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

One Normal Week of Summer. Including Shopping.

Well, here it is. Our first "normal" week of summer. Between camps and work trips and grandparent visits and church trips and road trips and such, every week so far this summer has had something, and this week doesn't, and it has been delightfully uneventful. It is also, incidentally, our last week of summer, and I am trying not to be sad about the fact that it has been so much crazyness that summer kind of happened not the way we wanted it to, but whatever, *brisk clap* this week has been good.

Want some mundane details? (I have been informed life is in the mundane details, and those are sometimes the things most worth remembering, so... say yes.)

Charlotte wore this shirt the other day and proudly proclaimed it her cello shirt! Uhhhh, no, little sister of an orchestra kid, that is a guitar. But nope. She will not be deterred. It is a cello, on her shirt, TELLO ON MAH SHIRT MOMMY. Okkkay then.

Anneliese came home from Lake Wateree with an old toy of Aunt Emily's, a Rainbow Brite sidekick named Puppy Brite, and she luuuuuurves him. This thing's tag says 1983 y'all! She has a like-new toy from 1983! But it is covered in rainbows and comes from her favorite 80s DVD set (yes we have the DVDs) and I will never sway her from this love, because it's adorable, and Rainbow Brite kicks ass. I'm glad she likes her. Also Puppy Brite, who is tackydorable and very Anneliese. I'm glad Emily was apparently never very attached to this thing! (Yet they somehow kept it anyway?)

Charlotte has been working hard on her pottying. Sometimes that means you need a quick break from the pool to poop with your goggles on. Wait is this the stuff we are supposed to, or we're not supposed to put on the internet for fear of embarrassing our kids? I can't remember.

Ali is doing just great, y'all. After a hard June/July, a few weeks away (for me), a new dairy-free diet (for Barbara), she is a sweet easy girl to have around, and I so love our morning snuggles while she drinks her milk and I drink my coffee and she grins at me and we both are secretly thinking thoughts along the lines of sweet nectar from heaven. Sometimes aunt life is just the best.

Daniel Tiger (who is not in our family but might as well be) has a baby sister! Even Nathan, who sometimes says he doesn't love Daniel that  much anymore because it is for babies (let the record show he is still obsessed with Thomas the Train, so....) was super excited for the new baby episode. And I don't have any shame in saying I cried and cried when that baby tiger was born. At a cartoon! For kids! I don't care, I love them. (My children were as riveted by this as they have been about anything on tv in a long time, which is probably why I love it too, and oh I don't care the reasons I just love that Tiger family.)

I did some back to school shopping with Nathan yesterday (I also got a slew of things for the girls last week when we were out of town), and he wanted to eat at K&W, which we did last year in a learning-to-use-a-cafeteria event, and he now apparently thinks is an every-year-school-shopping-day event, and he loved it and thought it was special, so I did too. He ate baked spaghetti, mashed potatoes, and blue jello, and if that's not a lunch of champions I don't know what is.

We also tried on lots of clothes for him, and he talked me into these brownish odd khaki-colored pants (he says they are the color of a train named Diesel 10) (see? Thomas obsessed) and also these lime shorts which he wants to wear for his first day of school. I have no idea what he will wear them with. I wanted him to pick a shirt for the first day of school, but he loves these shorts, so the shorts are what's happening. (I both love and hate shopping with him.) (Mostly love.) (And I do like the shorts! I do! Not that shirt with them though.)

Also yes I bought him a full-caffeine coke icee because back to school shopping makes me super indulgent, apparently.

Also look at his back to school supplies! Who doesn't freaking LOVE back to school supplies??

Anyway it's weird to me that he is starting second grade next week. (Wait, let me say it again so it sinks in properly: SECOND GRADE.) Weird because he is clearly still a tiny baby who was just born, who still sometimes falls asleep in my bed snuggling his tiger that used to live in his crib, and his stuffed Rex that has been his special animal for years.

(And also a sperm whale, naturally.)

How is this tiny baby going to SECOND GRADE??? Stay tuned for more sappiness next week when school actually starts okay? Okay.

Also, apropos of nothing, I still have wavy hair, which seems like I think I need to keep the internet updated about now (vain, what) and a fantastic new scarf full of my most favorite colors, from my most bestest friend, and those are things that make not-fun mornings way better. And also coffee.

And this is what my summer should have been like, all along. But at least there's this week.

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!!

Christmas Grand Tour, (Mostly Consumerist) Highlights

A crazy Christmas whirlwind, in pictures:

1.) My mom showed up with a Rainbow Brite for Anneliese, and raise your hand if you almost just passed out from jealousy reading that sentence because I totally did.

Anneliese happily strapped her on (the doll is also a backpack, because why not?) and has barely put her down, despite not knowing exactly who Rainbow Brite even was (at first) -- but now that we have read a few books and streamed the 1985 movie (y'all! AMAZON HAS EVERYTHING) she is alllll in: A smart girl with a messy ponytail who runs fast and rides a unicorn with a colorful tail, and whose sidekick is basically a stuffed animal, all while wearing a million rainbows (even leg warmers!) and trying to save the world from being boring and colorless? Just close your eyes and try to imagine anything more Anneliese. See, you can't. She might be Rainbow Brite incarnate. Just throwing a theory out there.

2.) She is also now the proud owner of a glow pet (like every other child in America, apparently) and it is the most tackytastic thing I have ever seen. It is a stuffed animal, that like... unfolds into a pillow? And also glows. 

3.) Nathan got a rainbow loom and he is rainbow looming the crap out of everything (and it takes less and less help from me, which is lovely). These are his first three bracelets: one for him to match his PJs, one for Anneliese, one for Marmie.

4.) My grandpa got out of the hospital (pneumonia) on the morning of our Bumgarner family Christmas, just in time to feed Charlotte a giant bowl of cheesecake and ice cream while she gazed at him adoringly (of course). Yes, that is a cookie in her other hand.

5.) And then in her cake daze, she decided this was a hat. "It's a hat! I found it!" 

6.) My dad got Nathan a Rubik's cube, and much like the puzzles of last year, once he opened it, he was lost to it all afternoon. He also took it to bed.

(He still has not solved it. I know one of you will ask. I am smiling an amused smile at you. Okkkay. No.)

7.) Uncle Sean gave Anneliese a plastic wand with a ribbon on it, and let me tell you, that thing is Christmas GOLD. She has hardly put it down.

I kept joking that she is starting a ribbon ministry and interested applicants should talk to her. (There is a ministry for everything.) (There should not be a ministry for everything.)

8.) Winter coat, socks, no pants: this is the outfit of a child who slipped in a LOT of dog poop at her Aunt Ashley's house. (Five short hours before her big brother did the same thing at Grandpa's neighbor's house. Fourth day of Christmas = dog poop day. You heard it from the Bumgarners first.)

9.) We got Mark's mom a cruiser bike (her new house is near a greenway, and she is Dutch so her brain is probably riding a bike 85% of the time anyway, right?) and y'all, she was so legit excited she just hopped on it right that second and rode up and down the street, waving, while the kids chased and cheered. Maaaaaaybe the best moment of Christmas.

10.) Anneliese got fairy wings. She has asked for them a hundred million times in the last six months, and Grandma found rainbow ones. She wore them to climb on Grandma's new bike. As you do.

11.) All three of my kids now own Devices. There will be firm limits of usage of said Devices, but I am not sure yet exactly what those firm limits will be. For now, the Devices are unlimited Christmas break fun.

(If you're curious, the Devices are LeapPads, they are sturdy and super easy to use, and seem to have lots of games and such available.) They were all very wide-eyed at Opa and Oma's house when they opened these.

12.) We got to use Dad's house as our home base this week for bouncing between relatives' houses in the greater (greater greater) Charlotte area. And we had it to ourselves after he left town (he was on a cruise) (having his house all to ourselves was lovely enough to ease the jealousy of his cruise) (also we ordered a pay per view movie, so) which was hella easy and nice. We spread out ourselves and our kids, Anneliese had the middlest baby honor of getting Grandpa's big bed all to herself, we got pizza from an old high school haunt, and I had a lovely bath. 

(Charlotte and me at Dad's house, taking our selfies instead of going to bed.)

Oh! And I got all four kids to look at the camera at the same time, so I am pretty sure I deserve a medal. 

And that's how you do six Christmases in five days, Boom. (Hashtag exhausted.) Tomorrow Mark and I go home for a few days to ourslves, while the kids ring in the new year here. Christmas travels, the end.