Road Trip #2

Having just made the trip to Michigan the beginning of June, we felt like we had a pretty good understanding of what stood before us. We had a little more time to pack for this trip, so we were smarter in that aspect. In fact, when we finally packed the car, we were a little concerned we were leaving out something as we really had a lot of space left. And with being gone for three weeks, that wasn't our expectation. I think we still ended up overpacking a bit, but we didn't forget anything important and that is always the main concern in my book. MUCH THANKS to our friends Betsy and Grace for watching the boys for a full day so I could pack without my little "helpers". (I was apprehensive about sending the boys together as they can be quite a handful but she insisted and swears they behaved perfectly. All I know is that it was a HUGE help to have them out of the house for a day!) They came home and took a nice, long nap. Another bonus. Unfortuantely, Noah woke up with a temp and a seal-sounding cough. I called the doctor explaining we were headed out of town the following morning but she was sure it was croup and there was nothing they could do. He was definitely not acting like himself and complained a lot about his throat so I decided we would take him to the doctor in the morning. We were packed and in the car by 9:00AM. Would have made for a lovely departure time but we had the sloooooowest experience at the doctor's office EVER! After waiting for TWO HOURS and having them find NOTHING, armed with nothing more than Tylenol, we were underway. (They did do a strep culture but said we wouldn't know for 24 hours how that turned out.) Might as well eat lunch first then we could drive like the wind. 12:20, we were finally pulling out of town. Unfortunately, we had decided to drive 8 hours the first day so we would only have 4 the next and could enjoy the beach when we arrived. What were we thinking? Oh, what a long day it was. Poor Noah said maybe three words the whole two days we were in the car. He just sat looking out the window and dozing off and on. He didn't even want to play with his travel toys!! Benjamin did his best to make up for the lack of talking as I am pretty sure his mouth stopped only during his two twenty minute naps. He enjoyed saying "Tommy and Bobby. Tommy and Bobby," the most and when he ran out of other things to talk about, he just repeated that over and over and over. So add in bathroom breaks, stopping for meals and to let kids stretch their legs, we finally pulled away from dinner about 8:30PM. Darkness setting in, along with the darkest, most threatening sky you could imagine. (Mom told us the next day we were under tornado watches but chose not to share that with me while we were driving, thank goodness.) Soon as it got dark, it just poured. It was so hard at times, we couldn't see anything. It was blowing like crazy. I was freaking out. No really. Benjamin - still not sleeping - was starting to lose his mind. I even tried giving him one of Abby's pacifiers. Didn't help. Oh, and we were closing in on Chicago traffic. I wanted to die. We eventually made it our hotel about 10:30. I vowed that night that we would never again try to drive more than 4 hours in any given day. (My husband just smiled and nodded.) Sunday's travel was just peachy, though. Except that our poor Noah was still miserable, it was a picture-perfect day. Once we got around Chicago (and most of Indiana) I took the wheel and we were home free. It was such a wonderful feeling to be in Michigan, headed to the beach, on vacation, for three weeks. My whole car was asleep I had Simon and Garfunkel on my iPod. Life was good. We arrived about 4:30. The beach and THE lake were just as pretty as could be. We unloaded and headed to dinner and the grocery store. We were finally on vacation!!!

Fast forward to three weeks later, our trip home was problem-free. As I supected, my husband did not approve my "four hours only" day plan but getting away just after lunch AND gaining an hour as we traveled, it was all good. We made it home late afternoon on Sunday. Noah was most definitely feeling better on this trip and talked. A lot. Had to make up for the trip up, I suppose. He's gotten really good at recognizing license plates and loves playing the game which I love. He doesn't have them all memorized, obviously, but when he sees a new one he says, "What's the license plate with the mountains on it?" We say, "Colorado." And he'll say, "Colorado." Then he instructs us to "Auuhhh..." And he is not afraid to coach us severa times on sounding just right. And don't you dare call out a license that he hasn't seen first. You may be just trying to point it out to him but he will think you are trying to call it for yourself and this will cause much screaming and fake crying. Oh, and Benjamin loves to call out "'Braska." or "Michigan." Of course, his big brother never EVER accepts this. Ah, the joys of sibling rivalry.

We eventually found out on Wednesday that Noah did, in fact, have strep throat all along. Their test machine was broken and they were just now getting the result. Poor kid. They actually called as we were on our way in to a pediatrician's office with Abby. She came down with a horrible cough and was having trouble sleeping at night. She had an ear infection - thankfully nothing more. So with two children on antibiotics by Wedensday, we were finally ALL able to enjoy vacation.