The drive back...

We checked out of our hotel on Wednesday and headed up to Seal Beach. We didn't see any seals, so we drove down PCH to Huntington Beach, CA. It was a nice drive down to the beach. We parked and walked along the beach for a while. The kids stuck their feet in the freezing Pacific, and we watched a little bit of a surfing competition while finding seashells along the shore. After that, we drove through Huntington Beach to look at where my sister used to live and their nice beach-town main street area. And then we were off to Chico to pick up our car.

We got in around 8, and went promptly to bed. Tired kids + tired parents = sleepy time! Plus...there's not a whole lot to do in Chico at 8pm with 2 tired children. We got up on Thursday, drove the rental car to the transmission place, where we found out they came in about $300 under the estimate! yay!! We drove back to the hotel for free breakfast, and then over to the rental car place to drop off the car and move everything that was left in the rental over to our car, which was purring like a kitten.

Back at the hotel, we were cleaning up the car a little (we had just kind of thrown everything in from the rental) when my phone rang. It was buried in my backpack, and when I went to grab it out, I hit something, and the phone stopped ringing. I had no idea who had called. I looked up my missed calls and incoming calls, and they were both the ex, so I called him back. No answer. Whatever. We went back to consolidating the explosion in my car into neat(er) piles. Ben's phone rang. Nobody recognized the number, but Ben answered anyway. It was our lawyer. My ears perked up.

Ben:  Yes?
Ben:  And?

He gave me a thumbs up and a big smile. I didn't want to assume anything, but my stomach immediately turned over. He said, 'Wow. that's just great news.' And I lost it. I grabbed the kids and started sobbing. Scooter asked me what's wrong, and Bubba kept saying, "sah-wee, mama!" like he did something really bad. I told them that I wasn't sad, but that Iwas just so happy. Scooter asked why, and I told her that I *thought* we won, and she might be able to move with us. We were standing in the rain in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in Chico, California, and I was crying and hugging the kids. I decided to move that mess inside. We went to the room, and in order to stop acting crazy and scaring the kids, I started packing up our stuff. Scooter and Bubba were laughing and hugging and running around the room. Scooter said, 'See, mom! I told you the judge would let me move with you!'

Ben came in, after realizing that he was also standing in the rain and we were no where to be found. He handed me the phone. There was much celebrating going on in Omaha on his end of the line. He had everyone in his office on a conference line with us. I was already crying when he told me the news himself. He said he'd send me an email with the documents from the judge to read over. It was just the opinion; we still had to draft the order for him to sign and get it filed with the state. If it were just us and the judge, my lawyer said he could get it done by early this week, however, we have to continue to work with the ex's lawyer for her review/sign off on the order, so it would take probably 3-4 weeks to complete. I asked if I could just keep Scooter out here until that was done, and he said I would need the ex's permission, but if he were smart, that wouldn't be a problem.

In the meantime, I had pulled up my email, opened the findings, and let Ben read through it. I turned on some cartoons for the kids, and Scooter was sitting nicely with her stuffed animals. Bubba was running and shreiking and laughing and trashing the hotel room like a rock star. At one point, he had climbed up on top of the desk. Standing on the desk, he started throwing it's contents around the room. He knocked a chair over. He stripped the beds of their bedding and pillows and scattered them around. It was time to get back on the road.

We hit rain and snow the whole way, and had to chain up again in Northern California. Again, as with the drive down, as soon as we were in Oregon, the sun was out and roads were dry. But the damage was done. We had lost 2 hours putting chains on and waiting in 2 checkpoint lines in California, and we didn't get home until after 9. But we were home. And we won. For the moment, anyway...