The first Friday morning in January we woke up excited that the moving truck was going to arrive. But it didn’t.
We were waiting that Friday morning for the moving truck to pick up our household items in Virginia and drive it down to Florida. Atil was going to drive the car and I was going to sit in the back with the kids for the two day drive to Florida. We needed to be in Miami on Monday. When the moving truck did not show up a few hours later we decided to check our credit card to see if we had been billed the deposit. Not only had the deposit been charged but the trucker had also overcharged our card by $1,000. The first thing we did was cancel the credit card, the next thing was rent a truck, and then we started getting ready to drive to Florida.
Whereas I had imagined I would leave Virginia Beach sitting in he back of the car looking out the window and holding back tears, instead I was driving our car with three kids in the back seat.
It was a nice drive the first day (Saturday)—eventhough I was lost for two hours. Atil (driving the moving truck) and I had agreed to meet somewhere in South Carolina on I-95, and on the GPS I typed in “Savannah, GA shortest route.” But the shortest route was NOT from I-95 so I ended up in the back roads of North Carolina, without phone service. Atil, when not able to reach me, called my cousins in DC in a panic declaring “Ayse is missing!”
We spent 9 hours in the car Saturday. At a truck stop Troy saw the DVD for “Rise of the Planet if the Apes” and asked to buy it. I said “NO WAY am I going to let you watch that in the car while I am driving” and that became a joke on the way down. Troy helped me so much on the ride down, giving his siblings their bottles, listening to music, making jokes. At rest stops he helped the cats with their breaks, too.
It was the second day of driving (11 hours) that he began to lose patience. His baby brother had crying fits starting at 7PM, we stopped a few times on the road, including one stop at a Cracker Barrel and sat in the rocking chairs. You can see the fatigue in my eyes, the crying baby and the smile on Troy’s face–staying positive!
We made it to Miami at 11:30 PM—the 3 kids were sleeping so I parked in front of the hotel and went in the lobby to check-in. When I came back to the car all 3 kids were awake and crying! Troy thought I left him in the car and went up to my room to sleep!
I can’t say we had a good nights sleep because our mind was on the next day. We had a container to load in time for the ship’s deadline. At the ship yard the workers told us they had never met a family loading their own container! I didn’t even bother telling them how the move started from Virginia Beach to the ship yard.
Mamacookita's Blog 
Ayşeee, Thats incredible, amazing, hard, difficult, funny but most of all out of this world experience you had while moving. I wish I were talented as half as you are. Inanılmaaazzz….
3 kids, 2 days of diriving, alone in the middle of nowhere without a phone.., no words can tell that. I went nuts once driving from Bodrum to Datça (half way with ferry, but still in the car in the summer heat without air conditioning) on my own with 3 months old Melisa and lost it in the middle of the road and burst into tears calling mum on the phone to pick me up as quick as she can, while she was at the Hospital with dad. Let me repeat again you are amazing my dear friend :))))