Griswold Thanksgiving Vacation

No pictures this time, sorry.
It was bound to happen someday. The Lemiere family (me,wife,kids) had our first terrible road trip on our way to Yakima. Here's how it began:

We had some all-weather tires put on Leah's car the day before we left and as a result the car started to make a noise (wububububububububububub) and it got louder the faster we went. Turns out that when we finally checked, there were two lugnuts on a back tire that I could turn with my fingers! So once we got that taken care of, and were 45 minutes later, we hit the road. Leah was already apprehensive about going over White Pass at night because it's dark, could be icy, could be foggy, could have elk strewn about the highway that we'll have to avoid. So Leah was panic-y. Then Dash started to fuss. He was hungry and when we pulled over at a gas station, she fed him. Kaed and I ran in to use the loo, and when we got back Leah had somehow managed to set the car alarm off. I jumped in and started the car, but it was still going! So I hit the gas and got out of there like I stole it and we were literally driving down the road with the horn and lights going nuts. Dash had resumed freak-out mode, Kaed was telling Dash to be quiet, and Leah's sphincter had just tightened to DEF-CON-5. All of a sudden, the alarm stopped. So we pulled off again at the next gas station to check on Dash (in our haste of leaving the previous gas station, we thought we might have pinched him with the seatbelt or something). But as soon as the door opened, the car alarm went off again! I immediately told Leah to get the owner's manual and find "fuses" because she was about to blow one and I wanted to rip one out. But honestly, I had to laugh. So I did, and Leah swore at me. It was complete chaos in our car and we weren't but 40 minutes into the drive. Eventually, Dash cried himself into a coma, the alarm stopped (but was set to go off again as soon as the next door was opened!), and Leah had relaxed enough to ask Kaed, "You ok Kaed? Wanna kill your brother?" (I'm sure reading that looks pretty bad, but she was only jesting. I promise. Seriously.) To which Kaed replied in his infinite wisdom, "No . . . but I wanna kill myself." Thanks Kaed for the relief. The rest of the drive went off smoothly (if by smoothly I mean Leah pointed out every wildlife creature, sharp corner, passing car, snow patch, "possible" ice patch, guard rail, tunnel and cloud on the way - she never really recovered).

When we got to Yakima, the alarm did go off again, but we had passed Dash through the window to Leah's folks so it wouldn't scare him. Then we took care of the alarm situation which fortunately, did not require Leah's dad to hit the car battery with his wrench (but he was standing there ready if needed).

Thanksgiving was a success after that. Hope yours was as eventful, but in a less-stressed way. Oh, and Dash was not content with one tooth erupting; he has both bottom front teeth coming up. He's averaging one shiny chicklet penetration per 11 days and is on pace to have all teeth coming through by his first birthday. Fussy.