Texas Road Trip!

Last Tuesday we said goodbye to my parents, and then we packed like crazy people.  On Wednesday, June 10, I drove to the airport early to pick up Bob's sister Ann and her husband Wally who were flying back from a fantastic vacation in Hawaii.  When I got back, the kids were loading up the van, and as soon as we said goodbye to Ann and Wally, the kids and I drove off too--on our way to Texas!  Bob had to stay behind to work . . . and to take care of Bruno, of course.

The main reason we were going at this time is because Nathan was selected for a Civil Air Patrol special activity at a base in Texas.  We had wanted to visit my brother and his family last summer, but the timing didn't work out, so we realized this year we could combine the 2 things.  So we drove to Dallas, Nathan flew off to San Antonio on Saturday, and we stayed on with Dan, Melinda, and their 2 girls.

Luke got a lot of practice driving the old big van on the highway.  It is most certainly NOT a dream to drive, especially surrounded by semis!  It was really nice to have 3 drivers--Nathan, Luke, and me.  Also, I wasn't pregnant.  That made a *huge* difference in my comfort level, although the big van will never truthfully be called "comfortable".

The day before we left, Nathan, Luke, and I spruced up the back of the big van with these ThinkGeek Star Wars stickers.  There was much discussion about how to assign the stickers, and where to place them.  This configuration was Luke's idea.  We were stuck in a lot of construction and accident traffic during the drive, and I'm sure we provided something interesting for the people behind us to talk about . . .

The drive was not without its share of noise and tantrums.  Drew in particular had some difficult times, such as this one!  He appears to have picked this trip to start a new phase of tantrums.  Joy!  But we just turned up the music or the books on CD, and eventually he would settle down.  In the best cases, he would go off to sleep.  We listened to Caddie Woodlawn, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as The Horse and His Boy over the course of the drive out.  Although Luke pointed out that he and the older boys had listened to the Narnia books many, many times, the younger kids have really not heard them that they remember.  We just haven't been taking as many long driving trips lately, and when we have, like up to Boston last summer, for some reason I didn't bring any books on CD.  I think I was worried it would be too loud to hear them in the van!  But I can't imagine doing a drive of this length without them--even just to keep me awake!

Verity was not a huge fan of the long drive either, but usually she gave up and went to sleep without too much problem.  She did develop a huge, angry diaper rash as a combined result of being in her carseat for 2 days straight and having a hard time teething her upper front 2 teeth.  Poor girl is still having a hard time of it, and now I think it has turned into a yeast infection.  I am hoping I can get it under control before we start back on Sunday!

We stayed Wednesday night on the east side of Nashville. Drew was so tired, he stayed asleep Thursday morning on the floor, even after the girls were all up and talking!  He does not quite get the concept of sleeping bags, LOL.

I had a terrible time getting reservations, although part of that was because I couldn't really focus on this trip until after Nathan's graduation party, so I didn't even try until Sunday afternoon.  Still though--I could hardly find any hotel with one room, much less 2, for Wednesday night.  As we were driving Wednesday, we kept seeing cars with paint all over the windows with some variation of  "Bonneroo or Bust".  At first we thought "Bonneroo" was a college, or some team or something . . . but eventually we googled and discovered it was in fact a big music festival south of Nashville that started on Thursday--which explained all the trouble I had getting reservations for a hotel.  At least we'll be avoiding all the young somewhat-ruggedly-trendy people with their headbands and sports sandals on the way back.  And it was easy to get 2 hotel rooms too!