February 11

I know, I know. 

I promised I would keep blogging semi-regularly, and then - with no warning at all - I disappeared for over a week.

I'm sorry. We took a family vacation to Florida, and as a common-sense Internet precaution, I like to not broadcast to the world the fact that my home will be empty for a certain amount of time. We are back now, though, and I have so many pictures to share! I'll take it a day at a time, and work my way through the trip,

Traveling with a 6, 4, 2, and 1 year old terrifies me, and so we tend to just stay home. But Chris' Aunt Maggie has decided that she wants to be the aunt with a vacation house, and she invited us to come visit her in the one she is renting on the Gulf Coast of Florida. For a larger family of modest means like ours, flying is not an option; plane tickets plus a rental van would have easily cost us over $3,000. Not to mention the stressors of traveling with four car seats because you know I'm crazy like that. No, thank you. Instead, we made the 17-hour drive to Florida. 

And we drove it straight through, because stopping in the middle seemed like the lesser of two evils.

We ended up packing the van, putting the kids to bed at their normal bedtime, and then going straight to bed ourselves. Then we woke up at 1:30 am, loaded everyone in the van, and set off driving. As luck would have it, a snow storm rolled through that evening, and we were able to drive off to sunny Florida through a cloud of snow. It was very satisfying.

We really hoped that since it was dark and they had just been sleeping, that the kids would quickly fall back asleep.

WRONG. My hopes of my kids sleeping in the car are always WRONG.

They were so excited about the trip that they chatted happily in the back for a solid three hours; they didn't fall asleep until sometime after 4:30 am.

Lily's car seat is usually rear-facing, in the middle row of our van, next to Eli. For this trip, we turned her forward-facing and put her seat in the back row, between Caleb and Daisy. That way, all three big kids could watch videos while we drove.

It was mostly a smart move on our part.

This was what they looked like when they were sleeping.

Aren't they cute? For road trips, this is how I like them best.

This is awake:

I know. The kid is adorable. Which is good, because he does not like driving for 18 straight hours, and there were moments where it was only his cuteness that kept me sane.

Awake big kids. Daisy is not wearing a shirt because she was complaining that she was hot. That girl can complain!

We ate breakfast and lunch at McDonalds.

Really.

The kids were stoked, but we paid for it later with behavioral and digestive issues.

We stopped at a rest area in Georgia, and the kids were delighted to stretch their legs in the warm sunshine.

Goodness. Those children look like they've been in the van for 10 hours!

Meanwhile, Chris and I were happy to be in the sunshine!

Florida, here we come!

With time change and multiple bathroom breaks and food stops, we didn't arrive at Maggie's place until around 10 pm. The kids were so excited to see Maggie, and so excited to be in Florida! We quickly got them situated (the big three had their own room, in which they slept three across on a queen-sized bed. It was adorable, and I regret that I didn't photograph it!) and all fell fast asleep. I suppose that was a perk of the kids not sleeping much on the drive!