Our Trip...

I'll start off with pictures first and LONG LONG details after. The girls with great grandma and grandpa Brooks

I LOVE this picture of the girls with their grandpa.

At the zoo...

Touching the stingrays with Aunt Heather.

Okay so we had a wonderful time on our trip. We went to the zoo, spent time with the family. It was great to see Aaron again after his return from Costa Rica. And the girls loved him. Kamden has been asking about him since we left. And she's also been asking for her aunt Heather... well she calls her "Heaber." Anyways... on Thursday Brandon got an email from the Hwy. Patrol saying he had to be in Columbia at 9 am on Tuesday for testing. Wonderful news horrible timing. Luckily we got insurance on our tickets so we paid the $300 to change the day to go home to Monday and I'm waiting to hear back if we will get reimbursed.

So we head home on Monday get into Charlotte at 12... an hour later then what we were suppose to since it was snowing in Detroit. No biggie.. we planned to drive to Columbia where we paid $160 for a hotel and after Brandon's testing we planned to head home. All is great until we get to the car.... Brandon cranked it up and I noticed it kept making a funny noise and then BAM it cuts off. Hmmm... okay weird. So it kept happening and all these weird numbers kept going across the screen. So its going on about 1:30 and we have no idea what to do. We had 10 minutes to make a decision because the parking lot was closing and the shuttles back to the airport were getting ready to make their last round............

So we grab a couple of things and the girls with their car seats and catch the last shuttle back the airport. By this time its 2 am. We HAVE to get to Columbia. Tuesday was the last day for testing before July academy and the next one isn't until January. Luckily 1 rental car place was still open and had a car. We pay $80 and hop in a car and are on our way. 4 am we get to Columbia put the girls in their rooms in their cribs. Brandon went to bed. I didn't sleep at all because I was so stressed out and nervous about what we were going to do.

Tuesday Brandon went to his test and my mom came and got the girls and me from the hotel since checkout was at 12. She dropped me off at the academy so I could wait for Brandon and she took the girls back to our house so she could watch my daycare kiddo. (Thanks so much mama for all your help!) After Brandon's test we headed back to Charlotte NC where we decided to rent a Penske truck and trailer and pull the truck back ourselves since that was $300 and a tow truck itself would have been $1000. So anyways the truck was not ready when we got there we waited an hour and didn't leave there until 4. Which we needed to be back in Charleston at 6 to drop the van off at Saturn. We ended up not getting to Saturn until 8. So we just left it in the parking lot and went to drop off the truck. My stepdad and brother picked us up and took us to the Charleston airport to get a rental car.

The lady at Budget was awesome and gave us a killer deal on a week rental for only like $180. Which was cheaper then the 3 day we were going to get. So we finally made it home last night after 9:30. It was a challenging couple of days! And VERY expensive. We spent almost $1000.

Anyways today better news has come! Finally something in our favor! Brandon did pass his physical test by the way!! Yay Brandon and we will hear about the written in a couple of days which he is almost positive he passed. I'll talk more about that later. But the dealership called this morning and told me that the computer system on the van was shot so he was taking it to the Dodge dealership. I called and found out that the computer system IS covered under the warranty we have so we wont have to pay anything. Huge blessing! I will post more pictures when I get the chance.

But I wanted to say thank you to EVERYONE that helped us out yesterday including: my mom, stepdad, brothers and of course my wonderful in-laws. We dont know what we would do without yall!