We went as a family to Desloge MO so that Daniel could see the facilities there. Desloge is located about an hours drive south of St Louis, so about 5 hours from OP. We get ready to head out, excited because it's a job interview, and they are paying for us to go down there. So we set off and well, we knew that Jada would handle the trip just fine because she is an excellent traveler, and it turns out so is Tiegan! We get to our hotel and the girls and I hang out in the room- mostly watching Dora and feeding Tiegan, while Daniel head out to see the clinic.
The girls and I slept pretty much the whole way. I woke up around the time we were driving by the St Louis temple, and all the buildings and neighborhoods are all REALLY nice and well landscaped. So I was thinking that maybe living in MO wouldn't be so completely terrible- I was wrong! Desloge is a DUMPY little hole with a population of 5,000. I was surprised to see that everything was surprisingly brown :( Lucky for us, our hotel was actually in Farmington, MO so it was quite a bit bigger, but honestly, still just as dumpy. So there was NOTHING for us to do while Daniel was out, but to sit and watch Dora and feed Tiegan ;) Daniel was gone for about an hour and a half and when he came back, we got ready to go to dinner with 2 of the ladies from the clinic (also paid for by them). Dinner was nice, it was at some steak house- cody, carly, carston...... some C name steak house. The ladies were nice and chatty, and the whole affair was not as awkward as it could have been :)
Jada enjoying her own queen size bed
At the steak house..... what ever it's called
Tiegan lounging on a bunch of pillows
Afterwards we drove around the town...... it was ....... ok. It had a super walmart so that's a plus, right? But that's about it. We went back to our hotel and Daniel and Jada went swimming. Tiegan was eating and napping so I stayed in the room with her. They come back wet and ready for bed, we go to sleep and get a good nights sleep, right? WRONG. Tiegan had an air bubble that just wouldn't come out, so her usual "I'm-waking-up-once-a-night" thing was actually "I'm-waking-up-3-times-tonight-and-you-have-to -entertain-me". And on top of that, Jada swallowed some pool water that made her sick so she ended up crying for a good portion of the night until she finally vomited on my shirt, her pj's and her blanket. Then she felt better but didn't want to sleep, so after reading a couple stories and watching so disney channel she went back to sleep, spread eagle on a queen size bed. I look over at Daniel on the other bed and he's doing the same thing. Since Jada was easier to move, she and I shared a bed for the remainder of those early morning hours :) But despite the un-fun night,we were blessed because while one child was awake, the other was fast asleep :)
The next morning we packed it all up (it's amazing how much crap you need for an infant) and headed home. Tiegan did really well on the way back home, until we were about 30 minutes outside of the metro area where there was a bad wreck and traffic was stopped for miles and miles while authorities tried to clean the mess up. Well the wreck was bad enough that they made every get off the high way and drive down some local side roads to go around. From what we could see, a semi hit a road workers truck.... how the semi managed to get both front tires bent underneath it like a hover craft, we're still trying to figure out. (in case any one was wondering- the semi won. we saw them towing the road worker's truck away in pieces) but it didn't look like any one was seriously injured. Despite the excitement, Tiegan was not interested at all. She was pissed that I wasn't holding her and she couldn't get it through her head that it's the law that we all wear seat belts.... Babies can be so irrational some times :) Once we got back on the high way and got back up to speed, she went right back to sleep.
So the lesson we learned from our little trip was that Daniel is going on the remainder of the site visits alone, and from now on I refuse to travel with a newborn until they are 6 months at least. It is way to stressful dealing with them in cramped spaces with limited resources to help out. Also, even though Daniel got a job offer from them, we most likely will be kindly turning them down. They weren't completely honest about the clinical environment and what work was needed to be done. And that is the story of our sad pathetic little vacation.
