Well, we still haven't decided if we are crazy, brave or determined, but we are on the road. We are in Virginia to see Dave's cousin, Erin, graduate. It's turning out to be a fun family reunion, so we are looking forward to seeing everyone.
We have been planning for this trip for a good month, especially in buying supplies that will hopefully make this trip go easier. So, we decided this trip to load up the van the night before, so we could leave ASAP in the morning. Thanks to Dave and some friends taking the kids to the park yesterday, I was able to get some packing done. This allowed me to load the van up just before midnight (I spent ALL DAY finishing laundry and packing!). But I told myself if the Gosselins can do it, so can we.
We were pretty proud of ourselves for making it out of the driveway at 8:40am - a record for all 6 of us getting out the door, even on days when we aren't going on a trip! OK, so I was up until 1:30am the night before taking care of details, but we did it! Here we are at a stoplight 15 minutes into our trip!
The drive went pretty smoothly overall, except for torrential downpours and tornado warnings. We wouldn't want to take a trip and have everything going perfectly, now would we? I was surprised by how little the kids slept in the car, especially since we got them up a little early. Lauren and Piglet did take a little snooze, though.
Despite the heavy rain and construction zones,Dave was making good time. Then, we heard the desperate pleas of a preschooler to pull over soon. We stopped at a McDonald's that was just perfect for us. It had an outdoor playland with a covered eating area, and all of it was fenced in! I was really stressed out about how the rest stops were going to go, so this was a huge relief to me! One parent could watch all 4 kids (since they were contained) while the other got food or hit the facilities. It was such a blessing.
The rain had lightened up a bit by this point, and we decided just to let the kids play in the rain. They had a blast. The slides were all wet, slippery and fast. At one point I looked and Drew was just laying on his stomach on the wet playset in a puddle. They had fun splashing and running around with the place all to themselves. We decided the rain maybe wasn't such a bad thing after all. It probably kept some of the crowds away, made the traffic lighter, and maybe even made the construction zones less of a mess, too. The people inside the restaurant were very entertained watching our kids, too. One person even stopped after coming through the drive thru and gave us a look as if to say, "You let your kids play in the rain?" Yep, we're rednecks. Got a problem with that? Here's some pictures of the drenched kiddos.
But then after eating lunch came the fun of cleaning everyone up and changing their clothes. By then the torrential rain that we had just driven through caught up with us. But we got the kids in dry clothes and back into the van again without getting too drenched. We were also blessed with a sweet worker there named Lisa, who helped us with everything from silverware to a trash bag for storing wet clothes. She was such a huge help, especially while most of the store was just staring at us. We only got one shocked reaction about us having triplets, so that was nice, too. We definitely want to hit this McDonald's on the way back.
So after a two hour stop, we were anxious to get on the road again. Well, about half an hour later, we had to stop again to take care of some festive diapers. Unfortunately, we had to wake up a sleeping boy, which messed up his nap. But the good part about this stop is that it helped us soon meet up with Grandma and Papo easily. We were hoping that all 4 kids would have had a nice nap before this 3rd stop, but no such luck with all the catnapping. We had some whiny, squirmy kids by then. But it was good to see Grandma and Papo and have their help to watch the kids as they ran all over the rest stop. They also had splatters of mud all over their feet, but not bad enough to break out outfit #3 of the day! Wet wipes to the rescue once again.
About halfway there we got to the fun part where it gets hilly. Dave and I like to play a game to see who will be the first to enter a new state. Sometimes we try to distract each other and other times we go to extreme measures to cross the finish line first. But that also makes that part of the trip interesting, as we weaved in and out of several states. So far we've had a lot of ties, but Dave is winning with 2-1-3 for our score. We'll keep you post on the final winner.
We rolled into Virginia without too much incident after that. We were watching Annie, and every time Drew saw Daddy Warbucks, he kept saying "Papo" and pointing at the screen. But made it at 9:30pm, so that made for a 13 hour trip, including long stops. It really went much better than I thought it would and the kids did great in the van. But by the time we got checked in, unloaded the van, childproofed one of the 2 adjoining rooms we got and set up the beds and put the kids into them, it was 10:30pm. This is 3 hours past their bedtimes, so you can imagine how happy they were by then. Lauren was the only one who fell asleep around her bedtime. The boys stayed awake in the van the whole time. I hope they at least sleep in tomorrow!
God bless,
Amanda
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