We made it!

1332 miles later and we're home! Let me tell ya, that's a LOT of time in the car! We all did very well though. The drive up took 11 1/2 hours. ugh. Normally when Kevin and I are together it takes about 10 1/2 hours, sometimes 10 if we drive late into the nigth when the kids are asleep. I only stopped one extra time when Maddux had an absolute meltdown and was saying he wanted to "walk to grandmas". What I wasn't figuring was the time it would take me to stop. There was no tag teaming.... normally Kevin would pump gas while I took Ava and me to the restroom and then I'd start the dvd while we were on the road again. This time I would pump gas, move the car, take all 3 of us to the restroom, come back to the car and stand there while the movie got ready. It took so much longer for me to stop! But it was alright, we did good. The drive back took 11 hours and we managed to only stop 3 times. I was very impressed with the kids. Ava helped shave some time off the return trip by learning how to work the dvd player so that I didn't have to do it.



The kids had a really great time at my parents. The got to play with their cousin Sadie for the first half of the week. My dads trains were a big hit, of course.. they always are. My dad told my mom that every penny he's paid for all his trains and such was finally made worth it tenfold... Maddux told him he wanted "all the trains" meaning the ones he has on display in his study and wanted to help carry them out to the tracks. Dad was so happy that Maddux took the initiative to ask for specific train cars and wanted to help. It was really cute.

We took all the kids to a butterfly house one day which was pretty neat. There were hundreds of butterflies flying around and landing everywhere. I was slightly worried that my wild man would swing at them or try to step on them :) but he didn't, he was fascinated with watching them fly around though.




Another day we went to the Spangler candy company, which is the company that makes Dum Dum suckers. Dum Dums are a big fave of my kids so they were very excited to go on a tour. We got to ride a trolley around the warehouses of the factory and learn about how the dum dums, candy canes and saf T pops are made. I learned an interesting fact... dum dum sticks and Q-tip sticks are one and the same! Then we trolleyed through the packaging area. Dum Dums and circus peanuts were literally falling from the ceiling! The trolley driver gave us a 3lb bag of dum dums hot off the line... as in literally they were still warm. yum. We cracked the bag open to eat warm dum dums and the brought the rest home. We also got a hot off the line bag of circus peanuts. Maddux gobbled them up as fast as he could, which was fine with me because I can't stand them. I got to do a taste test on a potential new flavor, "cherry citrus twist". It was tasty to me so I gave it good reviews... we'll see if it makes it into future bags!


The majority of the trip was spent outside. We played with the trains, did chalk, rode bikes up and down the long driveway and swang on grandpa's huge swingset. It was a great trip and I'm glad the kids enjoy it so much.