Time to catch my breath...

Wow, what a day we had! Yesterday was one of the longest and most car-riding/driving filled days I've had in a long time! Thankfully, everything went well -- I really had my doubts at some points -- and our babies arrived on time, safe and sound!

I'm going to try and make this as short as possible, considering the long day we had. We met Doug at Lowe's about 10 minutes from his house (in the heart of STL) and followed him back. He knew we were get lost trying to find our way to his house, so he offered to meet us. While we were waiting on him to arrive, I got a panicked message from Shannon (who we got our creme girl from) saying we had to be at the cargo building by no later than 4! She told me baggage when she first booked the flight, but she was wrong. I called Untied Baggage, they were absolutely no help, then had to call the cargo building. Long story short, we did have to be there by 4 to get her, but someone was going to be there until 5 and we were able to make it on time!

Since we had over 2 hours to go before the arrival of our BFBB boy, we decided to go back to Doug and Kyan's in the mean time. I felt TERRIBLE that they had to drive to the airport twice, it sucked. Back at their house, we got to see all their gliders and even trimmed everyone's nails for them. It was time well spent and I had a blast!

We left just after 6 and headed back to the airport. We had to go inside the airport to baggage claim to get this boy. Luckily Kyan did all the talking -- he even went right to where we had to go, he's a life saver! We all had to stand in the baggage office for 30 minutes waiting on someone to bring him up from the plane. Naturally, the baggage from the Denver flight (the one he was on) was delayed and everyone was waiting on their luggage.

We went back to their house and stayed for a little while longer before we had to leave. We left with two new additions, but had to leave one. Our little boy, Pietro. :( Christina picked him up from their house last night after we left. I was not okay parting with him, he's such a sweet and lovable boy. I feel like I'm betraying him by leaving him there. He's in good hands, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same... he should be here with us.

With that being said, I am on cloud 9 and feel unbelievably blessed to have two gorgeous and amazingly sweet babies! They really are two of the sweetest gliders we've ever brought into our home that haven't been crabby. Tracy told be how sweet Zorro's babies were -- I was also told that from two other people that have his siblings -- and she was 100% right! He's an angel! This little creme girl is super, super sweet too. It's like night and day from the creme girls we got from Tracy. It almost doesn't seem real!

I'm obsessively holding them, starting at them, carrying them around, and then some. It's safe to say I'm OBSESSED with them! I love them so much and want to soak up as much time with them as I can before I have to return to work tomorrow. Sigh... work.

We've already thought of two really cute names, Ginny and Oliver. They're very normal and fitting. We've never been one to name our animals anything other than something you would name a human, Pip aside. But he is named after Pippin, while not a human, but Hobbit instead. Close enough to a human in my book. Anyways, so Ginny and Oliver it is! :)

On that note, I want to spend as much time as I can not on the computer or social media. I know, impossible! I will try, though.

Love & Peace

-Megan

Pictures from Sunday before we departed:

Pietro's travel supplies.

The last pictures I took of Pietro with the camera:

He's so cute. I'm going to miss him SO much. :(

Pictures from today. Everyone say hello to Ginny and Oliver:

Look at how dark and gorgeous he is!

This little girl is impossible to get a picture of.

Let the summer road trip begin!

Sadly, it's coming to an end almost the same day that it began. More than likely, we wont take anymore trips this year, which is sad, but it's something I'm okay with. After all, we just drove 565+ miles in just over 24 hours. Saying we're exhausted in an understatement.

Much to my surprise, we made it to the airport without a problem. We were cutting it a bit short -- we arrived just 10 minutes before the time limit. Everything went well, aside from me completely spacing on what flight he was going to be on. I tried and tried to think, but it was pointless, my mind was blank. They finally just got the paperwork and looked it up themselves. They got him 'signed' in and everything was a go, but for some reason the transaction wasn't showing up on the receipt. After about 10 minutes, one of the ladies finally just wrote everything down on out copy by hand.

We made it back on 270 and headed towards IL. The drive there was smooth and not one wrong turn was made. While we were in the midst of the 140 mile stint -- without absolutely NOTHING in sight -- I was dying to pee. I complained all the way from STL, so by the time we made it to Atlanta, IL (about 20 minutes from our destination) I couldn't take it any longer. We needed gas anyways, so it worked out.

We stopped at one of the creepiest Casey's gas stations I had ever seen! And the bathroom... you don't even want to know about how disgusting the bathroom was! It wreaked of piss, which was all over the floor. I kid you not, I had to hold my nose the entire time I was in there. I warned LaVaughn before she went in. I swear, I think someone actually pissed all over the floor, because there was toilet paper all over as if someone was to lazy to mop it up... sickening.

After that we were back on the road and headed to Normal. When we arrived in Bloomington, which is connected to Normal without 10 feet of space in between, we were both shocked as to how big that city actually was. We drove for over 5 miles (all the while going around 30 MPH) before we got to Petco. That's FIVE miles of city, traffic, and shops!

Jennifer had left me a message and said that they would be waiting just inside. Luckily, I knew what she looked like. It was easy enough to spot me, considering I had a bonding pouch hanging around my neck. Nothing says sugar glider owner like a bonding pouch. We talked for a few minutes about our drive there, even a little about The Walking Dead, then we went out separate ways. LaVaughn and I walked around in the pet store for maybe 3 1/2 minutes before we decided to leave.

We mapped out a few hotels and called about them. We almost stayed at this one really nice place, but neither of us wanted to drop $80+ on a room, so we opted for Motel 6. As I was going in to rent the room, I noticed around 5 very, very nicely dressed men were walking out. As I made my way into the lobby, there were about 6 more. It was pretty obvious that they were all there for some type on conference, and judging by their accents, they were from Nigeria. Trust me, I can spot an accent from a mile away, and Nigerians happen to have one of my favorites.

After they left, I got our room (a steal at $65) and headed back to the car. We pulled around and were able to park right in front of our door, which was awesome. And apparently the hotel is under construction, because all the rooms to the left of us were empty. Fine by me, that's a few less noisy neighbors that we have to deal with.

After we got settled -- and since we couldn't get the wifi to work -- we had to order pizza on the phone. Wanna know how much 1 pizza, 2 orders of bread sticks, and a cookie pizza from Pizza Hut was? $33!! I couldn't believe it. I have to say, they made up for it with the attractive pizza delivery guy. Yum-o!

After we ate and lazed around on the bed, I tossed around the idea of going to see a movie. We decided that we would scope it out and see how it looked first before we ordered tickets. On our way there, we were lucky enough to spot a Walmart. We so desperately needed water -- the chlorine filled shit in the room tasted awful! We ended up wasting well over an hour of time in there before we headed back to the room.

I mapped out the theater on the phone and off we were again. Since the movie didn't start until 10:15, we didn't leave until after 9. It was dark, we were in a strange city, and had absolutely no idea where we were going. We just kept playing the Wherenberg music in out heads to try and motivate us. Well, we found the theater, but what we couldn't find was a parking space. Can you believe that there were THAT many people there on a Thursday night? I couldn't! We ended up deciding against it and headed back to our hotel.

This is when things got interesting. Apparently there are 2 Motel 6's in Normal. Well, of course, I mapped out directions to the wrong one, which took us in a completely different direction. LaVaughn found it very funny, I did not. Since I was the one driving, I didn't find the humor in it.

Luckily, we were able to find the hotel. We stopped off for a terrible coffee before we got there, complete waste of money. We had soda and water in the room, so I was happy. We ended up watching Cops and Jailed the rest of the night until we went to sleep.

I was very happy to wake up the next day and get headed home. We packed up our stuff, took showers in their incredibly creepy bathroom that had terrible water pressure, then headed home.

Taylor and I had talked about this for some time leading up to our drive there. And since Taylor decided to get rid of her gliders (again), we decided to pick up Pax and Xander on our way home. Our drive didn't seem quite as long on the way back and we were able to find Taylor's house with ease. Of course, I interacted with all of the glider for a few minutes, then we were on our way, boys in hand.

I'm going to speed it up a bit now. The rest of the drive went smooth and... we're home! We got the boys settled in just a little while ago, started the gliders food, fed the cats, and then fed ourselves. Wanna know hear the bonus of the day? Charli's joey detached!! It's just as we suspected... a little ringtail girl! Since she already has a home with a dear friend of ours, we'll just let her name her.

And now, I'm going to enjoy what's left of my evening. I want to relax as much as possible so that I can rest up for an exciting day of work tomorrow. Until next time...

Love & Peace

-Megan

Getting things ready...

On our way to the airport...

On our way to Normal, IL...

Our Walmart finds...

Our journey home...

And lastly, Charli's beautiful ringtail girl...