The Nightmarish and So Totally Not Marvelous Trip Home From Warwick

When we loaded into our 2 vehicles to leave Warwick Castle, we agreed that instead of going straight home via the motorway, we would go through a village that had some miniature shops that sounded pretty cool. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. When we arrive and find a nice big car park (with free public toilets), we learn from the other vehicle that Cindy has a migraine and needs to get home ASAP.

Ok. So no miniature shops. No big deal. My big focus right now is getting home as expediently as possible, which might be a problem since we are having to go around Oxford at 5.00, but I'm hoping for the best and Steve and I just don't mention it while we're driving. But we're both thinking it.

We get almost all the way around Oxford on their Ring Road (the loop) and then meet with disaster. We had just gotten off the phone with the other car and have learned that we need to make a potty stop as soon as we can. No big deal. We're about 6 miles away from the motorway services. We're about 4 miles from the access to the motorway. So we should be there in 10 minutes tops.

I'll spare you the excruciating details and just tell you that it took us 1 hour to go 1 mile. There was construction and a roundabout at rush hour traffic. Either on its own wouldn't have slowed us down so dramatically, but both together were a nightmare. We never did get to the motorway. When we *finally* got to the roundabout we decided to take a "through the country" route because we had been listening to the radio and had learned that there were 2 different accidents on the motorway that would further hamper our progress.

After some massive irritation about the lack of markings or access to the Burger King that we spotted, we made it to the BK. By now it's almost 6.00 and all of the kids have to go to the loo. Not to mention the grownups. So we all pile out and hustle in. After I took Audrey and then got her settled with Lynette, I looked around and realized that NOBODY HAD JULIE.

My heart stopped.

I trucked it back out to the van and peeked in through the very dark tinted windows. She was in there, happy as a clam. *HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF* I can't believe all 3 grownups in our car went off and left her. At least it was locked and she wasn't making any noise to attract attention. But still...

We got dinner at the BK then all loaded back up. It took us 30 minutes to get back to Henley-on-Thames to deliver the Baldridges, then another 25-ish minutes to get back to our house. Lynette and Nancy completed their gathering and packing to prepare to leave the next morning at 6.00 a.m. to catch their flight home.

Friday dawned on Steve driving Lynette and Nancy to the airport (got there without any problems, then got home as Lynette posted earlier), the other 4 Nolens sleeping, and the Baldridges sleeping and recuperating (Cindy, at least was recuperating). Later that day I had to take Julie to her 9-month photo shoot.

The photographer was amazing! She probably took between 150-200 pictures of Juju. And Juju was adorable! I knew that this would be tough to pick photos later. And it was. I ended up going back on Wednesday and I had a heck of a time picking. I ended up getting 2 different poses and will post those when I get the cd I bought.

Anyway, Steve talked to Cindy & company while I was out with Julie and they made plans for dinner. At least, they made plans for us to go to Henley for dinner. Before we went out that way, though, we took the kids to a fancy dress shop to get their Halloween costumes. We ended up with a knight and a fairy princess. I got Julie's kitty costume later, but since I'm posting pictures, I'll include her, too.

The purple hat on Audrey is the Halloween hat she made at school. She insisted on wearing it in the picture. I managed to get her to leave it at home when we went trick-or-treating. But that's another story. I do need to say that Caleb isn't just any old knight, he's St. George. As in the one that killed the dragon here in England. Caleb is completely smitten with anything to do with George and the dragon. Hence his fondness for the pub of the same name.

So after we got the costume stuff for the kids, we headed to Henley. The cousins played for a bit before we walked over to an Italian restaurant for dinner. It was fabulous! It was so tasty! It will be getting my business again. Terry and Gwen, be prepared for us to drag you to this Italian restaurant. I loved it! Sparky's Mom wanted me to be sure to include that we actually ate food that wasn't Indian and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Saturday...I'm trying to remember what we did...oh yeah! The Baldridges were going into London and they wanted to leave their van here and catch the train in. So Steve took care of ferrying them to the station. I think we mostly just hung out here at the house. We might have gone to the grocery store, but I don't really remember. Sunday was just hanging out. We didn't go to church, but I forget our lame excuse.

Steve had been feeling weird for a few days, but he marked it up to being nervous about missing 2 weeks of work. So he spent the day just resting and I think being a little stressed about going back to work. After he picked up the Baldridges from the train station on Sunday evening, we all went to an Indian restaurant and enjoyed the buffet.

Monday dawned. Back to our routine. Steve to work, dropping off Audrey at school. April and Julie walking Caleb to school, April taking care of Monday morning stuff. I was expecting the Baldridges sometime in the morning to come by and drop off some of their stuff, since they were checking out of their cottage and heading to Scotland for a couple of days. But what I wasn't expecting was Steve to come home from work before lunch.

As I've posted, Steve was pretty sick and missed work for several days. I finally convinced him to go to the doctor on Wednesday and that's when the doctor said he had a "bonger" of an infection. I woke up Thursday feeling like rubbish, so he made me go to the doctor and take Julie with me since she had been feverish for the whole day. She and I got in at 5.30 p.m. and were both prescribed antibiotics - her for bronchitis-like symptoms and me for tonsillitis. The Baldridges had returned late Wednesday night and were staying with us until their return to Paris on Thursday, so they were able to help watch kids and get dinner while Steve took me and Julie to the doctor then to get the prescriptions filled.

Friday I ended up still feeling yucky, but I didn't want to walk Caleb to school, so we were back to our old routine of me driving everyone. Actually, Steve drove us to his work, then I drove back. On the way to his work, I realized that Caleb had been the last one out the front door and hadn't shut it. So we had a wide open front door waiting for us. And it was letting *very* cold air in. Then after we dropped Steve off and were about 5 minutes away from the lab, I realized I had his office keys on the van key chain. Great. I couldn't turn around because we were cutting it close to get Caleb to school as it was. So I tried calling him a couple of times but, of course since I had his keys, I wasn't expecting him to be in the office.

So I'm making plans to drop off Caleb, swing by the house, grab Steve's antibiotics that he forgot, shut the front door, then drive all the way back out to AWE to give Steve his keys. But about 5 minutes after I realized I had the keys, the "fill van soon" light came on. Lovely. We've been using the lab credit card to fill the van since they pay for gas. I can't use the card because it's in Steve's name and I didn't really want to use our personal card to fill up. It would be about $120. We would be reimbursed, of course, but I still didn't want to do it. So I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to do this and if I have enough diesel in the van to get back out to AWE after I drop off Caleb.

Get Caleb dropped off in a timely manner (thankfully).

Get home and get hold of Steve simultaneously. He got a key from the secretaries and doesn't need me to come back. *sigh of relief* He also arranged for a coworker to bring him home. *another sigh of relief*

Now for a Caleb story. On Wednesday when I was driving out to the other side of Reading to look at Julie's pictures, I got a phone call from the secretary at his school. His shoe had broken and did he have another set I could pop over to the school? Well, he has another pair, but I can't take them over since I'm on the other side of Reading. No bother, are you happy for him to stay inside during break time and read books? Yes, I'm fine with that, and tell him I'm sorry and we'll get this sorted this evening.

Turns out there was a fire drill and Caleb had to go outside sock-footed. He was upset and cried. After school I dropped Audrey and Julie back at home with an ill Steve and took Caleb to the shoe shop and got him another pair of shoes. I find out during this little excursion that his nemesis, Kyle the pencil bully, had loaned Caleb his P.E. shoes to wear for the afternoon. Miss Pells had given Kyle 4 stickers to say she was proud of him. I decided to send a packet of gummi bears and a little note the next day to tell Kyle thanks for sharing and being a good friend. After Miss Pells read the note to Kyle, he hugged Caleb (!) and told him he would bring a packet of sweeties from his Halloween candy to share with Caleb.

So Friday after all the confusion of getting everyone to school, Kyle's mom hands me a little bag of Malteasers (like Whoppers) and tells me that Kyle insisted and that she doesn't want Caleb to get in trouble for having a bag of sweeties at school.

I'm amazed at what God has done with this situation with Kyle. Every day on our way to school, Caleb and I pray that God would show Caleb how to be a friend to Kyle and that he would show Kyle how to be a friend to Caleb. God has really used this situation to hopefully bring some joy into Kyle's life (I think he might have some bigger issues), to teach Caleb that when we pray, God hears and answers, and to teach me that nothing is too small or trivial for God's careful attention. I need to really make an effort to teach the kids this by helping them pray for things going on in their lives. Like the pencil bully. What a cool testimony for a 5-year-old to have!

Audrey is insisting that she needs some medicine, so I better go and figure out what's going on with her. Next entry: Halloween.