1st Road Trip

First and foremost I want to apologize, but there may be multiple posts from our vacation. It is a pain to try and get it all into one.

Here is a rundown of our trip which started 6/4 and ended 6/11:

Thursday - left at 8:00 pm for Charleston, SC. I started our drive. Clayton and I proceeded to switch back and forth for the next 16 hours. I of course got stuck with the worst part of the drive. The West Virginia / Virginia mountains in the dark while it was pouring down rain. Not fun at all!Friday - arrived in Charleston around 1:00 pm. My Aunt, Uncle, Cousin and Mom were there to welcome us. We had a wonderful homemade dinner of shrimp and grits courtesy of my awesome Uncle. After dinner we put the kids down and Clayton and I headed out to explore Downtown Charleston. I was able to show him all the little landmarks that I remembered from my childhood. Although I remembered alot of things there was so much more there. What a beautiful little area. There were so many restaurants / bars / art galleries. They had cobblestone allys between the buildings. I definately suggest Charleston for a quiet long weekend get away.

Saturday - My other Cousin Jason and Grandparents came in for my Cousin's graduation from high school. Wow what an experience that was. It was held in a colesium. There were over 500 graduating seniors. Thank goodness for us my cousin was 7th to walk the stage. After the graduation we all met up for dinner and a marvelous local seafood restauarant where I proceeded to eat my face off!

Sunday - we left around 9:00 to start the 2nd leg of our journey to Augusta GA. Of course we had to stop for breakfast at Waffle House. After breakfast we got on the road. Luckily this part of the trip was short. Only about 2 1/2 hours with all of our stops.

Sunday - Tuesday - we spent this time at my Grandparents house. Just relaxing, enjoying family and eating a ton of food. We got to see my Aunts and Uncles (Jeremy, Kathy, Lori and Tommy), Cousins (Christy, Justin, James and Eric) as well as the newest generation of the family (Noah, Ally & Olyivia). Every day was spent in and out of the kitchen cooking that evenings meal and eating leftovers from the day before. I really like sitting out on the back deck taking in the beauty of my Grandmother's back yard and gardening skills. She would tell me what everything was and the story behind many of her flowers. Oh and of course sipping sweet tea to entire time.

Tuesday - unfortunately for us we got a call from my in-laws on Monday that my FIL had a stroke on Saturday. He is doing ok, but we decided to leave a day early and stop to see them on our way home. I am surely glad we did. He was so suprised when we walked it that it made the trip well worth it. This part of our trip went from 9:00 pm on Tuesday to 8:00 am on Wednesday when we finally arrived in Columbus OH.

Wednesday - I actually left the kids and Clayton with my inlaws and went exploring their shopping area in town. How fun! They have everything there. I hit up Trader Joe's and The Container Store (best store ever!!!)

Thursday - we left around 9:30 to start our trip home. Long and rainy but at least we made it safe and sound.

I would have to say our vacation as a whole was a success. I admit we had some struggles with the baby at times, but when looked at with the correct perspective we realized it could have been a whole lot worse. He kept to a schedule the majority of the time and didn't really hate the car ride until the last 2 hours of our trip home. Everyone was so excited to see the kids and we miss them all already.

They look happy...can you tell we were just starting our journey?