Just What Happened This Time? Reality Road Show of The Thrifty Couple

If you are here looking for our weekly diaper deals, they are not done yet, but hopefully will be by tonight.  This is the first time we have been this late in getting these done and very sorry that we haven’t gotten them done yet.  This is a post that we love to do as we know it is a blessing to so many of you and we will plan to continue to do this post for as long as we can although it takes us several hours each week to put together.  But we had a hiccup today and this weekend.

Well, it has been one of those weekends… You know, the kind where nothing goes quite as planned.  And when you are a family of 7, those exact things happen more often!

This past week, we enjoyed a week out in the country with some close friends and our kids rode miniature horses, we played in the sun and had a wonderful time at a big conference with many friends the second half of the week. This little getaway is over 9 hours from home.   So the plan was to leave and get home in one-day and wake up early and finish the diaper deals.

Well, as you can see, they are not here.  The road trip had a few bumps in the road.  We got a late start in the first place, then we had a round of car sickness that required a stop and clean up.  Another 30 minutes down the road, the baby decided it was the right time to have one of those “bathable” diapers – yea, moms and dads, you know that kind! So another several minute stop to clean that up!

Then, after some bathroom breaks and two big clean-ups, Alex was feeling pretty tired.  I offered to drive for a bit so he could close his eyes.  I must preface by saying that I am directionally challenged – but since I live in the age of Google Maps and phone GPS, it rarely shows it’s ugly face.  Well, yesterday put me to shame and I got on the freeway going the WRONG DIRECTION!  We needed to go west and I was going north.  I didn’t notice it until 30 minutes down the road and I felt so completely idiotic!

So after getting to the next exit (which took a while since we were out in the middle of no where) and turning around, we were yet another 70 minutes behind schedule.  A couple hours later, we noted that we had 268 more miles to go and it was 11pm.  We were exhausted and couldn’t make it any more and stopped over night in the middle of Wyoming almost halfway home.

Thankfully the hotel was cheap for last minute, had a hot breakfast for free, and a room with three double beds and a good night’s rest.  We spent some time this morning finding some great deals before hitting the road again, but since the diapers take a lot of time and focus, we would hit them hard once we got home.

So, they are coming, they haven’t disappeared – we are just having one of those days 🙂

Don’t forget, we have mentioned the importance of planning that extra 10-20% more than the planned vacation expenses for hiccups like this – like our 2010 vacation down south where we had shredded tires and ended with a record-setting and historical road closing snow storm in southern Nevada when visiting our snowbird grandma (who goes there to avoid the snow) 🙂

Photo Credit: Bryan’s Blog