Roadtrip! (with a kid and a cold)

I am currently sitting in Anna's living-room in beautiful Buena Vista Colorado. I can feel the heat coming off of the wood-stove and the couch is oh so comfortable. I hear Eric and John playing happily with the toys and the teapot just started whistling. It all sounds so lovely right? Well, it is! The process of getting to this point, however, doesn't sound quite as picturesque.
Angela and Eric got to Mom and Dad's house in Demotte at about quarter after 10 on Friday night. They checked out the advances in our renovations and got Mom's massive amount of Christmas presents loaded into the van. I threw my measly 2 backpacks into the back, crawled in, and off we went. John cried as we put him into his car-seat (I'm sure he was thinking: who would make a baby drive 3 hours, get out, and then go back into the cursed seat they just escaped?). John stopped crying and finally fell asleep somewhere near Chicago. Before that he had slowly drifted off many times only to be awakened by the city lights over and over again. When he fell asleep, I talked to Angela for a while as she drove and eventually traded spots with my mom in the middle seat and tried to sleep.
There was no reason for me not to be able to sleep except for the fact that I had to sneeze what seemed like every minute. I shot some texts back and forth to my brother, friend, and boyfriend and eventually fell into a light sleep. I really didn't sleep well until I switched to the back seat and Eric drove for a while. By the time I woke up, it was light outside! At the next gas stop, I switched to driver mode. I drove about 4 hours at which point my mom and I were both about ready to pee our pants so we stopped, topped off the tank, bought some tissues, used the facilities, and got back into the car for the mountainous part of the trip. We went up and down a couple passes and alas  my eyes saw Mount Princeton and I knew we were close! The scenery was absolutely incredible as always, and after a tiny little detour past the road we needed, we arrived at Anna and Derek's house!
We were greeted by two smiling kids and a sister banging on the front window to get our attention. We hopped out of the car and got some fantastic hugs. We crowded into the house and John finally got to crawl around on the floor, and we all got to release some of the lactic acid from our limbs. Within an hour, I was sleeping on the love-seat with 3 little kids and a couple grown-ups playing with the toys on the ground. I woke up to supper time with shepherds pie and good conversation.
Overall, the little quirks like a crying baby and constant sneezing made the road-trip to CO go really quickly. It was also really enjoyable the whole time! Even durring the intermittent tears and nose blowing, the trip was fantastic.
Now, after all of that, we got to get a good nights sleep and woke up to playing kids again. We headed off to Anna's church. At church, I was reminded of the beautiful backdrop to the pulpit: behind the pastor and the stained-glass cross there are mountains just to remind everyone of the beauty that God has given us all. It truly is incredible  Following the service, we had a soup lunch with a bunch of Anna and Derek's youth group kids and their parents. From the stories and comments that were made, I'm pretty sure they were some of the best youth group leaders possible.
Now, once again, I'm listening to my nephew and niece happily playing (while avoiding naps), and the fan from the wood-stove is creating a very nice background noise to it all. And now, time to attempt a nap on the couch.

(By the way, sorry I'm not quite as witty or on top of it as my little sister...I guess she's probably a little better at this "blogging" thing than I am.)