I love my almost 12 year old boy!

Like most moms, I have enjoyed EVERY single stage of my son's life. Baby days? Loved them! Terrible twos? Weren't so terrible! Preschool age? Fantastic? And on and on and on.

Now my son will soon be 12 (GASP!) and it's a shock to my system, thinking that I will teaching a middle schooler this fall.

But I adore my middle schooler and one of the advantages of having an almost 12 year old is he is very intelligent, capable, and willing to take something I dread and turn it into something I'm looking forward to.

We leave for WV on Thursday. My husband isn't making the trip with us. I haven't been looking forward to the drive or the 2 week visit without him.

This morning, Evan asked me what time we were leaving on Thursday and where we were going to stop along the way. Those questions caused some anxiety, so I turned it all over to him.

He is busy planning our trip right now. He's been to WV and back at least 2 times every year for the past 12 years, so he knows the good places to stop for gas and the restaurants where we like to eat.

My stipulations:

1. I'm not leaving the house any earlier than 9:45 a.m. That way we'll get to spend some time with hubby before we go. I won't feel rushed and crazy. And, hopefully, we'll miss crazy morning rush hour traffic.

2. I'm not driving the easiest, fastest way to get out of GA. In the past month we have driven up 75 North towards Tennessee about a million times and I'm sick of the road. I am driving north on 41 and hoping for the best. Hee hee.

3. I have to stop and get peaches for my mother and my mother-in-law. If any other family member sees this post and wants peaches, you better call me before I leave on Thursday.

4. If I want to stop at a convenience store for a raisin ugly, I will. If I see a sign for a Civil War cemetery, I'm going to stop and look. It's not a race. I'm not a Nascar driver. I'm going to drive like a little old lady on a Sunday afternoon! So grin and bear it! Actually, my son will have no problem with this. If my husband was with us, it would be a different story.

So it's mostly in Evan's hands now and his enthusiasm for planning our journey is contagious! The drive up to WV can be tedious and annoying, but Evan and I are both determined to make it F-U-N!

See you soon, Mountain State!