Last Friday, my mom picked up my boys & me around 5:40
in the morning.
We had packed up her car
the night before, so we were ready to jump in and get moving!
We stopped for breakfast about an hour into the trip—this was
a goal we had set earlier in that week and it worked!
We stopped for a potty break and to administer morning snack
at the Florida Welcome Center where Noah tried orange juice for the first time
and LOVED it! (They offer free cups of orange juice or grapefruit
juice at the Florida Welcome Center, and on this day, they even had free
Shutterfly coupons for an 8x8 book! So
my mom & I each grabbed one of those!)
About two to three more hours down the road, we stopped for
lunch and my boys discovered their love of Burger King. J
We arrived in Ocala around 2:30pm our time, and it made for
a long travel day but we still made pretty good time considering the amount of
stops we made.
My Nana had prepped Tater Tot Casserole for dinner—it’s a
super simple and kid-friendly recipe that I’ll make and share in the next week
or so. The boys loved it and I was so
surprised at myself for not making this recipe at our own home! It’s one of the favorite recipes of my
younger brother and we ate it a good amount while growing up. It just slipped my mind that it is so easy to
put together. We have out-of-town family
coming to visit in a week, and I just might have to pull this together for one
of our meals.
I ate mine with Chili sauce that my Nana and Popa make each
year. I’ll have to get the recipe for
that because it is SO GOOD and Aaron would love it.
We played outside in the warm Florida weather. The boys threw their little Spiderman ball
around, and a Marshall figurine from PAW Patrol also joined in the “flying”
(aka throwing). I gave the sweaty
headies a bath afterwards, and then gave them Greek yogurt for bedtime
snack. Greek yogurt is my FAVORITE thing
to feed them for bedtime snack because it packs so much protein and really
helps Michael’s blood sugar stay level overnight.
The boys had a blanket pallet on the floor next to the queen
bed my mom & I would share during the trip.
I put a movie on our travel DVD player for them as they fell
asleep.
Mom & I got to have a nice visit with Nana and Popa that
evening and catch up on some family news and events. My two cousins have each recently had little
boys and it’s fun to see the pictures of the growing, smiling babies!
The next morning, I walked around the neighborhood with Nana
and her dog. After breakfast time, we
loaded up and headed to a nearby park.
The boys loved every inch of that park and played and played for an hour
or so. Noah is my fearless one and
gladly went down the tallest slides. Michael
is my conservative child, and would walk up the stairs to the top of a slide
and then decide he’d rather walk back down the stairs. Eventually he found a stick that looked like
a wrench and proceeded to “fix” all of the park equipment. I was glad to have
my mom and Nana there too because trying to keep up with two kids at the park,
with a growing belly of my own was hard!
We headed back to Nana’s house to have a snack and play for
a bit. I had a headache and proceeded to
take a rest/nap to try to alleviate the pain.
I really fell asleep hard, and my mom was a champ for feeding the boys
lunch while I slept. I woke up after a
while and ate lunch when everyone had finished, and then when it was time for
the boys to take their afternoon rest, I rested again.
That evening, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants
down in that area. We had a reservation, which was good because this place was
as crowded as I’d ever seen it. We had
trouble finding a parking spot, and eventually, I got out of the van and stood
in front of a spot so my Popa could swing around the parking lot and pull
in. We figured no one would run over a
pregnant lady, so it ended up being our strategy that worked to ensure we got a
spot.
It took a looooooooonnnngggg time at the restaurant. A lot of waiting. And then some waiting. We got a table fairly early on in the wait,
but then we must have sat there for another hour waiting for our food. The boys did fairly well during this time. It was a long hard wait for a kid. About four different parties in the
restaurant were celebrating birthdays and one table had these gigantic mylar
star balloons. They happened to be at
the table next to us, and Noah kept staring at them. The wife of the birthday man saw Noah looking
and offered a balloon to each boy before this party left. They were ecstatic and I was less than
thrilled. I don’t LOVE balloons, and I
didn’t really want my kids to be the owners of two large and loud shiny flying
objects.
The next morning, I went with Nana and Popa to church and my
mom stayed back at the house with the boys since there was no kids program at
church. When we got back, my mom had the
boys performing a pretend parade while holding their balloons. She’s so creative! After church, we had a nice lunch at the
house and I thought we’d be able to do our afternoon activity prior to a
nap. I was wrong. Clearly my boys needed a rest if we were
going to enjoy anything else that day.
So we rested.
After a good rest and a snack, we headed to the petting
zoo! Michael (conservative, remember)
held my hand with a death grip and chose to stand with me several feet away
from all animals. This wasn’t a petting
zoo where you could walk inside the fence, which was fine with me. Instead, you’d stand at the gate of whatever
group of animals, and they’d come up to the fence and you could feed them. Noah and my mom and Nana, all fed goats,
llamas, cows, emus, donkeys, sheep, etc.
Michael got brave enough to throw food into the fenced area with
chickens, ducks, and peacocks. Then he
was all about “feeding the animals”
(still meaning, throwing feed into the gates and watching the birds peck
it up. He also got much joy in watching
the ducks waddle around. Just wait,
little one. Mommy will soon develop a waddle that can rival that of a duck.
We came home and played for a bit on the screened porch while
dinner was cooking. We had lasagna and
salad and crescent rolls and fresh fruit.
Michael and Noah can tear up some fruit!
They both enjoyed the lasagna and had seconds. Michael particularly enjoyed the dried
cranberries in the salad. We played
outside on the porch again until it was dark and the boys’ hair was so sweaty
that I could shape it into mohawks on top of their heads. I took them to get a bath and then promised
them each a crescent roll for snack. We
set up a movie again as they went to sleep, and I started packing up our
bags. We’d leave the next morning after
breakfast.
The boys were up at their usual early time on Monday
morning, and we headed out after eating cereal for breakfast. We made really good time, even with stopping
for gas, and then again 30 minutes later when Michael finally had to go to the
bathroom. We made a big detour in
Tallahassee while we searched for an old country store where my mom’s
grandparents used to get smoked sausage back in the day. We found the store and mom & I both
bought some sausage to take home for a prize for our hubbies. I got one pound of Hot smoke sausage for
Aaron. I also grabbed some Swamp
Seasoning blend for him.
We found a Burger King for lunch after some help from a GPS
and hearing lots of made up songs about Burger King. The trip seemed to fly by after that. We made good time back to Alabama, and Noah
fell asleep shortly after the first major town we came to after crossing the
state line. He stayed asleep until we
were on the highway near our neighborhood.
Michael was glad to have the travel DVD player all to himself during the
last two and a half hours of the trip.
Mom and I had good talks during our road trips and it was
fun to see her in the role of Grandma all weekend. I’m glad we made the trip and I think the
boys had a really great time. We were
happy to be home and done with the long car rides. The next day, the boys and I
enjoyed a relaxing rainy day doing laundry and grocery shopping. Lunchables were a good incentive in the store
for good behavior, and the boys both had really good naps that afternoon, which
meant I did too!
This weekend, Aaron & I get to take a weekend trip by
ourselves and the boys will stay with my mother-in-law. They are excited for a “sleepover” and I’m
really excited for a little trip with my husband! We have lots of things planned and I’m hoping
we can get to all of them, but we’ll enjoy ourselves even if we don’t get to
everything, so it’ll be a fun weekend regardless.
Until Next Time,
Much love, Reba
