The Miller Babes: Tennesssee

Amy (my sister) picked us up at 5am on Friday. We started out with 5 kids and 2 adults in the mini van and Kerry (my sister's SO) and his friend, Mike, in the U-Haul behind us. We didn't really get on the road til around 6-6:30am. The first stop that we made, about 2 hours into the trip, my nephew Dante went and road in the U-Haul with his dad and stayed there until we got to Tennessee - which I'm sure made for a more peaceful ride (lol). It took us around 17 hours to get to her house in Milan, TN (about 1.5-2 hours northeast of Memphis). Her kids slept almost the entire time. My niece, Ariana was awake for maybe 2 hours total (lol). Maddox took a half hour nap around 7am and then fell asleep again at 7pm until we got to Tennessee and then went back to bed around 12:30-1am. Faye slept most of the time and I fed and changed her every two hours. She even slept really great that night even after sleeping all day long.

We got to her house around 11:30pm and when the boys in the U-Haul got there, we went over to Walmart to get groceries. We didn't do a whole lot while we were there. They have a huge backyard and mostly the kids just played. Amy took me around her little town and we drove up to the biggest city near her (Jackson, TN which is about the size of a small-average sized Mpls suburb). We had Lee's Famous Recipe for lunch on Saturday and Tuesday (for my nephews 8th Birthday) and for Dinner on Sunday night. We had a BBQ at Kerrys friend, Charlie's, house (his family owns Lee's Famous Recipe, the restaurant that Kerry will be working at) on Monday night. Amy's yard has no tree's except a small little area at the very end of it and so I taught Ariana to fly a kite and she did awesome at it. Amy kept her house so cold that I wore a sweater inside and outside the entire time I was there and I gave Faye a bath outside in the little shark pool LOL

My nephew Kaden (Maddox's BFF who is 6mo younger) made me cry on the way too Tennessee when he was crying to his mom that he wanted to go home. Amy said "we are going home, we're on our way" and he cried "no, to my REAL home" meaning here in MN. He made me cry again when we were leaving. Amy wanted to get a picture of the boys hugging. Maddox gave him a huge hug. Normally Kade is the hugger, but he just stood there with his head hanging down and his arms limp at his sides. I got down and wrapped my arms around him, kissed him and started bawling. I still cry when I think about it. I tried to talk Amy into letting me bring him back home with me, but it was a no go!

Amy drove Maddox, Faye, and I out to the Memphis International Airport. We had 1 checked suitcase, a checked car seat, and two carry on backpacks. They helped me get my boarding passes and everything and when I got to security they wouldn't let me through because they never put Faye on the boarding pass. We had to walk back over to the check-in place with no shoes on or anything and they wrote her on the passes with pen. The flight to Atlanta was really fast. 1 hour and 20 minutes and it felt like a half hour.

The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport sucks and so do all the people in it. When we got off there was a guy calling for transfers. I went up to him and told him that we were going to Minneapolis and needed gate D2. He said "yep, gate D2", I asked where it was and he said Concourse D but was completely unhelpful after that. We got off at Concourse C. I decided I would get Maddox to the potty and change Faye's diaper as she had been in it since before we left for Memphis at 9:30am and it was now 2:30pm. We got to the PACKED bathroom and they have no changing tables. A woman informs me that there is a family bathroom down by a different gate. We go over there and wait for 15min before knocking on the door. The woman asks what we need and I said we needed to use the bathroom. She yells at me that she is changing her sons diaper. We waited for 5 more minutes and went into the regular bathroom so that I could at least get Maddox to go potty. We come back out and the same woman is STILL in the bathroom. There had been a woman waiting in line before us that left and a man that was waiting behind us that was still waiting when we got out of the regular bathroom. I was frustrated that that was the ONLY bathroom that I was going to be able to change her in and cannot figure out how in the world it would take more than 20 minutes to change a kids diaper. A flight attendant that was in the bathroom told me that if I didn't get to our gate, it would close soon. She showed me how to get there. We had to go downstairs and take a train to the next concourse. There were no seats on the train so I had to get Maddox pushed up against the wall of the train and holding on to the rail. There were 4-5 people surrounding him to make sure he stayed put and I had to hold a pole because the thing just took off. The airport was large and hot and full of rude people.

Faye fell asleep right before the plane took off and Maddox fell asleep right after the plane took off. He was mostly unimpressed with the airplanes. He thought it was fun to open and close the window. He watched out the window as we took off and landed and looked out while we were in the sky, but didn't really care. Both kids slept the entire way. Faye was wiggly and fussy, but never really cried.

When we got to Mpls-St Paul International, it took forever for our stuff to come off the baggage claim thing. The car seat was the very last thing to come off and our suit case was around 10-15 suitcases before it and the plane was full. The guy that lined up next to me at the baggage claim said if I had more than one thing, he'd grab it for me, but his suitcase came off right away and he took off. There was another guy that was wondering around and came over to me about half way through the suitcases being dropped down and said he would grab my stuff if I wanted him too. I declined politely. He grabbed his suitcase and said he would stick around if I wanted him to get our stuff, but I said we were fine (Faye was strapped to my chest). Maddox waited very patiently next to a column with our two carry on backpacks and we waved and smiled at each other.

Clayton was just leaving from work in rush hour (which is around 20min during NON-rush hour) when I got off the plane and got there before our bags came down!

Poor little Faye was soaked and smelly half way through our second flight and had to stay that way til we got home :( Yay for Cloth diapers though, she didn't get any diaper rash or anything.

I brought 10 cloth diapers with for the car ride down and changed her every two hours. I planned on using disposables while in TN. I used all of the diapers and put her in a disposable. Changed her once and threw all the diapers in the wash. I used 3 disposable diapers and was done with them and used cloth the rest of the time. I brought about 20 or so disposable diapers and left them for a friend down there who has a 4 week old.

The cool flip down mirror thing - you can see all of us, except Faye.. even the cats!