ROAD TRIP!!!

Spring break is here, although it's felt like we've been on break so much lately with all the days school has been canceled due to the weather. Spring break around here is usually a week of laziness. We typically stay home and veg out, maybe visit some nearby parks and walk the nature trails. During their week off the boys usually will take turns spending a night or two with their grandparents. This year my mom approached the idea of all six of us (the boys, my parents, and myself) taking a family vacation. We have been talking about heading down to Missouri to visit with some of Jordan's extended family for a while. Many of his family members have been having health issues within the last year or so and we were feeling the need to visit sooner rather than later. The last time we made it down that way for a visit Joey was almost 2 months old (almost ten years ago).



We were planning on heading down but everything depended on how my mom's minor surgery went and if she would feel up to hours in the van. Jordan called everyone we were planning on visiting to give them a heads up that we should be on our way there. Jordan cracks me up, when he called he asked if they had any plans for the next weekend, and said "oh, mind if we stop by for a visit?" as if we seen them all the time. Obviously they were over the moon. For about a week I received text messages multiple times a day asking when we were leaving, how the surgery went, and when would we be there. It was hard planning the trip, because we couldn't really plan anything until we knew how my mom's surgery was going to go and how she would feel afterwards.



My mom had her surgery and everything went well. She was feeling up to traveling and we ended up leaving a day earlier than we intended. We drove for about 5 hours the first day. We made it across the state of Michigan before deciding to find a room for the night in Michigan City, Indiana. The stays in the hotels was one of the highlights for Jacob. With an early start the following day we drove through Illinois and finally made it into Missouri. We made it to our destination (Great Grandma Betty's house) around 2:30. We were greeted by cousin Diana (who was Jordan's age the last time I saw her) and her two daughters, Great Grandma, and cousins Tiffany and Loyal. After tears and hugs we sent a message to Jordan's other Papa (Frank) so he could see us all too. Papa Frank use to live in Michigan only a couple miles down the road from us and use to see Jordan every other weekend. It had been harder on him not seeing Jordan in almost a decade. Cousin Tiffany and Loyal remembered Jordan from pictures we sent over the years.

First hug in almost a decade. Great Grandma
Betty and Jordan (cousin Diana in the background)

All the kiddos

After the excitement of seeing each others again (and the younger boys meeting everyone) we left to track down a hotel and somewhere to eat. The hotel we were planning to stay at (and was a stone's throw from Great Grandma's house) was completely booked and we ended up in less than flattering motel a couple miles down the street.


All the kiddos got along as if they see each other all the time, but there wasn't much for my younger guys to do. Sitting and listening to the adults chit chat was going to make for a really boring visit for them. Papa and Grandma decided they would take the little guys to Kansas City to visit Legoland. Jordan and I stayed back and visited. This worked our really well, Jordan was able to be in the spotlight and not have to share any of the attention with his brothers. The boys, Papa and Grandma has an absolute blast in Legoland.



Jordan taught Tiffany how to properly throw a football

I love anything that makes people different from me, so I had the younger boys all excited about hearing the southern accents and how we'd still get to hear it on our way home because Jordan seems to pick it up rather quickly. I was disappointed that we couldn't really hear an accent from anyone down there, even family members. We were at a restaurant for breakfast and as the waitress left our table Jacob was all excited, because he heard her accent. We did however hear a different accent; we attended mass while there and our priest was Irish with a very thick Irish accent.

Jordan was totally hamming it up being the center of attention, and everyone was just eating it up. After spending the day catching up and recapping stories from years ago we were able to get a room at the hotel that was closer to Great Grandma's house. The next morning (our last day before heading home) we caught up with Aunt Angel (she seriously makes the best sweet tea I have ever tasted) and Uncle Justin. Poor Loyal and Tiffany were really bummed they had school and wouldn't get to see us off.

Walking the zoo in a constant drizzle.

After more hugs and tearful goodbyes we were back on the road. We left somewhat early so we could stop by the St. Louis Zoo on our way home. The zoo has free admittance (although they wanted $15 for parking) and as luck would have it, it was raining for the whole day. We walked the zoo in the rain anyways. Actually it was kind of nice walking around in the rain; we were one of like only three families in the zoo and it wasn't raining hard, just a sprinkle. We were able to see some of the animals we no longer have at our local zoo, like elephants and hippos. They had an awesome set up for the hippos where you could see them both in and outside of the water. I also really like that they had most of the animals indoors because of the all day rain.

Crossing the Mississippi River

After the zoo we head back to the expressway to start our journey home. That's when we noticed the "Gateway" and remembered that was one of the key stops I wanted to make. After driving in circles in downtown St. Louis during rush hour, while a baseball game was going on, and construction we finally found somewhere to park. We had to hoof it to the arch due to the construction, but it was so worth it in my opinion just to see the Arch. We had missed riding to the top by an hour, but hung around (in the rain) for a couple pictures. Jacob was fascinated by the Mississippi River and that we were right at the side of it.

Back in the "Mitten"

Then it was back on the road. We ended up taking a different route home and stay another night in a hotel in Illinois and complete our drive home the following day.

All-in-all it was a great vacation. We traveled through parts of five different states and crossed the Mississippi River twice, and stayed in a couple different hotels (all but one had a pool). Papa and Jacob visited Missouri for their first time, and we spend time with family we really need to see more often. Bonus was that we were home by Thursday and the boys don't need to be back at school until Monday, so we have break to recover from our vacation before having to get back in routine.

Taking our bucket list on the road

We headed south to Columbus Ohio for a vacation, to enjoy their wonderfull zoo. It was an adventure just the drive there and back due to the fact that we had my parents, my 3 boys, my 13 year old niece and myself all packed into my van for 4 hours each way. Not real sure where we were going to stay when we go there, after looking into many hotels and all of them being booked. We figured just to head down there and hopefully we'd find something. Although we didn't have a room for the night our first stop was the water park. Some of the slides were pretty intense looking. Thankfully Papa isn't as big of a scaredy-cat as I am  and took the kids on every slide they desired. Joey was a dare devil and went on most of the same rides as the older two did. Jacob is more cautious and liked the lazy river the best. I had the misfortune to step on a bee after going down only 2 slides and spent most of the time hobbling around with ice on my foot and getting pictures of everyone having fun. One of my favorites was the wave pool (I could do that one with a swollen foot), the kids had so much fun in there. We'd start back by the 5 foot mark and let the waves push us into shallower waters.

  After hours of playing in the water we started our hunt for a hotel with a vacancy. Turns out there was a car show that weekend. We got the last two rooms at a Red Roof Inn. Thankful for not having to sleep in the van, but unfortunately for us they were smoking rooms and 4 rooms apart. I'm the only smoker and I don't smoke indoors. Jordan is highly allergic to cigarette smoke and even extreme 3rd hand smoke can lead to him having an attack. We put Papa and the boys in the room that was less smelly and us girls took the other room. This was Jacob first stay in a hotel and Joey's first one he'll be able to remember (he was 2 months old the last time we went to a hotel), they were both very excited to be there even if it was super stinky.
  We woke early and tackled the huge Columbus Zoo, it's at least twice the size of our zoo we visit near home. We were so close to the animals and they were very active and entertaining. We walk both sides of the zoo and were allowed to touch some of the sea creatures like a starfish. We walked 6 miles easily that day (even me on my foot that had just about doubled in size). After the zoo we stopped by Stingray Bay and pet the stingrays, that was really cool. After getting over the fact that they wouldn't actually sting us I was as into it as the kids. We just had to watch out for the shark they had in there, we were told he may actually bite. The boys thought it was funny to keep telling me the shark was there (when it wasn't) to watch me quickly yank my arm out of the water with a yelp.
 After driving the almost 4 hours back to my parents house, the boys and I crashed there instead  driving the extra 40 minutes home. The following day we were headed back south to Monroe, MI to the River Raisin Battlefield. We had chosen this date for a reason, after some research I learned they were going to be firing cannons and muskets. For such a little museum it was really neat. We learned a lot of information about the Battle of 1812 and the weapons they used. There were 1812 style costumes for the kids to try on.

Offically on Vacation

   We have chosen to start our summer vacation early and not cut the boys' mohawks off. We are officially on vacation and officially working our way through our bucket list. We have made some headway and now have 10 activities completed. This past week we checked off five of them.
    When I was younger I use to love playing Chinese Jump rope, about a year ago I stumbled across one at a dollar store, and it has sat in our outdoor toy bucket since then. We added it to our bucket list in hopes of  the boys learning how to play. They were excited to play (even though it was a neon pink rope) and I ran through the basics and had everyone in place, then couldn't remember what to do after you made it through the pattern correctly. We Googled it, and the "rules" they had were not the same I remember from when I was a kid.  We meshed together what I remembered with some of what we found on line and came up with our own version. I was pleasantly surprised how well they did, they even were jumping two at the same time. Jordan was able to jump and actually land on the ropes from as high as my waist!!

 We borrowed a stack of origami books from the library, had a stack of paper, and this crazy idea that we could create all the cool animals from the books. Quite a few time we did really good until steps 5 or 6 then couldn't figure out what we were suppose to do then, and we'd start another one. I've learned origami is one of those

projects that is easy in theory but not in practice. We managed to make couple fish with all four of us working together to figure it out. Joey made a pretty cool water lily. We stuck mostly to paper people and fortune tellers. Jordan also taught us how to make paper balloons that he had learned how to do at school. All in all things  worked out, but I don't think we'll be trying to create any more paper swans any time soon.   We made popsicles with Nutella and Cool Whip, the boys measured, poured and mixed, then we waited. It took a long time for them to set, then we couldn't get them out of our molds. Finally releasing them with the use of a butter knife, we counted it more as a ice cream than a popsicle seems it wasn't on a stick. Not being one to let ice cream go to waste we enjoyed our fudge glob in a bowl, and it was very tasty. We made popsicles again and this time we took the much easier route of pouring pineapple orange juice into the molds, wait 2-3 hours, and enjoy. These one stayed on the sticks :)
   While we waited for our second popsicles to set we headed outside to make our sidewalk chalk mural. They went with a beach theme. They had some really good ideas that they incorporated into the mural. Jordan made a S.S.BEATLES yellow submarine for Jacob (it's his new favorite band and song), we had Patrick from Sponge Bob, and of coarse a couple people about to be eaten my sharks. Along with sand castles, sea shells, and life guards. One of our friend's helped us with our artwork.The past two weekends Jordan has been volunteering at one of our favorite nature centers. He absolutely loves it. He gets to handle most of the critters and show them up close to visitors and hand feed them. We have been borrowing a lot of animal books from the library and researching them on line so he can make sure he gives correct information when people ask him questions about the animals. Yesterday, after finishing his shift we hung out for a while and he shared some of what he's learned about each of the animals with us. He even brought out a wood turtle to show his brothers.

  We tried doing blowing bubbles from our list, but with a twist. Another great idea I found on Pinterest, another one that didn't go as planned. The boys stayed up late so it would be dark enough to do glow in the dark bubbles. We tried pouring glow sticks into the bubbles, which was harder than it should have been. We successfully made the bottle with the bubbles glow, but we had hoped to make the actual bubbles glow. We didn't count it for our bucket list, and planning on trying it again. Now that we're on vacation, we're planning to complete at least one bucket list activity a day.