Over the next few days I have lots of fun things to share about our recent vacation.
Our vacation started on Sunday Morning, May 6th. The nice thing about this vacation is we didn't feel the need to get up at 4:00 AM to hit the road. The distance we had to travel wasn't too long and we couldn't check into our hotel until 4:00 PM. Instead we got up and finished a few things here at home like emptying trash cans and all that fun stuff. We had planned to leave home by 10:00 but we actually got on the road at about 9:30 - the boys were so excited to be going on "'cation" that they just wanted to get in the truck and go!!
The boys did fantastically on the trip - the
Busy Bags where a huge hit - the cookie sheets and anything magnetic were true favorites the whole trip. (As a side note, on Saturday, the 12th, we got in the truck to go somewhere and they boys wanted to know where the bags were HA).
The trip to Dayton was very uneventful, to be honest. We had no traffic jams, very little construction and even took two lane high ways thanks to Mapquest ;-) We stopped for lunch around 1:00 and went to a Taco Bell (the boys choice). It was the smallest Taco Bell I have ever seen - like room for 20 people to sit. We decided to go to McDonalds but the boys had their heart set on "'dilla's" so I got in line to get them to go. . .. the guy taking orders had one tooth. Seriously. I threw up in my mouth a little. Ick. After getting the boys lunch we went to McDonald's where Josh ate his whole "dilla" . . .Nate ate all of Darryl's fries and then ate mine. Oh well.
We pulled into our hotel at 3:55 - pretty good timing I think :-) Here was the catch. My dad had booked all the hotel rooms so that we were all together (my brothers and their families, us and my parents). We were about 2 hours ahead of my parents . .. the Hotel clerk was not going to let us check in without my dad's signature but, after some "sweet talking" from my husband the guy finally gave in and gave us our key. (THANK GOODNESS!!!!) We were able to get moved into our room - which connected to my parents room. It had a great balcony on it too - it was perfect for the boys! By the time we got everything moved in, it was time to get ready for the big Rehearsal. My niece, Alicia, was getting married!!! This wedding has been much anticipated so we were very excited to be heading to her apartment for the fun :-)
YES! The boys had the honor of being ring bearer's in Alicia's wedding so in honor of such a great occasion, I ordered the boys these fabulous shirts from
Katie Kouture Bourtique on Etsy.com. The shirts were fantastic and Katie was wonderful to work with plus the turn around time was pretty quick. I don't know why I didn't think about this - but I should have ordered the shirts one size larger so the boys could wear them longer - Nate's may not last the summer because he is growing so fast! Needless to say they did get tons of compliments on their fun shirts :-)
Can you see how much energy Nate has? YIKES!! He was wired!
My Three boys :-)
Once we got the Alicia's apartment, there was a great cookout before the rehearsal. The rehearsal was held outside of her apartment because the wedding location was being used Sunday night. It was beautiful in both location and weather :-) Pictured above is the groom, Alex, my brother Ken (the pastor) and my niece Alicia.
The guy holding the football is one of the groomsmen - he was so good with the boys without even being asked :-) They Big boys were playing some catch and he would include both Josh and Nate in the game too.
The boys were beyond thrilled to have Papa and Nana there - here they are playing the drums on Papa's belly HA!
Such cute Ring Bearer's and they did AWESOME!!!!! I was so proud of them - especially considering the fact that they had ridden in the truck for over 5 hours, had about 30 minutes of down time in the hotel room, been around a bunch of people they really didn't know, and it was about an hour past their bedtime!!
After the rehearsal, we headed back to the hotel. When we pulled into the hotel parking lot, Josh had a little bit of a panic attack. See, he is a very routine driven kid and all he wanted to do was to go back home - he kept pointing to the road and saying "Mama, go that way - go back home now!!!!" Darryl got him out of the truck and got him calmed down so he understood that we would all be together in the room. Josh was fine once Darryl said that he would sleep with him. Then, once we got in the hotel room and Josh figured out that Papa and Nana were in the connecting room - Josh hauled his pillow, blanket and bear to their room and quickly claimed a bed in their room HA! My mom told me that Josh laid on his stomach on his bed and said "Ok Nana, lets talk" :-) hehehe Well, the drama continued in our room because Nate refused the pack-n-play. He wanted to sleep in the big boy bed. So, we lined it with pillows and tucked him in - it took him about 10 minutes and he was out all night. Yep, his first night in a big boy bed!!!
Just for reference - we stayed at the
Courtyard Dayton South Mall Hotel and it was a fabulous place to stay!!! The only "down"side was that breakfast was not included but my husband went down both mornings we were there to buy some milk and the employee working the breakfast just gave him two of the little cartons of Milk at no cost so it was all good :-) (I knew there was "no" breakfast so I had packed pop tarts and breakfast bars knowing that we would be going out to lunch anyway)
Day one was a big success!!! I can tell you that Nate slept until about 8:00. Josh showed his head in our room around 8:30 or so and my dad followed him. My mom slept until like 11:00 HA!!!
Day 2 will post on Monday and will include a birthday and the wedding!!
