures like this one. . .

Faith hated being in the back with Miracle because Miracle takes up so much room. So she kept trying to jump over the back of the seat into the back seat.

Ethan did incredible. I was really, really impressed with him. He slept for a lot of the ride as well and required no extra stops either. We would get him changed at pretty much each of the stops and fed him along the way in the car. He hardly got fussy and when he did it was always just for a moment or two.

Entering Nebraska

Leaving Nebraska

We drove straight through and only pulled over at a truck stop to rest once. We spent about two and a half to three hours at the stop before hitting the road again. My mom and I each took our moments of getting turned around once. I took the wrong exit but we noticed right away, so no time lost and my mom thought we missed an exit we should have taken, however, we didn't.

George Washington Bridge

My mom HATED driving through New York and she ESPECIALLY hated the George Washington Bridge. The toll stops sucked but as bad for us as they did for my brother and dad. At one stop alone they paid around $37 to get through. My dad was great though because every time we told him where we were he would respond with "Oh, while you have about 20 minutes until ...blah blah... and then another 20 minutes until ...blah blah..." It always turned out to be much longer than 20 minutes! My mom started saying that he was on hiking time because whenever they would go hiking and ask someone how much longer until the top they were always told "Oh, about 20 minutes."

My dad and brother arrived late afternoon on Sunday and we arrived at 10pm Sunday night. Boy, can I tell you how excited I was to see Spencer though I think he was more excited to see Ethan. He walked right out got Ethan out of his car seat and disappeared back into the house. It wasn't until we had the car all unpacked that he came and found me to really say hello. We got everything situated and headed for bed.

Welcome To Our New Home!