1,800 Miles with a Toddler and Infant

Oh. My. Gracious.  We're back and finally recovered from the longest road trip ever.  We alternate holidays between Bryan's mom and my parents.  This year was Christmas in Kansas City so we started there which is about 500 miles each way and about 8 or 9 hours of driving each way.  We came home for 36 hours, just long enough to unpack and repack, and then left for Cincinnati to see Bryan's mom.  It took us almost 6 hours and is about 300 miles.  We stayed a couple of days and then drove to Columbus to spend New Year's Eve with Quad One, Bryan's close friends from high school.  We were so glad to be home.  We calculated on the way home that we drove over 1,800 miles and were in the car for over 30 hours.  Gross. 

The poor kids were so tired of traveling.  JJ does not ever nap well and this was no different.  He finally crashed after an exhausting trip and slept for a little over 100 miles on the way home.  His total on the whole trip was only 160 miles.  Out of 1,800!!! 

When we got home, he just kept saying, "this is a fun place" and gesturing to the house like Vanna White.  He has been so happy here.  He definitely does better with structure and routine so we are all happier now that we've got some of that back.

Aside from all the time actually in the car, we had a great trip!  It was so fun to see Mimi and all of our friends. 

Now for pictures:  I was having a ton of trouble with Blogger so these may be all out of order and not centered.  I'm not sure what was going on.  Charley became a real sitter at Mimi's house.  She's still not the most stable but she can do it!

The gift I was most excited to give was a t-shirt quilt I made for Sharon using all of Dick's shirts.  She gave me a bag of his t-shirts after he passed and I told her I would make one.  I didn't mention anything else about it.  She was so excited and shocked. It turned out great, especially for my first time making one!

 We went to EnterTRAINment Junction thanks to Mimi!  We had the "do everything" passes in our stockings and JJ loved it.  We're excited to make it a tradition and take the kids each year.  There was a kids play area with tubes and slides and this little train that Jackson was excited to ride.  The rest of the place is filled with room after room of model trains.  It was crazy impressive.  We had just seen the trains at Union Station in Kansas City and this was about ten times bigger!

 

 

On New Year's Eve we drove to Columbus for the Pancake Breakfast.  It's an Anchorman  reference and what we call our annual gathering.  It's changed quite a bit over the years as we've added spouses and kids.  We're up to five kids now!  JJ and Steven are in the first round of kids.  They enjoyed their pizza and their dinner date.

This year we added Rylan, Dean, and Charley too!  We tried to get a picture of all the kids but we were unsuccessful.  We should have recorded our attempts to get them all sitting still and looking at the camera.  Better luck next year!

 

Here's the Quad:  Dan, Dustin, Lee, Jeremy, and Bryan

 

We had a great time but we are so loving being at home now!