Trip to Cara's

Cole & I left after work on Thursday night.  We made it to Uncle Rob's & Aunt Diane's by 8 ish.  We had a very short visit with Micah--he slept the whole time, but I got to hold him (yeah!).  Dave and Jordan were also around.  Cole was very tired, so he went to bed shortly after we got there.  I stayed up and talked, until I crashed around 10ish.  We woke up early the next day, because we knew we had a long trip ahead of us.  Or, at least I knew. Poor Cole had no idea how long this car ride was going to be!  Fortunately, Nick and bought us a portable DVD player the night before our trip.  By noon on Friday, Cole had already watched four feature length movies! yikes...He only slept for one hour out of our 12 hour trip (more yikes!).  Everything went well, until a car in front of me kicked up an orange bolder (yes, those BIG orange cone things) and dropped it right in front of my car--no where to swerve--so up an over we went. (Thank you volvo and Angles).  Cole's comment: "mama do that?".  A few hours later, I called Cara and found out that the maps I'd printed out took me the LONG route and there was a better route to take.  She txted me directions involving at least 6 road changes!  Most of these were off my map, so I was driving blind.  All went well, until I took Alabama 4 instead of Florida 4....big mistake.  I ended up calling Cara after I'd wasted 30 minutes (Grrr) on the wrong road.  In the end, we arrived at the same time Cara did!

Saturday, was a relaxing day at the Smith house.  The boys had fun playing together and Cara and I had a chance to catch up.

Sunday, we dressed the boys up. I actually remember to take some pictures of the three boys and I think they turned out pretty good.  That afternoon, everyone went into Destin and walked around an outdoor shopping mall.  They have a very cool playground and sprinkler play area.  The boys had a good time.  We ended up eating out for dinner, which was quite interesting.  I believe I made three potty trips.  Cole was up past his bedtime, Amy needed to be fed...needless to say...there wasn't much adult conversation going on:-)

Monday, we ended going to the neighborhood pool.  The boys had a good time swimming together.  Cara was playing with rings that Laura & Ali had brought.  The pool water level was about 6 inches lower than usual b/c they were re-filling the pool.  This made it easier for Charles to walk around.

Later that day, we drove to a near by park with a brand new walkway.  We had the boys ride their bikes on the path.  We stopped on a pier to watch turtles and fish.  Cole was very intrigued by the geese (he actually called them 'geese'--who knew he knew that word?). That night was bath night.  I think twice this trip we got all three boys in the bath at once.

Tuesday, we braved the beach!  Cara took the day off work.  So, we took the two boys (Ryan & Cole) and Amy to the beach.  We drove to Seaside and walked around.  Then we found a nice little pizza place and ate lunch.  The boys did really well!  Cara had brought some snacks, so we let the boys eat some baked cheetos and raisins while we waited for our food.  We had to chuckle as we watched Cole & Ryan devour the cheetos.  After lunch, we drove a little closer to the beach and then we walked down with the three kiddos and our beach chairs, toys, towels, life vests etc...the boys just wanted to stand in the water and feel the waves crash into them. Amy fell asleep, so we were able to take the boys in.   They did play in the sand for part of the time.  I had carefully packed only the sand toys that had duplicates (i.e. 2 pails, 2 shovels etc), so the sand castle building went quite smoothly:-)  We stayed long enough that each one had plenty of time to play, but before any meltdowns! We needed the boys to climb back up at least 40 steps...we definitely couldn't carry either one, so we needed cooperative kiddos.  In fact, Ryan was even responsible for carrying his own chair.  There was a nice restroom and outdoor shower next to the car, so we took care of showering and changing the boys before heading home. 

On our way home, we took the scenic route and got to see were we had stayed in 2002.  We also stopped for some frozen custard...yum:-)  We had an improptue stop b/c Amy was hungry.  While Amy ate and Cole slept, and played with Ryan on a nearby playground.

Wednesday, Cara went back to work and I offered to watch Ryan and Amy.  We decided to keep things simple and just hang out around the house.  Ryan and Cole had a good time playing together.  They colored, played with stickers, played on the playground.  I did feel like I spent most of the time in the kitchen between meals and snacks and warming up Amy's bottles.  I had to take some video of Cole trying to entertain Amy.  He's just in a diaper because we were still getting around to dressing. That night, Cara made her Cuban meal for me...Yummy, yummy.

Thursday morning, Cole & I drove to just south of Nashville TN.  We went out to dinner at a Mediterranea restaurant.  We had a short night in the hotel as Cole woke up at 4 AM.  We ended up on the road by 6 AM and we were home by 12:30 PM!