And I would walk 500 miles...

And I would walk 500 miles…

     ….to not have to drive 5 hours in the car with my kids for a very long time. Eric had a busy week at work, so I decided to take the 4 kids and go visit my parents for a few days before Cole starts back to school. Now, I have taken the kids on trips by myself before, but never with four….the day after we get home from camping. We got home Sunday evening, unpacked, did laundry, went to bed and got up Monday to leave. Oh yeah, but first I may or may not have had to take all 4 to the dentist. Oh wait, I did. The beginning of the visit was okay, but by the end, they were probably only flossing every other of our teeth just to speed up the process of getting us OUT OF THERE.

     Then I embarked on our 5 hour drive….well, only 30 minutes of it, because then I had to stop and feed Tucker. And since we were stopped we got everything out and set up to have a little picnic lunch at a picnic table at a rest stop…only to have multiple children have to go #2 all of a sudden. And what can you do in that scenario, but abandon your picnic lunch, hope no one steals it, and head off to the rest room. We came back and finished and headed off to our first pit stop, visiting friends in Toledo. That was a great little stop, then off to my brother’s, where we had to stop again on the side of the road (there were no rest areas to be found), to feed the baby, who by the way, screams whenever he is not sleeping in the car. The irony of this is that it bothers Cole the most, who, if you remember, screamed the entire first 3 months of his life.

     We were able to have a nice 3 day visit in Ohio without much drama except sleepless nights, my mom vomiting all night the second night we were there, Cooper getting a HUGE splinter deep in his leg that Eric by phone tried to talk us through doing surgery on him with a razor blade to get out, myself getting a stiff neck that made switching lanes very tricky, a side trip to a friends house with 40 min of detours, and forgetting pj’s for the baby. Then we headed for home around 4 p.m. on Thursday, stopping at my least favorite/children’s most favorite (I’ll let you figure out where) dining establishment, trying to feed/change the baby, make my kids eat, take all four of them to the bathroom 3 times, (why do they ALWAYS have to go right after we get all their shoes off to play in the play area?) and burn off some energy. Then it was on the road again for the last leg home. Praise the Lord we made it home by 9:30 and were all able to sleep in our own beds last night!
Good thing we really love our Ohio friends and family! But I think it will be a little while before I attempt that again! 

The only pictures I took (I wonder why). The boys with my nephew Kael. 

Chocolate Tornado Boy.