we've been psyching ourselves up for our big trip across country for quite some time. kasee set her wedding date for may, and cody and i decided that driving would most likely be the best option for us financially ( i say cody and i, but i really mean cody. if it were up to me i would have bought plane tickets direct from austin in a heart beat). so anyways, we've been telling mae for a while that we were going on a big adventure. for weeks she's been asking when we would leave on our big "abenture". the whole time we were driving..."we going on abenture!!"
cody and i had been tossing around the idea that we should eventually get a bigger car. (i say tossing around, what i mean is, i was basically saying "there's no way we can drive across country with all our crap in our car"). i loved my crv, and i eventually wanted a bigger car, but was perfectly content. i knew it would be tight getting everything we would need for a month home in the car, but was willing to try. one saturday cody took the car to see how much we could get for a trade-in. it turned out to be way more than we expected. so he told me to come test drive some mini-vans. i did. but i just mentioned that i'd like to drive the honda pilot as well (my obtainable dream car). he let me...boy was i surprised. then he told me we could buy it...shock and surprise. what?!? i was not emotionally prepared to get a car! needless to say i drove home that day in a new ride. and i absolutely love it.
on to the "abenture". i spent weeks getting activities, books, toys, games, etc for mae for the drive. i seriously agonized over whether i had enough things to occupy every minute of time. i made sure we had a ridiculous amount of healthy snacks. what i didn't prepare for was a munchkin getting a double ear infection and a burst ear drum the day we left.
the day before we left mae seriously had a melt down to end all meltdowns. she literally cried and screamed for 3 solid hours. she would't tell me what was wrong. so like any loving patient parent, i sent her to her room. she finally calmed down and went to sleep. but was up a lot during the night. the next day i planned to take her to the park and let her run around so she would be worn out when we started our trek. we get to the park and i pull her hair back and see all of this blood and puss in her ear...super. the doctor was double booked all day, so i couldn't get in for an appointment. so we ended up at urgent care. the blood and puss were from her ear drum bursting and then draining. that was why she was screaming for 2 hours. wow, epic parent fail or what? luckily we were able to get her on some super meds before we left.
so we finally leave! woohoo. two tired sick babes in the car was no fun, nor is staying in sketchy hotels. but we survived and made it all the way to west monroe the first night. we of course had to do some duck dynasty sight seeing the next morning...
and made a delicious pit stop at the local donut shop
mae was in heaven
like i said, i seriously packed so many things for her to do. and i felt like we went through them all in like an hour. this one is a matching game i put together. girlfriend might not know her colors, but she knows her shapes.
i bought some gel clings for her to put on the window. she had more fun putting them on her arms.
and we cut out and made fun glasses.
traveling with kids is not for the faint of heart. it was hard. but, we actually had a pretty good time. i don't know if i'm ready to do it again any time soon. and i will say the next time that i do, i will most certainly have a dvd player, but it was totally worth it.
more posts on our "abentures" on the east coast to come!!
