Family Road Trip

I've been putting off writing this blog because, being the wonderful and organized mother that I am, I don't have any pictures on my own camera of this trip.  But I figure at least I can get some of the memories written down and add pictures later as I get them from other people. 

We embarked on a super ambitious family road trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama, the second week of August.  I say "ambitious" because this was a get-together of my dad's whole family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and miscellaneous like-family folks -- 27 of us all together, including 10 kids under the age of nine.  The first hurdle was actually getting there.  We caravaned (is that a word?) with my immediate family for the nearly 600 mile drive with five of those afore-mentioned children.  Needless to say, there were numerous, numerous stops and incidents along the way, including vomit in Whataburger, fingers smashed in a bathroom door, and a diarrhea diaper explosion in the carseat (sadly, that one was our child).  Add into that a two-hour ferry detour and you have a 13.5 hour drive and a bunch of cranky people. 

Once we finally arrived, though, the week was great!  The house was amazing and the beach was beautiful.  We celebrated Noah's second birthday there with Thomas the Train cupcakes and a pinata (I'll do a separate post -- with pictures! -- of his birthday "party").  Our only scary moment came when we lost track of Noah for a few minutes in the house and found him happily perched INSIDE the house's large ice machine!  We still are not sure how he got the lid open or how he climbed in... or, for that matter, how he was tolerating the cold.  But when Brian found him, he just smiled and said, "Hi Daddy.  Ice?"  What a handful.  Overall, it was a wonderful vacation to end our traveling as a family of only three!