Let me tell you, we were nervous, packing up our life into a 24 foot trailer and driving 4000+ kilometers with two children aged two and four. We kept telling ourselves that this was an adventure and with such an attitude nothing could go wrong…well, at least if something went wrong, you could chalk it up as being part of the adventure and a great story in the making.

At the ‘four mile corner’ in Grande Prairie (about a mile from our house) Mikail exclaimed with exasperation that ‘this is a loooong drive!’ Oh boy!

One hour into the drive we stopped for coffee at a Tim Horton’s and on our way back to the truck we saw a BIG problem with our hitch. We weren’t going anywhere until the next morning when we could buy a new hitch. Thankfully a hotel was right there in our parking lot and we checked in and stayed the night. I think that we were relieved to not go all the way to Edmonton right away. It had been a long day and was already 10 p.m. No one complained. We all took in the breathtaking sunset from our room in the Paradise Inn. Our last one in the northern prairies.

Because of our delay, our prebooked hotels were all changed and we got to stay at a ‘Ritz’ in North Battleford. My goodness. The history in that room is beyond my comprehension. The hole in the door where the deadbolt had been…hmmm…the homeless gathering around our truck and trailer asking for cigarettes made us a little uneasy to leave it out there in the open downtown parking lot. Our whole lives were in that trailer. But, you know what? I whole lot of prayer and we had the best night’s sleep of the whole entire trip, right there in the falling apart Travel Lodge Motel. And our belongings were safe and sound throughout the night.

Now how do you handle 8+ hours in a vehicle each day for 7 days? Well, there was one day that was only 3 hours and honestly, that was the longest day of all.  I must say that the kids did way better than we could ever have imagined. No one got motion sick. Olivia complained of a sore bum and back a lot, but we taught her how to lift her body up and shake that booty to give her legs, back and bum a break. It was too cute. Jason encouraged her to squeeze her cheeks, meaning her bum cheeks and she of course took it as her facial cheeks, so you can imagine her hoisting her body up and scrunching up her face to squeeze her ‘cheeks’.

I over prepared activities etc. for the drive. I hope to write about what we did to entertain the kids on the drive soon.

But for now I will leave you with this photo of our life, packed away, sitting in the cow pasture as we wait to find housing. Hopefully we find something tonight. We all need a place to rest our heads together. Jason is staying at an Inn now while the kids and I are at the farm an hour and a half away.