We loaded up Ben's car on Friday morning and hit the road. The kids were beyond excited to get in the car and watch movies and eat snacks. I forgot that feeling as a kid of waiting for your parents to get ready to leave for a trip...it's almost torture.
Lesson #1 of roadtrippin': don't drink apple juice.
I thought I was being smart by having easy drinks for the kids. But apple juice + watching electronics + stop and go traffic= Colin barfing and 2 other woozy kids. We stopped for a long "lunch", although no one ate anything, for the kids to regroup their tummies and we got to talk to Ben for a little bit. I'm so glad we did, because we sat in DC traffic for the next 3 hours. The kids didn't even mind, but I was thinking some choice words about DC. We didn't get to Pittsburg until 6 (I thought we would be there by 3), checked into the hotel and found some dinner. We were all on the verge of hangery by that point.
The kids were very excited about swimming at the hotel, so I won some major mom points when I let them swim at 8 pm. And some of this may have happened:
After swimming, we watched cable tv in bed and ate pb&j's.
Lesson #2 of road trippin': the kids don't eat much while on the road, thus are starving right before bed.
The kids were also very excited about "choose your own" breakfast at the hotel.
Thankfully we didn't hit any traffic on Saturday (just went through lots of construction) and made it to Michigan by early afternoon. We went straight to my friend Julie's house and had just enough time to go potty and regroup before we went to Chuck E Cheese. Our kids have never been and it was a perfect motivator to finish out the long drive. Julie and I have been plotting to surprise Andrea since her baby #4 was born. When Andrea invited Julie to meet then at Chuck E Cheese, we thought it would be the perfect place to surprise her. So I was just sitting at the table they were meeting at and ironically, she saw/recognized Alison from across the room, even before seeing me. That exactly shows what kind of friend Andrea is...how she recognized Alison after 7 years is beyond me. Anyway, she walked up and said, "What is happening?!" and started crying.
So maybe Chuck E Cheese was not the best choice. The place in itself is overwhelming and then add a surprise while trying to keep track of crazy kids; Andrea was about to have a heart attack.
Colin was not a fan of the place. The giant mouse walking around completely freaked him out.
Kids are naturally drawn to Julie and she helped our kids play many of the games.
I think Alison had the best time out of anyone. Eli was disappointed in the end prize (he got 3 tootsie rolls for almost 100 tokens) but still had some fun.
After Chuck E Cheese, we went to Andrea's house for pizza.
Sunday, we went to Knox. It was crazy to me how comfortable our kids felt there. They all immediately jumped into the program without hesitation. I think they loved it that people knew who they were and were excited to meet them. It was great seeing so many people and I got to show the kids where daddy worked. The strange thing was, all of the youth kids we worked with are grown now and I only saw a few seniors that would have been just coming into youth group when we left.
My attempt at a family picture in front of church:
That afternoon was the warmest it's supposed to be all week, so we got out squirt guns for the kids. Kyle is also a teeny tot like Colin, so it's extra fun to see them play together.
Monday, we all met at the Cider Mill, one of my favorite Michigan stops. We ate a ton of donuts and got cider slushies.
The kids ran the trail by the mill and we made some stops along the stream.
Funny story from the mill: Alison really wanted to feed the goats. You could buy some goat food at the ice cream shop and they would put it in a cone. Alison was trying to be independent and went by herself (I was standing just out of sight) to buy goat food for her and the boys. She handed the cone of food to Colin and he licked it. HA! He thought she was handing him ice cream and started to eat it! The workers were laughing so hard they could barely talk.
Somehow throwing rocks into the river was the highlight of the trip.
We had dinner at the Marlow's again and Alison got to hold baby Nathan.
Tuesday:
Julie coaches cross country in the morning, so I watch all the kiddos while she's gone. We spent the morning at the park yesterday. It's cooled off here and there are 3 parks right by her house. Our kids are in heaven here.
Julie met us at the park when she got home and helped me get the herd back home.
Ben, I think we need to get Colin a little bike like this (he's on the green).
Nicole came over that afternoon and so did Andrea. There were 13 kids in the house at one point, 2 of them being newborns. My kids played and I got to hold babies, so I thought it was awesome. Julie is a saint for letting all of this happen at her house.
It's funny the mental game you go through when you go back to a place you once lived. Things are familiar and your brain says "you should know where to go and where things are" but you just don't. I don't even think I could get to our old house from Julie's without my handy dandy phone. Places and people have changed, yet seem the same. Even with friends, you can pick up right where you left off, but then there's 13 kids running around you and you realize how much you've missed over the years.
