This trip was a once in a life time trip. Not because of the places we went, but because of the reason we went.
When I was a young girl, sharing a room with her younger brother, dreaming of what life would look like when we were older, I never in a million years envisioned the career path he has found himself on. I never imagined him living outside the great city of our youth. But straight out of college he moved himself a couple hours north of us, until he could no longer stand the distance between him and his then girlfriend Melissa, so he found himself a new job and moved a couple hours south-west (where she lived). Now he is moving himself many hours east of us. But... I couldn't be prouder of him. More on that later, otherwise I will start to cry...
OK, back to our trip. We started off early Sunday morning. E.A.R.L.Y like our ride arrived at 4:50am early. Brutal early. Did I mention we started EARLY??? We decided that instead of taking two vehicles, we would try and take one. My parents minivan. It seats seven & with my parents, sister, my kids, and I, we filled up the van. Then add all our luggage and it was sardines in a can or was it van.... Quite comical really. I should have taken a picture of it. If we had to open the back of the van, look out for falling objects! Lets just say the rearview mirror was all but useless.
We started on our way down the highway. This is a highway we know well for we traveled it every year on our way to visit our Grandma who lived out East. As the sky went from black to gray as the sun started to rise, the places were all familiar to us. By 8 am we were in Ohio stopping for breakfast. Now, I had thought for sure the kids would fall back to sleep, but I was mistaken. All three of them stayed awake the entire 12 hour trip.
A side note... before we left the kids were able to open 1 christmas gift. Micah and Jilli got cameras and Tyler got a video camera. So as I share the stories of this trip I will be including pictures taken by all three of the kids (I will also include pictures from my Dad and sister).
disclaimer... not all the pictures will be clear, some are quite fuzzy, but I love them because my kids took them.
Even though the kids didn't sleep, the adults did. I think Micah snuck this one of PopPop snoozing.
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| Micah's picture |
The adults all took turns driving (except my Mom). Everytime there was a new driver the kids wanted another picture.
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| Jilli's picture |
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| Micah's picture - can you see they are watching??.. Sound of Music!! Train your children up in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it. My boys wives will be thanking me :) |
Jilli took a picture of the video screen. It really was a life saver. As kids we never had electronics at home let alone in our van as we traveled. But we weren't forced to stay seated and buckled the whole time either. We could get up and move around. Now-a-days you just can't do that and 12 hours is a long time to stay scrunched in the back seat.
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| Micah's picture |
The kids even asked for a group shot around the snowman. It was definitely a first for me, I have never been posed in a rest area before. We all got a kick out of it and as you can see were good sports about it.
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| Jilli's picture |
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| Micah's picture |
I think that is it for tonight.
Blessings!!
1 comment:
The question is: Did you do your hair and make up before your 4:30 pick up?
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