Trip in review Part II

I’m not sure what time we left the rest area… but Jerome was in the driver’s seat and took off. I woke up and my guess is that we already passed the St. Louis arch… yet again I didn’t actually see it. This time not even a glimpse.

All the girls were asleep and Jerome and I were supped up on candy. We did decide to pull over for McDonald’s breakfast around 6:30am which woke everyone up. Jerome and I went inside and I took Tinker in to get changed while the girls stayed in the van. We hung out there for awhile and got some coffee and sweet tea.

I took the drivers seat and took us onto Memphis around 10 am when we had a melt down. We had someone who had to pee, someone who was annoyed that we were stopping and another one screaming. I exited and tried to pull into a Wendy’s but they weren’t open yet. We went down the road a bit further to a nasty gas station and filled up.

Jerome took over driving and we’re on the road again. We stopped just short of our final destination to stop at a Sonics for lunch. Yum… a sonic burger, tots and a chocolate shake. Delish.

We arrived at Jerome’s parent’s house right around 3pm. Jerome’s dad and brother were there waiting on us to arrived. They met Tinker for the first time… I’m pretty sure that June is in love with her!


My sister in law Stacy and her boys arrived shortly after with their dog Max. I tried my hardest not to think about Pork Chop – but it was hard with Max there barking constantly.

Friday was July 4^th. Jerome’s mom had to work and had left early in the morning. Jerome, June, PST and the boys left to set up a tent at Jerome’s Grandma’s house. While they were gone doing that we (Stacy, JST, Tinker and I) had planned to run to Ward’s for breakfast, but once we got there we were quickly reminded that it was the Forth of July as they were closed.

With Ward’s being closed along with the grocery store there wasn’t many options in Liberty for us. Off to McComb we went. We stopped for lunch at a secret location before heading to Walmart. Stacy bought up some outfits for Tinker and then we headed back to the House.

Once we returned JST, Tinker and PST left with their aunt from their mom’s side of the family. My other sister in law Jackie and her daughter arrived just before we did. They too were in love with Tinker. The rest of us got ready to head to the meet and greet at the family reunion location.

The family reunion was held on someone’s land. They had a huge tent in the back. They had little finger sandwiches and bags of chips for us to munch on. There were issues with the tee shirts… but since we had our order placed ahead of time we were good to go.

Saturday was the main family reunion day. We had breakfast at the house and then headed over to the family reunion again. We were pretty much the first family to arrive to claim a spot under the tent. And it was HOT. Jeeze. So freakin hot.

We stayed to a good bit. They had burgers, hotdogs, cake and watermelon. I got to say, that was some of the best watermelon I’ve had in a long time. Of course we took pictures just like last year with each family.

After the pictures we headed back to the House to change and head over to Jerome’s Grandmother’s house. Jerome and I drove over to his Aunt Mary’s house before stopping there to chat for a bit. Most of the people that we knew were already at Jerome’s Grandmother’s house when we arrived.

We set up the volleyball net and played a few good rounds. I ended up being on a team with most of Jerome’s aunties and his mom. It was fun… a lot of fun… probably the most fun of the entire trip to me. We were on a roll and would have kept playing but the sun had gone down and we couldn’t see the ball so well.