It was quite sad actually though getting ready to leave...I had about zero motivation to do anything. I think like i said - mentally I decided I could last until Steve finished his finals and that was just about all I was going to do. Kind of like running - when you say you can make it to that lamppost and no further.
Steve on the other hand (despite battling sickness) was motivated to do everything. I thought it was quite convenient. :) Anyway - we got the house sorted, my lists checked off, and the plan to leave at 4 o'clock in the morning. We decided to try this since our last long road trip with babies turned into the trip from !@#$ to put it lightly. ;) We got up, held our breath as we transferred the babes into their car seats and actually headed out by 4:30 - not bad right? Ruby woke up for just a little while, but settled back to sleep while we got driving. Hooray! We had told Ross when we had put him to bed the night before that when he woke up we were going to go to Papa's house. When Steve got him up, Ross shouted out excitedly, "Papa's! Plane!" We told him - sorry Joe - no plane - but he was still excited to know we were headed to Papa's house. We put him in the car with his signature two blankies and his monkey (yes - the monkey's name is just "Monkey" - we're real creative parents...also I find it hilarious that he loves his monkey but doesn't really have any passion towards any other sort of monkey.)
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| Wes left for Connecticut before we left so the boys had a good-bye for a month hug. |
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| Good buddies! |
I was planning to sleep on the drive since I didn't get to bed until about 1 and got up at 3:30 to get things going. Let's just say Steve gets excited when he sees things that he thinks are amazing, and kept poking me to look out my window at the scenery. Ross didn't need any poking - he stayed quietly awake in awe that we were driving in the dark so early in the morning...and I'm sure he was just thinking about all the things he was going to do when he got to Papa's. He didn't say a word and stayed awake for about two hours until he finally went back to sleep for an hour. I got about an hour total in of sleep before Ruby woke up around 7:30 where we stopped, filled up the gas, filled up Ruby, changed a few diapers and headed out again.
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| Ross being entertained by Monsters Inc. |
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| Ruby coping with the drive. ;) |
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| Ross not making it through Dumbo |
So Steve grew up doing loads of family road trips and has since come to loath certain foods when on a road trip: red vines, deli sandwiches, and sharing water bottles. I always hate the feeling of how much junk you feel like you're eating when you road tripping too. So I planned some pretty doable fairly healthy snacks/meals for our trek. We did bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, we had carrots, sugar snap peas, dried mango, pretzels, and goldfish for snacks, I got croissants for our sandwiches with deli meat from the actual deli and mayo and mustard packets. Yum! We stopped in Baker City a couple hours later for lunch. We went to the park by the library and LOVED the old school playground they had (you know - the safety violation code type of old school. There was a ten foot tall skinny slide, a merry-go-round that I'm sure could get going pretty fast, and some long swings that I bet could get pretty high. We ate lunch, ran around on the playground, and then headed for Boise.
Ross enjoyed watching Dumbo on a portable DVD player which was nice, but didn't make it all the way through before crashing for his nap. Ruby was fabulous. All my panicking and worrying about how she was going to do in her car seat for so long was for naught. We also had learned from the last trip to take a bit of a longer break in between stretches of driving. We got to Boise and could have stuck it out all the way to Utah, but decided to stay and visit with my Aunt Renee and her family.
We went to Luciano's for dinner. My cousin, Brad, owns it with one of his friends. I have to say it was the BEST Italian I've had in quite a while. I wanted to lick my plate afterwards. One of their appetizers - the Baked Brie with Apples and Honey was INCREDIBLE. It was so fun to see my cousins too. My cousin, Amber, is due with her first baby in September, and I hadn't seen my cousin's Brad or Joseph in years! It was fun to get together with everyone and enjoy some amazing food. My Aunt was so nice to treat us too!
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| A refreshing swim |
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| Sorry - bad phone picture - but Great Uncle Mark had to get a picture to taunt Grampa Stan that he got to hold Ruby before him. |
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| My awesome Aunt Renee. Love her! |
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| My cute prego cousin Amber - have a cute baby boy soon! |
We headed back to our hotel and attempted to figure our sleeping arrangements since we didn't bring any pack n plays with us. The hotel had cribs...but they were tiny and with metal bars...probably like jail cells. Ruby had no qualms about it, but we discovered just how much of an active sleeper Ross was that night. He lasted about 20 minutes in the crib and ended up in the extra bed with Steve. The rest of the night was spent trying to keep Ross boxed in with pillows and getting kicked in the face every few minutes. He also asked for a drink of water...and for some reason Stephen decided to open up the water bottle and proceeded to dump in out on Ross. I was trying to sleep during this moment so this is what I heard:
Ross: Drink of water!
Steve: Here.
Ross: Whimpering whine
A cap being unscrewed...at this point I'm thinking "this can't be good"
Gush of water
Ross: Aaaahhhhhhh! Followed by sad crying
Steve: You've got to be kidding me!
I figured my assistance would be needed at this point so I intervened. I discovered that all of Ross's left side was soaked. Poor thing. I changed his shirt and we tried to go back to sleep. Ruby would squawk about every hour or so which had me jumping every time to go put a binky back in her mouth so she wouldn't wake Ross up. Around 4 - Steve and I switched places and I found that Ross likes to be wedged right up against you pretty much pushing you off the side of the bed. He would sit up and the lay the other way too - all this is in his sleep.
We were hoping to get another early start, but after a night like that one we decided to sleep in until 8:30. After shaking ourselves awake, we packed up and headed out again. We actually only had to stop one time for the filling up of the car and Ruby, and made it to Mapleton by about 3:30. The kids did amazingly and we called the travel time a success! Woot woot!
Then the festivities began...
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