Saturday, August 29, 2015

Seaside Day 2!

After our...interesting...night, we woke up and got on the road by about 10. But, first...morning stretching:



We stopped for a little lunch and snapped a pic of this beauty:


We found a gorgeous route, that also meant we could avoid Mobile tunnels:


Spotted a rainbow:


And witnessed a beautiful sunset as we got closer:


We also realized we had yet to master the road trip. But, we are learning as we go:




Seaside trip day 1!

We had our second big road trip of the summer at the end of July!  This is a little peek at what it looks like to travel with Type One Diabetes on board:


A week before we left, I had this great idea that we should leave on Friday night when Trent got home from work. I thought we could drive part of the way and then the rest of the way the next day. That way we would get to Seaside at a decent hour and maybe not be as tired. This was a really good idea in theory. But, it didn't play out so well! First, we had a mishap with the garage. And the mishap was we might have backed into the garage door because it wasn't all the way up and there was a storage container on top of our minivan. As a result, the garage door was knocked off the rails and we were trapped (or the car was) inside. Did I mention it was Friday night? We were very fortunate that Fix-it Felix (his name really was Felix) was able to come over and fix it on very short notice. We fed the kids at home rather than stopping on the road and really didn't lose much time. 

So, here is our pretend we are on our way photo:


And here is our actual one a couple of hours later:

 I told the kids to put on sleep masks and try to go to sleep around 9:


We made it to the hotel at midnight in Ruston, LA. We pulled up and I immediately had misgivings, but said it is just a few hours, we just need to sleep. We walked into the hotel (they had placed us in a room on the ground floor) and the room next door (that was also adjacent to ours) had the door cracked open and it was dark in there. That freaked me out given that the hotel was sold out and it was midnight. There were a couple of other things that seemed off as well. Regardless, we went in and I got the big kids in pjs and then I got Fin changed. As I was about to feed her (Trent had gone out to the car), I moved the suitcase and a FURRY SPIDER WITH A BODY THE SIZE OF A HALF-DOLLAR CLIMBED OUT OF THE WALL!!!!! I started screaming and throwing things back into suitcases. Trent walked back in and saw the screaming and saw the spider and we all agreed we were NOT staying there. We loaded back up the car and hit the road again. The kids (still in pjs) fell asleep pretty quickly:


I started calling hotels. I called about 40 hotels from there to Mobile, Alabama. EVERYONE was booked. Most of them laughed at me. They told me that everyone was doing what we were doing and driving halfway and there were baseball tournaments up and down the coast. Awesome. We had resigned ourselves we were driving through the night (totally fine. I am not putting my baby down in a pack and play with FUZZY SPIDERS!!!). I was a little nervous, but give me some caffeine and we could do it. One of the guys told me if I valued my life i didn't want to stay in Jackson, MS. That is where we were going to run out of gas, so we turned back around to get gas in West Monroe, LA. As we were driving back, Trent asked me if I called the Courtyard Marriott that we were passing. I honestly wasn't sure if I had or not and told him to try it (I was sick of hearing no!). He called and they had ONE room. They had a cancellation! We took it! It was now 1:30 a.m. It was a king sized bed only, but we were going to make it work. We checked in and got everyone settled:


As I was feeding Fin, Trent called to tell me our new best friend at the front desk told him they had a cancellation for two queen beds. At this point, what did it matter?? So, at 2:30 a.m. we moved the kids (Harper never woke up) to the room upstairs. We slept until about 9. So much for being well rested for our first day in Florida, but what a story!!!

More July...


We celebrated Andrew and reunited with some kinder friends;

The kids were pretending to be spies...and also invisible:


I took this sweet girl to get her hair cut and that didn't quite work out! We had lunch instead! I love one on one time with my loves:


I think you would be hard pressed to find a boy who loves his sisters as much as this one:



We went to the museum with sweet friends:






Hud practiced some golf...with his shadow:


Hud said, "She looks like a villager!"


She loves her so quietly, but she loves her so much:


Trent and I celebrated our ten year anniversary! My mom gave us this and I love it so much!!!


After gymnastics, Gates rode with us to lunch (and Hud rode with Mal and Al). Harper was thrilled, she loves her some Gates!


Waco trip #2

We try to have a play date every summer and Spring Break (if our breaks are the same) with some sweet friends in Waco. It usually takes quite a bit of coordinating and has to be planned weeks in advance. We threw out a date at the last minute this time and it worked out for everyone! We might have to try that from now on!
We hit up our favorite children's museum:










All of the kids:





After the museum, we thought it would be fun to take the kids to eat at the SUB (Student Union Building) on campus! It was fun! It was also a little stressful for me, I forget sometimes that I have the youngest kids by far and juggling that and the T1D can be a lot sometimes! But, after a few mishaps, it was a fun time!
We went to see the bears afterwards:


It was HOT, so we hit up the bookstore. All the kids were drawn to the technology table!


This cracked me up:



Such a fun trip to Waco and always fun to see sweet friends!

July

We visited Daddy for lunch:




We finally got her big girl high chair down (my heart only hurts a little bit):


I love the princess phase:


I helped my mom clean out closets at her house and Harper tried on my cheerleading uniform:




The kids put on an impressive magic show:



We had lots of fun at the pool:





Fin started learning the sippy cup:



These sisters love each other a lot:




My 3 little love bugs:


We hit the new zoo splash park again:





The kids said they wanted to throw a party for Finley. The very odd coincidence was my time hop app said they did the EXACT same thing a year ago that day! What a strange coincidence. I hope they always want to throw parties for each other:



 This was a messy, but apparently delicious, dinner!