17 Days, 11 States, 1 Giant Road Trip

Well! Two Four months later and I have finally finished adding pics to the (now backdated) road trip posts from our lovely trip this summer. It was WONDERFUL.

Links here!

Days 1-2: North Carolina: my Grandpa's house, Tweetsie Railroad

Days 3-4: St. Louis: Cardinals game, religious art, a riverboat ride, and did you know the arch is made of metal??? My mind was blown.

Days 4-5: Rural Illinois, including a prairie park (yes that's a thing), and then Iowa, all the corn, Field of Dreams, oh and also we slept in a caboose. And broke into a zoo.

Days 5-6: Wisconsin Dells, yes it's a real place, yes for real, I know it sounds fake but it's real. Very waterpark. Many kitch. Much delightful.

Days 6-11: MinneEFFINGsota, Take Four: the one where I post pics of tractors and grain bins on my blog. And also Northfield, Another Nathan, popcorn and beer, St. Olaf, waterfalls, adults on swings, and Charlotte Booler's fourth birthday! Oh and saying goodbye to Marky. Sad face.

Days 12-17: Southbound! Including me drinking a beer on Hillary's Cincinnati porch swing, and the kids riding boats at Lake Wateree, with surprise appearances by my dad and also Emily! AND THEN WE MADE IT HOME.

Days 12-17: Ohio, Grandpa's, Wateree, HOME

{Even more backdated now, etc.}

Day 12: Driving southward

After our sad teary goodbye, the kids and I embarked on the long journey south. We had no real plan except to... drive south. We made it back through Wisconsin and then halfway through Illinois we were invited to stay with Mr. David's parents in his childhood home. Sadly though, Nathan had a bit of carsickness, so we needed to stop about an hour short of getting there.

While we were stopped for some fresh air (while Nathan spent some quality time in a gas station bathroom), we noticed that right smack dab in the middle of nowhere, next to a cornfield (of course) and a random hotel, there was... a bomber plane. In a parking lot.

Like, a plane. In the parking lot. Of a gas station.

It was at this point in our journey that I decided I had seen so much that America was getting a bit punchy on me.

I don't even know.

We made it to the next town and crashed. Hard. It was our longest day of driving, and to end it somewhat green-gilled was not our favorite. But Normal, IL welcomed us just fine and we were all great come morning.

(Charlotte knows how to make the most of a hotel bed.)

Day 13: Cincinnati! Hillary!

We slept late and swam a few minutes in the hotel's pool, and then hit the road for Cincinnati. I had made plans with my friend Hillary months earlier, that we would come stay at her house on our southbound drive, whenever we might get as far as Cinci. And we did! She cooked us dinner and we had beers on her beautiful porch, and our friend Becky also came over, and it was great!

My children were nervous with her kids in their attic bedroom, so they all ended up in/around my bed in the guest room, but it worked out fine. Her house is beautiful and Cincinnati is a lovely city, right on the river.

Day 14: Carolinaside

We kept driving south, through what (to me) is some of the most gorgeous driving parts of the country: through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Kentucky and West Virginia.

We stopped for lunch in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, and had Mexican food wearing fancy hair. Why, what do you wear for roadside lunch stops?

We listened to an audio book, we stopped at a grocery story to refill the cooler (and laughed so hard we cried, because of the horrid smell in the stinkiest bathroom in America -- and let me tell you, it has to be a very specific special terrible smell to become funny instead of just horrid), and we stopped for a dinner right near the Virginia state line. Our last rest stop of the trip!

We texted my dad to see if we could crash for the night, and we made it there before bedtime. We did a little jig for being back in our home state, even though actual home was still many days away. The kids were very giggly and so happy to see him and be somewhere familiar.

Nathan also did a USA puzzle and it was more exciting than usual, after all the states we have just been through! Cue map obsession. He makes his grandpa proud. :)

Days 15-16: Lake Wateree, South Carolina

We made it to Opa and Oma's house in time for his annual birthday gathering! Even more importantly, we were reunited with Marky!

Sadly the vacation! yay! portion of the trip had mostly faded by this point; visiting with in-laws, mere days from our own beds, felt less road-trippy than the rest of our trip. But their house is completely gorgeous, and we had fun on the lake (me: with my buns in the hammock, reading).

And! I finally got to meet my friend Emily! She is a friend of my friend Kelley's, from their years in India together, and we have "known" each other online but never lived near each other until this year. And she drove an hour from her house to come and meet me and my kids and she is wonderful.

You know that feeling when you meet someone and they are exactly as lovely as you knew they would be? That.

Day 17: HOLY CRAP DAY SEVENTEEN (Homebound!)

We hit the road. Homebound. Mark had his own car so it was one last leg with the kids and me. One last pool hair selfie, one last Starbucks, one last snack from the cooler, one last redbox DVD, one more chapter of audiobook to listen to.

And then, the sweet sweet sight of our sweet little house. WE ARE HOME.

The whole trip was fantastically fun and wonderful and exhausting and I would do it again in a hot minute.

Thanksgiving + Birthday

We spent Thanksgiving down at Lake Wateree with Mark's dad and stepmom, which was exactly as chaotic as expected and exactly as tasty as expected, too. We drove down with Ali on Wednesday and spent the night with all four kids, then Nick and Barbara (and Mark's stepsister Emily and her family) all got there on Thursday.

At one point we had Opa and Oma on the couch with all the grandkids to pose for pictures, and it went something like this:

-- which mostly cracked us up. (Why do we never remember to take pictures til someone is walking out the door and someone else is desperate for a nap?)

On the drive home, we stopped at a Waffle House for dinner (these travelers are thankful for some places being open on Thanksgiving, although you probably won't convince me it's necessary for, like, Macy's to be) and we had a cold little booth and Charlotte was super upset and really struggling* to say what she needed, but once we got past that and ate some waffles and perked up, we all said what we were thankful for, and it was kind of great.

I love my family so much.

Also, it's Marky's birthday today! And I am thankful for him, most of all.

{insert a million heart emojis here}
{and maybe a turkey one}
{and another heart for good measure}

Happy birthday Mark! You are my most very favoritest, ever! And happy Thanksgiving everyone!

*post for another day, coming soon

Lake Wateree, Another August

Mark and the kids went to Lake Wateree to see his dad last week for his birthday (and also left Nathan for a long weekend). Ali and I stayed home and sorted bookshelves, which was its own brand of thrilling, and no that is not sarcastic. (We would have loved to have gone, but Ali isn't quiiiite sleeping through the night, and their house isn't quiiiiiite quiet enough for four kids, when one doesn't sleep through the night.) We were fine at home, but it means I have to live vicariously through Mark's pictures.

Nathan and Anneliese are still besties, of course, and this photo makes me melt.

This one too OMG I CAN'T STAND IT MAH BAYBEEEES, this is just so them.

Okay, also, Charlotte apparently went fishing:

And drank a sprite??? Who gave my baby SODA??? *side eye Oma*

Here's a thing I'm glad I didn't know was happening in the moment, because HASHTAG: TERRIFYING.

But Opa has a sweet gentle side too.

And the short version of this post is: my people are pretty cute on boats.

And also happy birthday Opa!!

Home and Reunited...

I got home from Montreat yesterday.

Everyone who told me how amazing it would be was exactly right. It was an incredible week. But I don't know what to say about it yet that will fully capture it without cheapening it. Trying to articulate it makes me feel very tired.

I am assuming the words will come later. Right now I am emotional and empty and quiet.

Capital F Feelings and all that.

But I am being filled back up by my sweet family who spent my last few Montreat days down with Mark's dad at Lake Wateree.

And now they are home. And I am home. And that is a good thing.

I missed my people, and am so glad to hug them again. I need to do this and only this for a few days.

Seven Things I Did

Dear internetz, here are some of the things I did while I couldn't get it up for blogging in the past week or so.

1.) I went to see John Rutter (the John Rutter!) conduct in a concert at Duke Chapel. It's hella cool that I got the chance to see him in person in real life. He's British and not getting any younger, and he was here. So, yeah. We went.

Another Nathan instagrammed it before I could.

We had an almost-dinner fail that involved several sketchy parking lots in podunk Durham, and an almost-parking fail that involved a mad dash through the student center for cash, but we made it and we laughed a lot, and the music was really really lovely. John Rutter is always a win.

2.) I took care of Charlotte's toes. Because of the way she drags/pushes herself on the floor, her left foot is constantly blistered and sore. We're trying to keep socks and shoes on her, which is helping, but... still.  Poor baby.

You'd think this would be enough to convince her to crawl.
Or at least use her other foot some.
It isn't.

3.) We went to one of our favorite restaurants and had olympic-themed burgers. You know, like you do. #GoWorld right? The "American" was basically a hamburger with a hot dog on it. (And bacon and onion straws and barbecue sauce. Obvs.) It was more delicious than I should admit to the internet.

4.) I took the big kids for back-to-school haircuts. (Anneliese thought all these clips in her hair were bows, and loved every second.) They both look decidedly less unkempt now.

5.) We spent an extremely loud and chaotic weekend at Lake Wateree with Mark and his siblings/spouses/parentals. Eight grownups, four young children and four large dogs makes for not very much sleep. But it was good for us all to be together, because Mark's dad is turning sixty this month. Also because Charlotte hadn't spent much time with all those family members yet, and they had some sweet bonding moments. So happy birthday to Opa and Charlotte!

It's not of either birthday kid, but it's my favorite pic from the weekend.

6.) I tried to learn to deal without the infant bucket carseat, which we are still using for Charlotte. With both Nathan and Anneliese, I had abandoned it by this age. But now with three kids, to manage the older two I sometimes (often) need to be able to set the baby down (in stores, restaurants, etc), and the bucket seat makes that possible. I'm scared that going places with her in my arms instead of the seat will be infinitely more complicated (only one arm? to handle both other kids?) but she's getting ridiculously heavy in that thing. (Yay for a growing baby though!) So, knowing the bucket-seat end is near, I am trying to practice taking her without it occasionally. Moms of many! Help me learn how to do this!

Sitting in the cart like a big girl - for the first time!

7.) I got stung by a wasp (a bee? or something, I don't know, I hate all bugs equally. Well maybe not equally but I do hate them all and the point is I don't know exactly what it was, something smallish that hurt  like a mutha) for the first time the other night. Yep, 31 years old and never been stung.

And then several hours later, I was covered in hives. HIVES, PEOPLE.

Do you remember 2008? Those damn hives (and the hand/face swelling that followed) made my life miserable for the better part of that year. Since it finally cleared up (with birth control pills? by my pregnancy with Anneliese? who knows) I have been hesitant to even think the word HIVE for fear that the twitchy skin-crawly feeling will turn into actual hives. You think I'm kidding but I'm dead serious.

Anyway all that to say, being up in the middle of the night covered in hives was a horrible scary trip down memory lane. Made further frustrating by the fact that, for months-old complicated reasons, all our meds were hidden in the guest house (where Nick and Barbara were peacefully sleeping) so I had to drive all over town looking for a place to buy benadryl at 2am. (Not inside the beltline. In case you were curious. Raleigh fail. Fail so hard.) It was a crappy night and a crappy aftermath. But prednisone the next day, once I got to our meds bin, seems to have cleared it up.

It's too much of a coincidence to not be related to the sting, right? I want and need to believe it was just the sting. But since it was the first time I've ever been stung, I don't know. Can that happen on the first sting? Oh please please, this cannot be hormone related because that makes it much harder to figure out (and stop! and prevent!) so I am putting all my eggs in the sting basket and hoping that's all it was.

And that is what I did when y'all were missing me terribly because I wasn't blogging.

Kisses and rainbows and hiveless hugs,
Erin

Sailing Dutchmen

The sailing Dutchmen. Just kidding they don't sail they fly. Just kidding they do sail but they didn't sail here to visit us. And they're not even men, just kidding one of them is.

Um.

So, Mark's extended family is visiting from Europe, and we have been in Lake Wateree to visit with them for a few days.  Actually Charlotte and I only made a day trip, due to rapidly disappearing sleep space, but Mark and the two big kids are still down there, I presume doing more of the same: sailing, eating, fishing, talking, playing outside, drinking beer, and more eating.

Anneliese on the dock swing, ready for her boat ride

On the day I was down there, we took Charlotte on the boat for the first time. She wasn't thrilled about it to begin, but after a quick at-sea nursing she enjoyed the breeze, snuggled down in my arms, found her thumb, and fell asleep.

(Why yes, riding along on a boat, surrounded by blue water, in the warm sunshine, with your baby asleep in your arms.. is indeed heavenly.)

Nathan and Anneliese had varying reactions to the boat. One worried, one excited.

Ahhhh my wonderful beautiful predictable children.

Charlotte woke up happy to play with Aunt Digna.

Meanwhile both Anneliese and Nathan fancied themselves fishermen.

And played hard with Uncle Maarten and Agnes.

And sufficiently wore themselves out.

Seems like a happy family reunion to me.

For more pics of the sailing dutchmen in Lake Wateree, click here.

Glimpses of Wateree

The big kids have spent a few weekends recently with their Opa and Oma down in South Carolina.  First when Mark dropped them off for a visit while he went to a football game in Clemson (leaving me at home for another easy fall weekend with just Charlotte), and then they rode down with Uncle Nick and Aunt Barbara for Thanksgiving last week (Mark was working, Charlotte and I found ourselves in Huntersville with my dad's family).

It's kind of bizarre to be all split up on weekends like that, but it's fun afterwards to look through picture updates and see what my babies are up to when I'm not around.

(If I had to base those assumptions on what Anneliese told me, it'd be limited to something like big puppy! big boat! Opa's house! Nay-nay biiiiig booooat!  Yeah.)

Who doesn't love a fabulous new hat?  I mean really.

Why do they both do this with their fingers?

So I'm gathering the canoe is not his favorite, then?

But they both seem pretty happy on the big boat.

And I'm pretty sure this is my new favorite picture of Nathan.

Today I'm feeling thankful for sweet grandparents and relatives who enjoy and know my children.  It's no small thing, really.