back from texas in one (or five) pieces

The kids and I arrived home from Texas tonight, tired but happy to see Matt, the house & the kitties.  It was, no surprise, a long trip (almost 1200 miles).  We left Saturday morning around 10 am, drove for 10 hours, stopped for the night, slept very little due to Ruby's excitement over being in a giant bed with me and the boys for the night, and then got up and drove 9+ hours today.  I feel like a shell of a person.  Our trip tally included 4 movies watched, 10 juice boxes emptied (many onto Ruby's lap, causing her to cry and me to curse), many nasty bathrooms visited, excessive amounts of peanut M&Ms and doritos consumed by me (why do I feel that when I am on a road trip, I can just shove thousands of calories into my body and think they won't count?), 25 fights that had to be broken up with threats of throwing prized possessions out the window, 0 speeding tickets or accidents (yeah!), and countless moments of wondering if "that smell" was coming from inside or outside of the car.  Fun times.  But, actually, the whole three weeks were awesome & worth the hassle of the journey, so I would do it again in a minute (or, maybe not a minute, but probably next summer).  More on the trip after I recharge ...