Dave and I made the trip to Ohio this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. His Uncle Tim and Aunt Deb Butler hosted, as they have done many times in the past.
We drove out to Chicago Tuesday night of last week. We picked up Violet from school and left right after that. The morning on Tuesday was really quite stressful, even though Dave had the day off work. We went shopping for appliances in the morning with Calvin and Vanessa, and arrived home with just enough time to get lunch, pack up stuff for 5 people quickly, and leave to get Violet at 2:40 pm. Calvin and Vanessa did not nap, so while I packed up my stuff and the kid's stuff, they destroyed the house. Not literally, of course....but they pulled out every single toy and puzzle we own and spread them all over the 1st floor of the house. Everywhere. The mess stressed me out knowing I didn't have time to pick it all up and realizing that the mess would welcome me the day we arrived home from Ohio. I'm talking puzzle pieces by where the shoes are stored, lego blocks spread on the kitchen floor...etc.
Oh well. I successfully packed up stuff, got the car packed, etc, and in all the flury of me moving so fast, I forgot the kid's toothbrushes. We ended up buying some at Walgreens in Chicago at the end of our trip when I realized I had forgotten them. Dave picked them out and got the kind of toothbrushes that you can press the tip and it flashes a light for 60 seconds, the amount of time a kid should brush their teeth. 60 seconds felt like an eternity while we tried out the flashing while brushing, apparently we don't brush their teeth long enough.
We drove to Dave's mom's house that night, and arrived somewhere in the 8 pm range. We let the kids run around and play for awhile, then settled them into bed. Calvin and Violet shared a twin bed (heads on each end) in the basement, Vanessa slept in a crib and Dave and I shared the full size bed, all in the same little basement room. Cozy and dark, everyone slept decent except Violet and daddy. She woke him up a couple times saying she had nightmares and snuggled in bed with us for awhile.
We planned to spend most of Wednesday with Josh and Carrie, seeing their new house, and Dave planned on helping Josh install some things (ceiling fans, window blinds). Carrie and I kept the kids entertained, put the little ones down for naps, and left to go take care of some house-related errands. We stopped by Home Depot, Target, a grocery store, and some other place, I can't remember. A stop at Starbucks between all the stores was a necessary detour. While we were gone, the older 4 kids (Austin, Violet, Renee and Calvin) got along pretty well and found stuff to do, not getting into much trouble. We realized it is so nice when they get older and can function more independently!
We ordered pizza for dinner that night from a local place called Macianos (or something like that), and left shortly after dinner to head back to Martha's house. There is an hour's drive from J&C's to Martha's.
The night went better, I think, I can't really remember. We did make a point to wake up early on Thursday morning so we could get on the road at a good time to make it to Tim and Deb's house by 2 pm (they are an hour ahead of us, with a 4 hour drive we made the goal to leave by 8 am but left by 9am). Martha rode with us there.
This drive felt like an eternity. We had to stop a lot, kids were tired, couldn't WAIT to get there and see all their cousins, they were even discontented with movies in the van. I found out Vanessa does not sleep all that well in the van.
We arrived and the big meal was served shortly after we got there. Uncle Tim had grilled 2 huge turkeys on his master grill, there was also stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans with roasted red peppers, onions and almonds, cranberries in three forms (relish, sweet whipped cream stuff, and cut out of the can aka: poor man's cranberries), water, wine, there might be something else missing, pumpkin pie, peanut butter pie, and chocolate fondue with lots of different things to dip in the chocolate (pineapple, strawberries, angel food cake, pretzels, and wafer cookies).
We all pitched in to clean up and got involved with a game of pictionary. I forgot how hard that game can be.
Tim and Deb had set up a room for our whole family. Violet and Calvin got bunk beds, Vanessa slept in Kala and Linette's old crib, and Dave and I slept on a queen size air mattress. Both kids were too afraid to sleep on the top bunk the first night so they shared the full size bunk on the bottom.
Friday morning, Kala and I had planned to get up early and do some Black Friday shopping. If you know me at all, that is THE LAST place I want to be because I don't really love shopping all that much, and I hate crowds...but I agreed to go with her. She invited me to stay at her house in Bowling Green that night, so I did. We got to her place at midnight and both went to sleep right away. Friday morning we woke up at 7 am (I know, pathetic for BF shopping), got some breakfast sandwiches and coffee, and hit the stores by 8 am.
I found some maternity clothes at Old Navy and Kohls, some new shoes and a purse, she found some boots and other accessories.
We returned to Tim and Deb's house in time for lunch, which was "create your own pizza" and Tim grilled them. Everybody enjoyed that!
The weather was so nice (60 degrees and sunny!) that the kids enjoyed outside play, mostly on the trampoline and swing set outside. We also spent a few hours at one of Tim and Deb's good friend's house, they have a little pond with a kayak, some 4 wheelers, and a barn with horses. These activities kept all the kids involved and every one enjoyed a trip around the lake in the little boat.
I can't really remember specifically what we did that evening. We played random board games (Blokus was the most popular!) and cards, sometimes spoons. Tim grilled up (yes, he loves his grill) some marinated pork tenderloins for dinner along with leftover sweet potatoes and more veggies, and the evening event was watching the movie Tangled.
Saturday we spent a good portion of the day at the city park. It was still really nice outside so that was a huge blessing. We took a family picture outside too.
Sunday morning we tried to get up and out as early as possible....but it turned out being closer to 10 am that we left. Knowing that we had an entire day's worth of traveling ahead of us was a bit daunting. 540 miles in one day? With 3 kids? Are we crazy?
We broke up the trip in pieces, however, which is why it took us from 10 am to 10 pm to get back to our house in Cedar Falls.
We dropped Martha off in Berwyn, IL (5 hr drive), and Dave spent an hour trying to repair her sliding deck door. Then we had to go to J&C's house (1 hr drive) because we had left the kid's winter coats there from the Wednesday before, and they also gave us their baby crib. We stopped there for an hour. Then left for Iowa (4 more hours). The kids watched tons of movies. Vanessa barely slept, and fussed for a long time. We stopped multiple times for bathroom breaks, and food breaks. Calvin had to stop more than anybody to pee. I drove the last 4 hour stretch, Dave drove the rest of it.
Violet and Calvin konked out and went to sleep about an hour before getting home, so getting them out of the van into their beds was a bit of a challenge. Once all the kids were in bed Dave and I just stared at the disaster of our house, said forget it, and went to bed too.
The drive was worth it, however, seeing family and watching the cousins enjoy their time together was priceless.
Pics:
Serving up Thanksgiving meal to the kids:
chocolate fondue:
trampoline outside!
kayaking with daddy:
4 wheelin' with Uncle Tim:
me tickling my little boy:
Violet, Adalynn, Lynnea, Calvin
me and Kala:
almost a family pic, missing Vanessa, but still a good one!
the whole gang. (Tim and Deb Butler, Sean and April LaMarche with their 7 kids, Emily, Alyssa, Corbin, Logan, Bowen, Lynnea and Adalynn, Dave and me, Violet, Calvin, Vanessa, Martha LaMarche, and Kala Butler)
We drove out to Chicago Tuesday night of last week. We picked up Violet from school and left right after that. The morning on Tuesday was really quite stressful, even though Dave had the day off work. We went shopping for appliances in the morning with Calvin and Vanessa, and arrived home with just enough time to get lunch, pack up stuff for 5 people quickly, and leave to get Violet at 2:40 pm. Calvin and Vanessa did not nap, so while I packed up my stuff and the kid's stuff, they destroyed the house. Not literally, of course....but they pulled out every single toy and puzzle we own and spread them all over the 1st floor of the house. Everywhere. The mess stressed me out knowing I didn't have time to pick it all up and realizing that the mess would welcome me the day we arrived home from Ohio. I'm talking puzzle pieces by where the shoes are stored, lego blocks spread on the kitchen floor...etc.
Oh well. I successfully packed up stuff, got the car packed, etc, and in all the flury of me moving so fast, I forgot the kid's toothbrushes. We ended up buying some at Walgreens in Chicago at the end of our trip when I realized I had forgotten them. Dave picked them out and got the kind of toothbrushes that you can press the tip and it flashes a light for 60 seconds, the amount of time a kid should brush their teeth. 60 seconds felt like an eternity while we tried out the flashing while brushing, apparently we don't brush their teeth long enough.
We drove to Dave's mom's house that night, and arrived somewhere in the 8 pm range. We let the kids run around and play for awhile, then settled them into bed. Calvin and Violet shared a twin bed (heads on each end) in the basement, Vanessa slept in a crib and Dave and I shared the full size bed, all in the same little basement room. Cozy and dark, everyone slept decent except Violet and daddy. She woke him up a couple times saying she had nightmares and snuggled in bed with us for awhile.
We planned to spend most of Wednesday with Josh and Carrie, seeing their new house, and Dave planned on helping Josh install some things (ceiling fans, window blinds). Carrie and I kept the kids entertained, put the little ones down for naps, and left to go take care of some house-related errands. We stopped by Home Depot, Target, a grocery store, and some other place, I can't remember. A stop at Starbucks between all the stores was a necessary detour. While we were gone, the older 4 kids (Austin, Violet, Renee and Calvin) got along pretty well and found stuff to do, not getting into much trouble. We realized it is so nice when they get older and can function more independently!
We ordered pizza for dinner that night from a local place called Macianos (or something like that), and left shortly after dinner to head back to Martha's house. There is an hour's drive from J&C's to Martha's.
The night went better, I think, I can't really remember. We did make a point to wake up early on Thursday morning so we could get on the road at a good time to make it to Tim and Deb's house by 2 pm (they are an hour ahead of us, with a 4 hour drive we made the goal to leave by 8 am but left by 9am). Martha rode with us there.
This drive felt like an eternity. We had to stop a lot, kids were tired, couldn't WAIT to get there and see all their cousins, they were even discontented with movies in the van. I found out Vanessa does not sleep all that well in the van.
We arrived and the big meal was served shortly after we got there. Uncle Tim had grilled 2 huge turkeys on his master grill, there was also stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans with roasted red peppers, onions and almonds, cranberries in three forms (relish, sweet whipped cream stuff, and cut out of the can aka: poor man's cranberries), water, wine, there might be something else missing, pumpkin pie, peanut butter pie, and chocolate fondue with lots of different things to dip in the chocolate (pineapple, strawberries, angel food cake, pretzels, and wafer cookies).
We all pitched in to clean up and got involved with a game of pictionary. I forgot how hard that game can be.
Tim and Deb had set up a room for our whole family. Violet and Calvin got bunk beds, Vanessa slept in Kala and Linette's old crib, and Dave and I slept on a queen size air mattress. Both kids were too afraid to sleep on the top bunk the first night so they shared the full size bunk on the bottom.
Friday morning, Kala and I had planned to get up early and do some Black Friday shopping. If you know me at all, that is THE LAST place I want to be because I don't really love shopping all that much, and I hate crowds...but I agreed to go with her. She invited me to stay at her house in Bowling Green that night, so I did. We got to her place at midnight and both went to sleep right away. Friday morning we woke up at 7 am (I know, pathetic for BF shopping), got some breakfast sandwiches and coffee, and hit the stores by 8 am.
I found some maternity clothes at Old Navy and Kohls, some new shoes and a purse, she found some boots and other accessories.
We returned to Tim and Deb's house in time for lunch, which was "create your own pizza" and Tim grilled them. Everybody enjoyed that!
The weather was so nice (60 degrees and sunny!) that the kids enjoyed outside play, mostly on the trampoline and swing set outside. We also spent a few hours at one of Tim and Deb's good friend's house, they have a little pond with a kayak, some 4 wheelers, and a barn with horses. These activities kept all the kids involved and every one enjoyed a trip around the lake in the little boat.
I can't really remember specifically what we did that evening. We played random board games (Blokus was the most popular!) and cards, sometimes spoons. Tim grilled up (yes, he loves his grill) some marinated pork tenderloins for dinner along with leftover sweet potatoes and more veggies, and the evening event was watching the movie Tangled.
Saturday we spent a good portion of the day at the city park. It was still really nice outside so that was a huge blessing. We took a family picture outside too.
Sunday morning we tried to get up and out as early as possible....but it turned out being closer to 10 am that we left. Knowing that we had an entire day's worth of traveling ahead of us was a bit daunting. 540 miles in one day? With 3 kids? Are we crazy?
We broke up the trip in pieces, however, which is why it took us from 10 am to 10 pm to get back to our house in Cedar Falls.
We dropped Martha off in Berwyn, IL (5 hr drive), and Dave spent an hour trying to repair her sliding deck door. Then we had to go to J&C's house (1 hr drive) because we had left the kid's winter coats there from the Wednesday before, and they also gave us their baby crib. We stopped there for an hour. Then left for Iowa (4 more hours). The kids watched tons of movies. Vanessa barely slept, and fussed for a long time. We stopped multiple times for bathroom breaks, and food breaks. Calvin had to stop more than anybody to pee. I drove the last 4 hour stretch, Dave drove the rest of it.
Violet and Calvin konked out and went to sleep about an hour before getting home, so getting them out of the van into their beds was a bit of a challenge. Once all the kids were in bed Dave and I just stared at the disaster of our house, said forget it, and went to bed too.
The drive was worth it, however, seeing family and watching the cousins enjoy their time together was priceless.
Pics:
Serving up Thanksgiving meal to the kids:
Thanks for writing, that was a great story and event!
ReplyDeleteDAD
Thanksgiving is in order that you all survived the trip down and back and had an exceptional time while there!
ReplyDeleteSure is an effort alright, but memories as you well said will last a lifetime!
Kudos!
Mom