When Jon David hit the ripe old age of 13 days, we packed up and headed to visit Dave's side of the family. (The last time we did this trip with a newborn was when Myla was a couple weeks old. It went off without a hitch despite the emotional breakdown I had the night before we left about how "I don't know if I want to take this trip, but it's really important to Dave, and I haven't even had time to vacuum!").
We had tentatively planned to take this trip once I had the baby, but we waited to determine whether Jon David would be a sleepy car baby like Myla, or a pissed-off one like Piper was, God bless her. Everything went great, and I didn't even have an anxiety attack before we left this time. We caravanned most of the way to our first destination with Dave's mom and cousin, and the ride went about as well as it possibly could have. I mean, it was a true gift from God how well everyone fared. The kids did some movie watching, and some of this:
and this:
and more of this:
We left at about 3:30am on day 1, which seems to be a good pattern for us. It's much easier for us to recover from one early morning than to drive through the night and be able to function well the next day. The baby feeding stops gave Dave and the girls time to burn off some energy (and for us to use all of our energy taking everyone potty and wiping all of the butts).
Our first stop was in Chicago. The 5 of us visited with Dave's friends from high school, and y'all, those guys and their families are such gems. We gave them maybe 2 days' notice, and one of them ordered us dinner while the other hosted all of us so we could avoid hitting up a restaurant with 6 kids total. Praise Him. We only stayed one night in Chicago and decided to have a mini-vacation day with just our little family before heading to Wisconsin. Dave wanted to take us to the aquarium. Everything was great until we arrived and so did the snowy, windy weather. Honestly, the weather wasn't bad at all for native mid-Westerners, but there was quite a long walk from parking to the aquarium. I was feverishly trying to decide how we should transport our 3 kids to the front door with only a single umbrella stroller and one baby carrier. The Field Museum had a long, covered walkway with a driveway in front, so Dave pulled into that area so we could decide what to do. While we temporarily parked there, baby became starving, Piper peed in her pants, and I started crying because I thought everyone would wonder why I had this baby out in this weather, and DID I WANT HIM TO DIE OF PNEUMONIA OR SOMETHING?? I was stress paralyzed. Fortunately, Dave made a plan to park and walk in with the baby after I walked the girls through the covered (yet still freezing) walkway into the museum. We ended up staying at the museum for the morning instead of the aquarium, and it was wonderful. Bonus: it was free museum day for residents, and the ticket person let us in for free using Dave's old zip code from 10+ years ago!
(Natural Models)
That's just her hair on baby's head, no crashing injuries took place.
(These obligatory fish pictures are for uncle Alan).
As it turns out, I worried for nothing. The only problem we encountered with Dave wearing the baby was that those two boys pressed up against each other became somewhat of a space heater. I literally had to take off Jon David's pants because he was sweating too much. (Dave kept his pants on.)
After Chicago, we headed to Wisconsin. This should have taken about 3 hours, but took close to 5 due to some snowy weather conditions. We drove at about 10 mph for a long stretch of road, but made it there safely. Of course I forgot to take any pictures, but we had a lot of fun and ate some home-cooked meals. We also went to "Praise and Pie" at Grandma's church which consisted of taking hymnal requests and singing them for about a half hour then eating a bunch of pie. What's not to like about that?!
After a few days, we headed to Minnesota to visit the rest of Dave's family. We had a lovely time, and the little ones got to spend some quality time with some special people including their cousins and Granny & Pop Pop.
Isn't this just precious?
(Notice how I took this photo from the safety and warmth of INSIDE the house).
Finally, we started the trip home. Because we aren't able to leave so early on the way back (and because Dave is so easy going with road trips), we took a leisurely 3 days to return. This allowed us to stop in Dallas for the night to see these crazies:
All in all, it was a good trip, but we'll still need about a year to recover. :) Dave's family joked that I should have a baby in the summer next time to make for a warmer trip.
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