On Tuesday, May 28th, Grandma and I set out with the kids to drive to Alabama for Uncle Merrill's Air Force officer graduation! Daddy couldn't miss work so had to stay behind :(.
We drove all day Tuesday and stayed that night in hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana. Continental breakfast then back on the road!
Two mostly uneventful days in the car and we were there - Montgomery, Alabama! That's a lot of stuff to unload!
We stayed at the same hotel as Aunt Jamie and the cousins. They arrived a couple hours before us, but were nice enough to wait for dinner until we got there. We ate a lot of Chick-fil-A on this trip (we needed a play area for some many wild monkeys!).
Seth, meet waffle fry. It was love at first sight :).
We had a bunch of black feet by the end of this night!
This sums up how much sleep some of us got:
Hotel breakfast bright and early then off to see Uncle Merrill on the base!
We got to see his room....
And even try on his stuff!
It was hot, hot, HOT! Thursday there were two graduation ceremonies. The smaller one for his group, then the big one for everyone. Let's just sum it up by saying the kids did not do well.
Although Seth was glad to have another go at french fries for lunch.
Driving around the base we saw lots of cool airplanes!
(And helicopters)
By the time the first ceremony rolled around, we were already struggling. Sweaty, gross, and tired.
But proud of Uncle Merrill!
And having fun with Darci, Jarret, and Logan!
This is the only picture I have from the big ceremony - Merrill was called and stage and recognized out of the whole group for his outstanding, high(est?) grades! Pretty cool!
I spent most of my time in the hall with these two throwing a fit. Not pictured - fussy Seth or me who was also losing it by this point.
So to reward them, we went to Ihop for dinner.
This was on the kid's menu! All the other kids were jealous that they hadn't picked it. (It didn't look this big in the pictures.)
Abigail settling for her adult-sized plate of french toast.
Suffice it to say, I don't think anyone finished all their food.
The hotel breakfast the next morning was a bit disappointing because the eating area was overflowing with teenagers - some church group passing through. They ate all the food except the waffles, which I had to wait for several minutes before getting a turn to cook some for the girls.
But apparently waffles were enough to fuel these kids to run crazy while we packed up and checked out. Yep, we're that family now.
Back to the base for the military parade! Thank goodness the bleachers were covered and they had huge fans going! And since we had strollers, we got to use the reserved seating right on the front row!
Handsome cousins! Logan and Jarret.
Not so happy Abigail who was undoubtedly hungry, tired, and bored. I get it, waiting is hard.
Halle's new BFF on this trip was Jarret - they had a lot of fun playing together!
Struggling to maintain our sanity.....
Here they come! Merrill's on the 4th row:
There was even an awesome flyover!
Feeling patriotic - and glad to be done! For the record, the parade was amazing!
We're going to miss this family - they moved to Alaska shortly after Merrill's graduation.
Proud Mommy!
So glad we made it out to see Uncle Merrill! (Abigail was probably throwing a fit which is why she's not in the picture?)
Chick-fil-A time! Waffle fries here we come! My only (and/or biggest) regret is that with all the kids to keep track of, the adults didn't get to visit very much.
The plan was to leave that afternoon and begin our drive back west, but we were only 4 hours from our friends the Seegmiller's new house in Tennessee and Hannah and I couldn't resist the chance to surprise the kids with seeing each other. They've super missed their best friends since they moved in October!
So Hannah drove two hours south with her kids and I drove two hours north with ours and we met in the middle at a mall that was supposed to have a play area. 'Play area' was an exaggeration, but boy were the girls surprised and delighted!
(Halle's in the background trying to catch Jarvis who's always been a little shy.....)
Eve and Naomi were so happy to see each other again!
Cora's the only one who doesn't have a similar aged kid in the Seegmiller clan, but she still had lots of fun :).
Jarvis pleading for protection from his mom (I promise, he likes Halle - he just doesn't show it.). Halle was heartbroken, at first. He warmed up.
So until then she contented herself with a huge from Emi.
After the greetings were completed, it was time to play!!!
Abigail was fascinated with the escalators and luckily she has a big sister who agreed to take her up and down a couple times.
She finally caught him! (In her defense, he told his mom he wants to marry her.)
We've missed these guys so much!
And their baby Gannon is all grown up! A friend for Seth some day?
It was a whirlwind hour and a half, but SO worth the detour on our way home.
One last go on the escalator - sans Seegmillers (apparently they had a bad experience).
I sure miss having a local friend!
After that mid-afternoon adventure, we drove until night, stopped at a hotel in Louisiana, then were back on the road, headed for Dallas on Saturday.
We had a very quick (less than 30 minutes) stop at Grandma Janet's house - just enough time for ice cream cones!
And for Seth to get into all of her things.....
Then we hurried down to the airport - Grandma was catching a flight out to SLC to help Aunt Kelly's family. Daryn had just undergone extensive surgery and we can't keep Grandma all to ourselves, unfortunately. We were so sad to see Grandma go!
Our day wasn't over yet, though. We still had what should have been a 5-6 hour drive home to Amarillo and turns out we got to drive through terrible storms the whole way. It was so stressful, but at least it kept me awake! We even had to pull over at one point and wait it out for a bit because there was zero visibility with the rain and wind. And it took forever because we were driving 20 - 30 mph for a good chunk of it. I'm not sure exactly at what point I gave up, but I let the girls pick their dinner for the night (we'd had a LOT of chicken nuggets) and we ended up with -
And I didn't even care. I ate chili cheese fritos and root beer. But hey, we made it home! And the freeway and many of the big roads in Amarillo were flooded out and closed - but we still got there in one (or six) pieces! We were sure happy to see Daddy again! No more road trips this summer!
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