This shall henceforth be known as the "Macbook Air incident"

Last weekend, my MacBook Air started having disk errors, saying that my hard drive was failing. Which, in and of itself, sucks. Especially since we've had these types of things happen to us before, and we've lost LOTS of stuff (pictures, files, etc.) But, we've learned our lesson, and now we have an external HD to back up our main home computer. Up until Christmas, my laptop didn't have an external backup, but Jeff thankfully amended this by getting me one for Christmas. So, all of my email, contacts, websites, files were saved.

But, since the closest Apple store is 2 hours away, getting it fixed required the whole fam to pack up in the car and drive there. They didn't have the part on hand, so they had to send it off. Meaning I was laptop-less all this last week. Which wasn't terrible, just inconvenient. I use a program called 1Password for most sites and programs I use, and since I don't have it on the main Mac downstairs, that meant I couldn't log into a lot of things all week. Thank goodness I hadn't yet done it to my email, cause that would have sucked.

I was fully expecting it to take another few days for my laptop to get back to the store. I had asked if they couldn't just send it directly to my house instead of making me drive all the way back, but they said that it affected quality control, and that they tested everything once it was returned, to make sure everything was completely repaired. I couldn't really argue with that, so I said ok.

They called me yesterday afternoon to let me know it was ready to be picked up. I mentally ran through the days that I might be able to go, and decided Monday would be the best day, since I didn't have school or work, and neither did the kids. I wasn't looking forward to driving out there alone with all the kids, but it seemed the best time. Jeff had other plans, and suggested maybe doing it after dinner last night. The kids would be fed, and hopefully fall asleep early. Plus, he'd said that the snow wasn't going to let up all week, so I'd be driving in my van that needs new tires in not so fun conditions. Again, I agreed that was probably not the best idea. So, we had dinner early, packed the kiddos into the truck, and started on our way.

Normally the girls are pretty happy in the truck; they love riding in it and listening to XM Kids on the satellite radio. Most of the time they fall asleep, allowing Jeff & I to have a little bit of quiet time. This trip? Not so much.

Katie had been whining since we left the house, and I silently wondered if she wasn't feeling well. But, I tried my best to make everyone happy and comfortable as best I could. The weather was atrocious-snow blowing sideways across the freeway, and the traffic was a lot slower than usual. What would normally take us only about 2 hours, was taking closer to 3. About 45 miles from our destination, Katie's stomach had had enough. She proceeded to throw up all over herself and her car-seat. And, by Karmic coincidence, we were NOWHERE near an exit. Both Jeff & Emma have sensitive noses to unappealing smells, so we rolled the windows down slightly to allow for some ventilation. Yeah, we rolled the windows down, in Michigan, in the winter, when it was snowing. But, it was either that or risk there being 2 more people puking in the truck. We had to drive for 10 miles before an exit came up. Poor Katie was so brave, she didn't even cry the entire time. I felt so bad for her; she was a mess.

I would hazard a guess that the temp outside was about 5-6 degrees, without the wind chill. I had to completely strip Katie down (thank goodness I'd brought her & Sarah each another set of clothes), clean her off, and set her in the drivers seat, all while the door was open. Then I had to clean up her seat as much as possible. My small stash of baby wipes was barely enough to get the job done. But, the truck still smelled a bit funky. Jeff to the rescue with a brand new "New Car smell" air freshener. Once everyone was back in their respective seats, we continued on to the Apple store. We only had an hour before it closed, and Jeff was determined to not have this trip be in vain. So we trudged on. We got there about 15 minutes before the store closed, and while he and the girls waited in the truck, I ran inside the mall to go get my computer. It was fixed, I got my paperwork for the repair, and I was heading back out to the truck within 5 minutes. Jeff pulled around, and as I was putting my stuff inside, he said,"Sarah leaked through her pull-up, she needs a change, too." Oy, when it rains, it pours.

So after another set of clothing was changed, we were on our way back home. The kids finally fell asleep about an hour later, and we had about 45 minutes of peace & quiet. I think I should write Apple and use this incident as a reason why Michigan needs another Apple store closer to where I live. Considering how many products we buy from them, it seems only fair.