With everyone here now, maybe we should get the band back together......

'Jaxon crying, Gavin barfing, Nanny nauseous, not even there yet!! HELP ME!!'
Tori Lynn, text message, 14JUL09

Let the insanity ensue. That is an actual text message that I got from Tori the other day. The end result of the whole thing is that for the first time in weeks, we have possession of all five of our kids. But getting the kids back was not such an easy task. And as you can probably imagine, there is a story that goes along with it.

Last week, we got Gavin back from Louisiana, and this week we're getting Cole and Scarlett back from Maw-Maw Carla. And unfortunately for Rach, I had to go out of town for work on Monday, and was not going to get back until Wednesday afternoon. Since Rach is off of work every Tuesday and Wednesday, she was planning on meeting her mom halfway between Charleston and New Orleans on Tuesday, which turns out to be a 6 hour drive each way. To make matters worse, Tuesday was Racheal's birthday. So on her birthday, she had to drive 6 hours with 3 kids, and 6 more hours with 5 kids, all while husbandless. (And for the record, when it comes to driving long distances, Rach is about as useful as a turkey leg at a PETA luncheon.) Anyway, I felt really bad for her. But when I talked to her Tuesday morning at about 6:30, she seemed to be in pretty good spirits. Color me impressed with her positive outlook. But as the day wore on, um......not so much. This is what I heard from Rach throughout the day:

6:30 am - Hey baby. Yeah, we're just now getting on the interstate.....Oh, they're watching a movie. How'd you sleep? Is your hotel nice? Oh well that's good. Okay, have a good day. Call me later. Love you.

9:00 am - Hey. How far away is Atlanta? No, we just got something to eat. We're fine. What are you doing? Oh, well, okay. I'll talk to you later. Love you.

11:00 am - Hey. Where are you at? Jaxon, Stop it! Oh crap. Gavin doesn't feel good. I think I'm gonna be sick. Bye.

12:30 pm - (I'm no longer talking to directly to Rach. I'm having all of our communication directed through Tori.) Nanny doesn't feel good. Gavin just threw up a mixture of green slushy and pink pepto. He barfed into a styrofoam cup, and we had to dump it out the window. Nanny and Jaxon are not in a very good mood.

2:00 pm - (Still talking to Tori) We just got Cole and Scarlett. We're eating at Applebe's. I think everything's okay now.

4:30 pm - (Now just getting texts from Tori) Nanny wants to know when you're going to be done. She still doesn't feel good. Please help.

4:45 pm - (Now talking to Rach again, but now I'm driving with 3 co-workers) Hey. What are you doing? Whatever, well I'm glad you're having fun up there with all of your friends. I'm just going to keep driving. Call me when you can devote more than 2 minutes to talk to me. I feel like you're avoiding me.

5:15 pm - (I just got back to my hotel room) Oh, How's your luxury suite? It must be nice all laid up on your king size bed. I'm still freaking driving. Scarlett, just give him some cookies!! Just give him the cookies!! Tori keeps messing with me, repeating everything that I say. I'm about to throw her out of this stupid car. Don't mess with me, Tori. Jeff, I feel like you don't want to talk to me....(Meanwhile, I'm searching in the depths of my brain trying to find an appropriate response that will allow me to live a little bit longer, but I got nothing. And that's just making it worse.)

6:15 pm - (Being the retarded husband that I am, I made the mistake of telling her that I was visiting my hotel's hospitality hour, and they were giving away free dinner along with free beer.) Oh that's just great. Go drink your stupid free beer. You went on that damn trip on purpose, didn't you? Why do you hate me? Umm, hmm. I don't believe you. Anyway, we're only 40 miles away, but I have to pee and I don't want to stop again. I'm gonna keep looking for a bridge to drive off of.

And then it pretty much got uglier from there, to keep things PG-13, I'll just paraphrase. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. The funny thing about Rach, though, is that as soon as she finishes going through a situation like that, she immediately forgets what happeneed. It's amazing. While she's aggravated, she'll tell you the most horrific, most mean-spirited things that you could possibly think of. I mean things that really hit you deep down in your core. Stuff that you just don't joke about. One time, she told me that she didn't think that Rocky was a good movie. And another time that the Saints weren't going to make the playoffs that year........I mean really creepy stuff. But when it's over she just acts like nothing ever happened. By the time she went to sleep Tuesday night, everything was fine. She was back to texting me goodnights and I love yous. I swear, she definitely keeps me on my toes. (There may be some slight exaggerations in there, but that's how I remember it.)

So yesterday, when Rach picked me up from the airport at about noon, I had a surprise for her to celebrate the belated birthday. She didn't know what was going on, and the only thing that I told her was that we had to be somewhere for 1 o'clock. So I drove her out to this restaurant out on the beach, called the WindJammer. We sat at the bar and had a beer, ate some wings, and by the time we finished it was 1 o'clock. I take her up this back set of stairs into a room with hardwood floors, and I had a private salsa dance lesson set up for us. The instructor was really good; we had a lot of fun, and learned a good bit of stuff in the short amount of time that we were there. I mean, we're pretty much awesome salsa dancers now. 1,2,3, pause, 4,5,6 pause, 1,2,3 spin, 4,5,6, pause, 1, spin, 3, pause, 4,5,6. See? Did you see all that? We will blow your mind. We're that awesome. (Alright, maybe not, but we could be with years and years of practice.) But seriously, if any of you guys reading this ever want to pull a similar stunt, make sure you pack her a pair of 'strappy heels' to wear. I put 'strappy heels' in quotes because I couldn't tell you the difference between a pair of 'strappy heels' and a pair of 'non-strappy non-heels' even if you offered me a lifetime of never being the first one ready to go somewhere ever again. And that's big. huge. gargantuan. I'm pretty sure I'm 1,472,368 for 1,472,368 in the getting ready department. I've even tried to finish getting ready after her, but I think she just makes up extra things to do if she sees me getting close. Like, I'll wait until she's putting on her makeup, then hop in the shower, shave, clip my toenails, brush my teeth, pluck my eyebrows (yeah, I said it), shine my shoes, iron my shirt, knit a new pair of socks, and just when I'm about ready, she'll come in and say, 'Go wait in the car. I've just got to pummice my feet.' Wait?!? What?!? Damn, she's good.

On to a completely different story. I think my mom may have taken the last post a little too seriously. And just in case anyone else got confused, No, Racheal is not pregnant. We are not trying to have any more kids. We're happy with the 5 that we have. It was just a joke. I promise. But apparently, my mom was so concerned with us having another baby, that she decided to take action. To ensure that Rach and I would never have the opportunity to do any baby-making, she sent the least sexy set of pajamas that she could find. Don't get me wrong, they're very nice, and Rach even said that she likes them and will wear them. But I'm not sure what word you would use to describe the opposite of sexy, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I'm pretty sure that all 1000 of these words are saying
something along the lines of, 'You ain't gettin any!'