Are We There Yet?

Whew! The last two weeks have been crazy! I hope each of you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. It’s amazing how much can happen in two weeks.

We have been going non-stop. It’s been fun, but we are tired!

Over the holiday, we traveled down to the Dallas area to have a family Christmas. Most of my Mom’s family is from that area so we generally try to make a mini-vacation out of it. We drove down on Saturday, dropped my Mom at her sister’s house and we went and checked into our hotel.

Kiera was extremely excited about our plans for the rest of the day. We had plans to take her over to the Grapevine area. Our hotel was in the DeSoto area. For those of you that don’t know, you have to drive through Dallas to get to Grapevine. I’ll get to that in a minute though.

After trying to convince Kiera for the umpteenth time that we had plenty of time to make it there by 2:30, we left the hotel and went to a restaurant for lunch. We quickly ordered and let Kiera pick our seats.

“How about here?” She asked as she led us to the bar seating that looked out at the drive thru lane.

“Sure.” We agreed, setting on our swiveling stools. As we ate and tried to pass some of the time without Kiera panicking, Aaron suggested different things for us to do.

“Let’s do the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil next.” He stated.

“What’s that?” Kiera asked.

Aaron quickly explained to her and showed her the different positions. “I want to cover my ears!” She exclaimed.

“Ok. Mom, since you can see the cars coming, you have to tell us when to get in position.” Aaron directed.

I giggled at the absurdity of what we were fixing to do and agreed to alert them as soon as a car moved. Finally, it was time.

“Here they come!” I exclaimed.

Kiera covered her ears, Aaron covered his mouth and I covered my eyes… well, for the most part. I wanted to be able to see if anyone saw us.

The first couple of cars drove by without spotting our antics. When the third car drove by, the woman in the passenger seat busted out laughing when she saw us.

Happy that we had made someone laugh, we chucked our trash and headed out to our truck.

Now, I have to say, I am an expert navigator. No, no. Don’t listen to what Aaron may tell you. It’s all lies. I’m a pro. Meh. That might be exaggerating a slight bit.

I set the GPS and off we went. Aaron always drives in the higher traffic areas. I don’t do super large towns. It stresses me out.

As we got into more of the Dallas area and the roads multiplied by the thousands, I made sure to repeat the distances to the exits, roads and so on.

Now, I remember as a child when we would go on trips, I learned that if we were in a highly congested area, the rule was to not talk. I understand that rule as an adult now.

Although, Aaron and I did not state that rule for Kiera, I am pretty confident that we might have been close. I listened as she discussed the buildings that we passed and squealed when an airplane passed overhead. Then came the infamous question.

“Are we there yet?” Kiera asked from the back seat.

“No, baby.” I glanced at the GPS to see what our arrival time looked like before responding. “We have about 15 more minutes.”

I repeated the upcoming direction change to Aaron and watched the traffic.

“Has it been 15 minutes?” Kiera asked.

Trying to keep a straight face, I responded, “No, baby.”

“How long has it been?” She asked.

I checked the time before replying dryly, “About 3 minutes.”

“Oh.” She responded.

There was a pause and then she said, “Tell me when another minute passes.”

That’s the moment we almost instated the no talking rule.

We made it to our destination safely and in almost 15 minutes, although, I did not give her a minute-by-minute breakdown.

It was so much fun to experience things from Kiera’s point of view. We enjoyed seeing the excitement over things that we sometimes take for granted being an adult.

Aaron even survived my navigating and I’m sure cannot wait for our next trip.

We are excited to start a new year and see what this year brings. Last year brought changes for us, some good, some scary and some sad. But I am thankful that I get to start another new year and enjoy my life according to Kiera.

Rowonna McNeely works as the Communications Manager for the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce. She and her husband, Aaron are regular volunteers in the community, and have their hands full with their daughter, Kiera, along with three dogs and one cat.

Thank you for sharing in our weekly journeys. If you have missed any of our past stories, check out our blog page at www.lifea2k.net or drop us a line at lifea2k@yahoo.com.