night Golf V

I noticed that it is the middle of August and start calling around to see if I can get information about night golf. I remembered the name of the guy in charge so I call his office and get all of the information. Much to my surprise it is only a couple of weeks away. So once again I invite everyone in my address book to play with me. This year I added inviting all of my facebook friends who live in Fort Wayne as well as put out an email for people at work. Once again I get a few people saying it sounds like a lot of fun, but again they start canceling or saying they can't make it. Comes the night of the outing and no one has indicated they want to play. I was considering not going myslef, but, screw it, I have fun. Also by now I know a few of the guys so I figure there is a chance I would get teamed up with them. I show up early just in case someone shows up and grabbed a beer and dinner. The dinner was a bit of a dissapointment. They had a pulled pork, but it didn't have any sauce on it. They let you put your own sauce on, but the pork was so dried out and tough that all the sauce in the world wouldn't have helped it. The bratwurst looked a little scary, but the beans and potatos were very tasty. So I sat there and had a few beers waiting on the off chance that someone would show up. When no one did I ended up getting paired with Dr. Phil, who I had played with before, and his brothers. We headed to the first tee with a cold beer in hand and prepared for a night of fun. They actually postponed the start of the round because it wasn't dark enough, but the threat of rainy weather in the area made me think that we might want to get going. The first hit of the year was a little disspointing, but still not too bad for the 3 or 4 time on the course this year. Bewtween the 4 of us we made a pretty good team all contributing to the effort. Once again the beer cart was never too far away :). By the 4th hole we were one under par (legitamate) and playing pretty good. We had felt a few drops as we approched the tee, and then it started to really come down. We all scramble for the rain gear and umbrellas that we had remembered to bring with us. We continued to play the hole in the hopes that it would stop or at least let up. We finished the hole and the rain let up and then stopped. The rest of the night only sprinkled a few times which was lucky for us. We finished up a little after midnight and went back into the proshop to wait for everyone to come in. We waited and waited for one last team to show up, but they never did. I have said it before where there is usually one group who has to "play in" and make everyone wait. (That really pisses me off). We started to walk out to the course get tell these a-holes to hurry up, and even grabbed a cart to run out there, but finally decided that the group must have finished and just left the course. Still annoying. I think we ended up 2 under and in third place or something like that, once again I don't think the people who "won" were actually keeping score. So we all got out little prize and were done for the night. This is still alot of fun to play in and I am sure I will play again next year. Hopefully one of these years I can take a big group with me. They were supposed to move the outing so it wouldn't conflict with HS football, but they didn't. Hopefully next year they will let me know when the outing is and I don't have to hunt them down.

School Days

William started his first day of Kindergarten a week ago (yeah I am behing in my blogging). He is actually repeating Kindergarten. He did really well last year with his speach delay, but we thought another year would do him good and that now would be the best time to have him repeat a grade. The other factor is that he is changing schools as well and going full day so he wouldn't notice it as much. I missed his first day the last time due to the new job, but I decided I wasn't going to miss this one so I just went in late. Jen had a pretty good plan for getting everyone up and around so we put that into play on Monday. They allow parents of Kindergarten kids go bring the kids to their classrooms on the first day only so we decided ot make it a family trip. Everyone got up and around and we actually headed out the door on time. As we are pulling out of the garage, the heavens opened up to a down pour (perfect). We got near the school and the traffic came to a stand still. So we muddled through that and worked our way through the "drop off" process. all the parents were parking to drop their kids off so we had to park kind of far out in the parking lot. Lucy for me we threw a couple of umbrellas. We attempt to unload all the kids in a downpour with the parking lots flooded. I took Christopher's cup of juice and put it on the floor and of course it hit a blanket and bounced out and UNDER the freakin van. I am dressed for work with an inch of water covering the parking lot, but finally I said forget it and took my umbrella down and hit the cup so it would go behind the van and of course it got caught by the back tire. Finally I got the stupid thing and grabbed Christopher. So here I am carrying Christopher, holding Andrew's hand, and managing an umbrella as Jen took care of William. We got in the gym and William takes off like a shot to his homeroom. We did our best to keep up with him. He went into his room, put his backpack away, and found his seat and sat down. No fuss, no muss, happy as a clam (Thank God). We said good bye and waded back to the car and I took off for work. It's been almost two weeks and William is still having alot of fun. He get's to eat lunch at school every once in a while which makes us a little uneasy because of his peanut alergy, but so far so good.

Yard Work

There are a few things that have been bugging me for years now. One is the state of the landscaping around our house. When we moved in 3 years ago I knew it was in need of some attention, but with having two babies and lack of funds, that project kept getting pushed into the back burner. Finally the kids are a little older and we had a few dollars in the bank so we decided to work on the landscaping. First I defined the area on the side of the house and transplanted some hostas over there with some edging. I ended up taking a Friday off work to try and get some stuff done. I thought that it might be easier to get stuff done since things would be open longer on a week day than a weekend and Jen wasn't working. I had to tear some bushes out of the front planter. I could have killed myself trying to dig these bushes out, but I decided to take the easy way out and invite my father and brother in law over and had them bring a truck. The bushes were no match for the truck. The yard dipped where the bushes were so I decided to grab a load of dirt to even it up. As always looking for a good deal, I found a place on the Northwest part of town. So I ran over there and grabbed a load of dirt. My father and brother in law helped me spread it out to even it. While I was doing that, Jen was on the hunt for plants. We hired a landscaper to come up with a plan for our front yard, but we wanted to see if we could save a little money by buying some of these plants at a home improvement store. She found the rose bushes at Home Depot for a pretty good deal. A little while later, Jen and I loaded into the truck to get the other bushes. I found out that a member of the board of directors of the Credit Union also owns a landscape business. I thought it would be a good idea to give him my business and maybe he would swing me a little deal. We came back with all the plants that we needed and spent the next couple of hours planting 25 bushes. Jen and I had a pretty good system down where I would dig the holes and she would put them in. We finished just in time, since I was totally burned out and I had been at it for about 12 hours. I got up the next morning and headed out for a mulch run. Another trip across town to save a few bucks which by the time I put gas in the truck actually didn't save me anything. I had to make two runs since the one truck load didn't quite cover everything in the front yard. So another 8 hour day of running across town and moving mulch I was spent again. Sunday I think I might have putted around the house a little bit, but spent most of the day recuperating. Talking to Jen later on, she tells me that the money we used to work on the landscaping she had actually put aside to buy a new TV. (I think the TV would have been cheaper). Yeah I was a little bummed about not getting a new TV, but the front of the house looks so much better and I think I enjoy having that project done than I would enjoy a new TV. If nothing else, I am not embarrassed to go outside and talk to the neighbors, and I am sure they are breathing a sigh of relief that we aren't a bunch of hillbillies. Now we just need to maintain everything, plant some flowers occasionally, and refresh the mulch every couple of years.

You have to be freakin' kidding me

So months ago I felt the first tinges of pain like a kidney stone when we were on vacation in Alabama. Then a few weeks after that I spent a night in the hospital with the pain again. After the hospital stay I had a follow up with my urologist. He didn't seem to be too concerned about the size of the stone that would require a procedure. He gave me some medicine that would supposidly help pass the stone. Then I had to have a follow up xray in week. So I go through all of the stuff of medicine and drinking tons of water. A week later I went for my xray and was hoping for an immediate response from my doctor whether or not I still had the stone. Unfortunatly the doctor wasn't in, so I had to wait for a day to get the results. Finally the nurse called and said I was "all clear". I was thinking, "thank God" I didn't even feel it pass. whoo hoo!! at least I thought.... A couple of weeks of later I felt the same pain of a stone. What the hell? I figure that the nurse read the xray wrong. So I down a couple of pain pills and start the process of drinking tons of water again. Every time that I get ready to call my urologist, I start to feel better. Finally I feel some discomfort in my bladder, but again it's just discomfort and not pain. I thought maybe I passed it and was a bit irritated. So then last week I was leaving for work, I felt a little tinge of pain in a very bad area just South of the bladder. I thought about calling sick into work, but finally just decied to grab my happy pills and go to work. After getting to work I down my big container of water. As I am going to the bathroom I fell extreme pain in my (you know). By definition I had one stuck in the chamber and it freakin' hurt. I get back to my desk and pop a few happy pills and just try and sit still until they go into effect. I quickly call the urologist to see if there was a procedure they could do to get it. After bouncing a few calls with the ditsy nurse she tells me that they can get me into the hospital the next day. The next day!!!!Forget that. And I have to go to the hospital. Son of a B***ch. They called in some more medicine to help, but I am thinking, forget that I will just go to the emergency room. We have already reached our deductable for the year because of the first visit, so it would be free. I decide to get the medicine and try and tough it out. I am getting ready to leave work, but remember I had a huge glass of water a short time ago. I have to pee, but I am thinking its going to hurt. I go into the bathroom and do my thing, and by the grace of God it just comes out without any pain (either that or the pills were taking effect). This thing is freaking huge. I only have passed one stone in my pass and never really saw it. The rest have been blown up by sonic stuff. After passing it I feel soooooo much better. I actually finished out the day at work. Of course then I am pissed because i got the all clear from my urologist. I found out later that some stones don't show up on xray. The emergancy room visit was a CT scan so that's how they saw it. So after a few days of healing I feel alot better and know for sure that I am all clear now...

Soccer for kids

We decided that it was time to start getting the boys involved in sports. We wanted to start William a little earlier, but with Christopher being born last year, all of our free time was spent with that. We missed the first opportunity to get William involved with the local parks and rec, but we have signed him up for an Upward program that starts next month. We did make the deadline for getting Andrew signed up for every monday and wednesday of July. First practice that we showed up to we had no idea what to expect. We can't even get Andrew to keep his clothes on at home, so who knows how he would act around other kids. Would he pay attention? Would he want to participate? I am happy to say that he ran right out onto the field and is having a blast. He actually listens to the coaches. There are a few things that he still does on his own terms, but overall I am glad he is having fun. It's hard to believe that it ends next week, but now that we know he can handle it, we will make sure we sign him up more often. I wonder what other sports that he might be able to do...

Greekfest

I am soo far behind on my blogging. Let's see if I can catch up...

So I get a call from "cousin" Marc inviting the family to meet them down at greekfest in downtown Fort Wayne. I think the last time that I was at greekfest was a long time ago and it was in the Northcrest shopping center and not downtown. I missed germanfest, but decided to give this one a try. Also, I thought it would be a nice time to visit with Marc and Chris since I hardly get together with them. We load up the family into "herbie" and head downtown. I find a parking spot across the street from headwaters. We go into the fest for a very resonable $2 for Jen and I. After a little walking around we finally find Marc and Julie with Chris and Cami and the kids. Marc and I run over to grab some food for the families. A couple of gyros a eggplant lasagna thing and a pop was about pretty pricey, but very tasty. As we are heading back to the table we run into the Kannings who join us. It's a little hard to visit since the music is a little loud and we are pretty close to the stage. I try a greek beer and it is very tasty. Seconds after eating the boys get antsy, so we head over to the kids rides at the fest. It only cost a buck for the boys to ride the rides. The picture above is William bailing on the ferris wheel and letting Andrew ride it by himself. You can see the look in the above picture, William is like "this thing is going to do what?" and Andrew looks scared as heck. Another ride has these little planes that go round and round, and both the older boys loved that.

After the rides Christopher was getting a little cranky that he couldn't ride the rides, so we called it a night. We didn't really get a chance to visit that much, but we are going to try a guys night to let us be able to catch up. I would probably do greekfest again in the future, just for the beer and gyros.

Just the tooth

The other night I was giving the boys a bath and noticed William kind of playing with his teeth, but didn't think anything about it. The next day William presents a tooth to Jen that had fallen out. It kind of freaked us both out since we thought it is a little soon for him to be loosing teeth. Instead of calling his Dentist or any professional to ask if we should be worried, Jen decides to call Carrie. I don't know when Carrie became a tooth expert. According to the experts (Carrie) it's a little early but not unheard of to loose a tooth this early. The good part is that he didn't freak out about it,which is good since dealing with loose teeth gives me the heebie-jeebies. Jen and I have to quickly decide what to do about the tooth fairy since we didn't think we would have to deal with this for a while yet. We let William take the tooth to school the next day to show his teacher, but then the following night his tooth was replaced, by the tooth fairy, with a quarter.

Goodnight and Big Balls

I started watching "wipeout" last year and found it to be a very humorous show. It just amazes me how these people can continually get the snot beat out of them and keep going. It also amazes me that these people aren't seriously hurt. They time the challenges and some of them can take 10 minutes. I can't imagine doing these stunts over and over again for 10 minutes. I get tired just watching it. The boys started watching it with me on occasion and fell in love with the show. It must be a guy thing seeing people get smacked in the face. They ask me almost every day if the show is on that day. The other part that is very funny is the tag line that the host says at the end of the show. "goodnight and big balls". The other night we were putting the boys to bed. After tucking Andrew into bed, William goes to hug him goodnight and says, "goodnight and big balls". I thought Jen was going to fall over laughing. It's just something you wouldn't expect to hear from your 6 year old.

Damn, I forgot how much that hurts

As you might have read in my Alabama entry two blogs down (if you actually read all of that) that last Saturday during vacation I felt the pain in my side like a kidney stone. Well I went to bed Wednesday night around 11:00pm or so and was only asleep for a little bit when I felt pain again. I tried a few things to get around the pain. Over the counter medicine, heating pad, and some other stuff. Well the pain just kept getting worse and worse. By this time it was about 2:00am and Jen was asleep downstairs. Two hours of this excruciating pain was enough for me. I put some clothes on, told Jen what I was doing, and drove myself to the hospital. Why does this shit always happen at dark o'clock. There was no way that I was going to make Jen take me since that would mean waking all the kids up. And I didn't want to call my mom at that hour. So I get to the hospital around 2:30am or so and there is no one in the lobby. I kind of look around and finally someone comes out and asks if I need help. By this point its about a 9 on the 1 to 10 pain scale. As I am sitting there thinking they will usher me right in and get me some pain killers, a guy comes walking in. She asks him if he is alright or if we were together and he says no. He says that he is having chest pains.... come to find out that chest pains trump kidney stone pain and he gets ushered back right away. She tells me to have a seat in the waiting room and they will be right with me. Just my luck. I thought for sure that I would be the only person there at that time of night. Well I waited and waited. I tried sitting, standing, walking and do anything I could to ease up the pain. It seemed like forever,but finally they took me back and got me checked in. It wasn't long and they started an IV with that magic medicine. I started to feel a little better and they took me to get a CT to see if they could see the stone. After that they wheeled me back to the room and I started to fall sleep for some short cat naps between the blood pressure machine going off and nurses checking on me. The doctor came in and told me that they saw a stone about 4mm between my kidney and bladder. Stones this size they usually just try and let pass by themselves and don't usually require a surgery or procedure. Unless they get stuck. So I am basically free to go with a prescription for pain medicine around 5:00am. I run into a problem that they won't let me drive because of the morphine and I don't want to have Jen wake the kids to pick me up until a little closer to the usual wake up time. They let me catch a little more sleep and I finally call Jen around 6:30. After my second nap I am actually feeling pretty good and fell like I am alright to drive, but they insist I wait. So I go out to the waiting room after singing my paper work and wait for Jen and the boys to arrive. I get thinking of the pain in the butt of trying to pick up the Saturn later on in the day and I really feel fine. So, I am debating what to do, and finally just walk out the door and drive home. Yeah, I am a bad boy. Needless to say I took the day off to try and get some rest, but again Jen had to work so I tried to catch naps around watching the kids.
So now I am just sitting around trying to pass that stone. I know it is still there as of Monday night since I got hit with some more pain, but lucky I had some pain pills. Got to keep the water and cranberry juice going.

El Destructo rides again

We call Andrew El Destructo because it seems like everything that he touches, he eventually destroys. On our trip to Alabama, my dad gave us an old DVD player that he had. He knew that the DVD player that the boys used in the toy room was the portable one, and that it has been taking a beating over the last year or so. He just happened to have an extra one that they didn't use. So we get the player home and the very next day Andrew is whining that he wants to watch a movie in the toy room. I think that this is a good opportunity to pull out the new player and get it hooked up. I put in a movie and it works fantastic, but the movie that Andrew was watching quickly fell out of favor so he put in a new one. Seconds later I hear, "daddy, the TV isn't working". I figure that it is just a dirty DVD. The boys always finger up the discs so they stall or skip. I get in there and try to eject the disc to clean it and it won't eject. Crap, the DVD player wasn't even on for 10 minutes before Andrew breaks it. I play with it for a while, but can't get it to work. Finally I decide that there is no way to get the DVD to work so I decide to pry open the case to get the DVD out. I am trying to be a little careful for the chance that I can tear it apart and get it back together again. I finally get into the tray and notice that Andrew had put in two DVDs at the same time which jammed the player. Lucky for me I was able to put the player back together again and it is working fine. El Destucto rides again....

'Bama bound

Here is the long blog entry about our trip to Alabama.. fasten your seat belt.

A couple of months ago my dad brought up the fact that my step-niece was graduating from High School down in Montgomery. Now I haven't been down to Montgomery that much since my dad and his wife moved down there, but I have watched Kirsten grow up from a little kid in the times that I have made it down there. It's hard to believe that she is graduating already. I remember one of the first times I visited I help my dad put together a plastic car for Christmas. I also heard that my Aunt and cousins were going to make the trip down for the graduation as well, and I haven't seen them in forever either. So after some discussion we decided to try and a make the trip. The only factor that was a real worry to me was how the boys would do in a car trip down there. I figured that it would be 13 hours with lunch/dinner/potty stops. They did really well in our trip to Rochester last year and that was 11 hours. As long as the DVD player holds up I figured that we would be good to go. The trip planning and packing started early and we were pretty well prepared. After getting off work on Wednesday night I was trying to load everything that I could in the van (aka. Herbie). Jen had to work so I wasn't sure about some of the stuff to load. Finally Jen gets home and we do what we can for the night. Jen settles in to watch the recorded tape of "Lost", but it's already 11:00pm and the finale is 2 hours long. I head to bed since we have a long drive in the morning. Just before going to bed I watch the weather forecast to see how the drive is going to be and they are all talking about a huge thunderstorm that is heading our way. Crap. Thunderstorms mean that the kids will be in our room. I crash quickly but start hearing the rumbles around 3:00am. Around 4:00am William comes in the room and won't sleep on his make shift bed on the floor so we let him sleep in the bed. The only problem with William sleeping in our bed is that he is all elbows and knees so he is no fun to sleep with. Shortly after that Andrew starts crying so Jen goes in to solve that problem. Even with Jen gone, William has to be right next to me. I finally get fed up and crash on the floor. The alarm goes off way to early, but I get out of bed and start getting ready. The boys are a pain to try and get up since they were up alot. I am trying to get out on the road by 7:30 - 8:00 since I didn't want to be getting to my dad's house after dark since I hadn't been there in 6 years or so. So after all the waking and loading we were pulling out of the garage at 8:45 which isn't too bad for us. The trip down was pretty uneventful. We ran into a little bit of rain, but the traffic wasn't too bad and we didn't hit any jams. The boys were glued to the DVD player and Christopher did great with a little bit of fussiness. We pulled into Montgomery a little after dark. They are an hour earlier than us so we actually gained an hour, but we spent the whole vacation with "their" time and "our" time. It was almost exactly 13 hours when we pulled up to the house. We were greeted by Dad, Betty, and Rugby (the dog). We visited a little bit and then put the boys to bed.

A little more visiting and we went to sleep our self.

I thought with the long drive and late time to sleep that the boys would sleep in, but no such luck. 6:00am (their time) I hear Andrew in the front room saying "hello" so I get up and get some breakfast for him. Betty is an early riser too, so she was up soon after. After a little while everyone woke up and we had a nice relaxing breakfast. I actually felt pretty good after the long drive and short sleep. The boys are running all over the place so I know they are feeling pretty good too. Either that or they are just real excited at playing with the dog. (The poor dog) After a while we decide to go over to the Montgomery Zoo and check that out. We pull up to busloads of kids waiting to get in the zoo. Lucky for us it just looked impossible to get in and we walked right up to the entrance. Another bonus for the day is that our season pass to the Fort Wayne zoo also got us in free at the Montgomery zoo. The Montgomery zoo is a very nice zoo with alot of animals the Fort Wayne doesn't have. The first thing that William sees after getting into the zoo was their train that ran around the zoo. Of course this is the one thing that William fixates on so the whole time we are there he keeps asking if we are heading to the train. We kept saying no, look at the elephant. Finally we get to the train ride and it is like Fort Wayne's train only a little longer of a ride. Unfortunately the train passes by the animal cages, but the trees and bushes are so overgrown you can't see anything. After the train ride and an hour or so of walking around we decide to head home. It was real hot down there (compared to up here). We get home for nap time for the kids and me. Kirsten show up so we end up visiting for a little while. Man she got tall, not the little girl I remember. After that we just hung around the house. Whenever we visit, Betty has "snack night". This is a HUGE freakin' spread of all kinds of snack and appetizers. It's become quite the tradition to do this when we go down there and Betty does a great job in putting it all together. Most of it is home-made. So eat, drink, eat,drink and general merriment. Cami (Kirsten's mom) also comes to the house for snack night. Boys and us get to bed at a pretty good time.

Bright and early Saturday morning I once again hear Andrew up at 6:00am. Hey, at least they aren't waking me up in the middle of the night. After another lazy morning of getting up and having breakfast we decide to head out and see the Children's part of a museum with Kirsten. it's a pretty neat little area of the museum that is very hands on and has lots of activities. The museum is in the same area as the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Yes.. two things that don't really go together, Alabama and Shakespeare. We had fun at the museum, and of course the boys had the most fun feeding the ducks,turtles, and fish outside. After that we took the kids home and my dad and I had some errands to run in town (we had a list). First stop was a casino that was recently built near their house. They say casino, I say, pull-barn with a bunch of electronic games. It's all on cards so you don't hear the sound of change hitting the pans. We walked in and out of that place. Next stop was to drop of some trash. After that it was the great search for beer. Dad wanted to get Coors light in bottles, but our first stop to Walmart and then to Cosco but they only had cans. So back in the truck and over to Sams Club. Both of these places are basically the same thing, even in the store layouts. I was able to find the 4th book of the Twilight series for Jen to read on the way home. She blew through the 3rd book on the way down. While at Cosco dad remembered hat he had to pick up a cake for Kirsten's graduation party. Unfortunately in getting the cake, the fun part of our running around (hitting a bucket of balls) wasn't going to happen, at least not without melting the cake in the heat. We get back and Betty has put together a very tasty looking lasagna, but all of a sudden I feel some pain in my left side. It's the familiar feeling of a kidney stone so I wasn't able to eat anything. Lucky for me after an hour or so the pain let up and I was feeling better the next day. My dad's pool isn't heated (it doesn't need to be, it's Alabama) so it wasn't warm, but it wasn't too cold. Basically it was lake temperature. The boys were having fun putting their feet in the water so I decided to try it out and put on my suit. The first dive was pretty cold, but I got used to it very fast. The boys put their suits on too and joined me in the pool. William has had swim lessons, but still doesn't swim that well. After playing in the pool for a while, some dark clouds rolled in and we started hearing thunder so we decided to call it a day for the pool. More merriment and visiting with my dad until dark. The boys found out that there was a TV in the front room that could get satellite so they would go in there to watch Disney while we watched whatever we wanted to.

Sunday was graduation day. I heard Andrew up again bright and early, but by the time I got out to the front room Betty was already up and feeding him an Oreo poptart. I was kind of surprised to see him eating that since he isn't a real big chocolate eater. The rest of the house is gradually waking up. Betty is in the kitchen cooking like crazy since they are having a get together at the house after graduation. Out of the corner of my eye I see Andrew walking toward the front room and then the familiar sound of him throwing up all over the place. I quickly get up and try to catch as much as possible in my hands. My dad is telling me to get him outside, but he usually has one big puke and he is done, and the fact that if I don't move him I will only have one spot to clean rather than a trail. Of course it's the oreo poptart all over the WHITE carpet. I am mortified and quickly try to clean it up as fast as I can. Lucky for me they have a carpet cleaner just like ours, so I spend the next half hour trying to get is as clean as humanly possible. This was the first incident of many for Andrew for the day including bloody toes and other bodily harm. We eventually get ready and head out to the graduation. It was a very rainy day in Alabama. The boys did pretty well at the graduation and behaved pretty good. After the graduation we all headed back to the house for another large meal. Betty put out a huge spread including a whole baked ham, a ton of chicken breasts, and alot of other great food. I am not sure how much weight I gained on vacation, but I know I did. Only one of my cousins made it over for the graduation,so I was a little bummed about that, but it was good to see him. Eventually the party broke up and we did some more visiting and whatnot. I loaded as much in the van as possible again, but again I had to wait on stuff. I wanted to get going early again if it was possible.

Around 5:30am (their time) Christopher woke up. (he was sleeping in the same room as us) and he was wide awake. We tried to lay him in the bed with us to get a Little more sleep, but he wouldn't hear of it. It actually worked out since we got a little earlier start. But again the chore of getting everyone up, dressed, fed, and yada yada yada it was around 8:00am (their time) before we finally hit the road. Again another uneventful drive back to Fort Wayne. The boys did very well again, with Christopher being a little more fussy that first time. The only difference in this trip is that that boys were eating like we hadn't fed them in a week. They barely touched the snack food on the way down, but hit them HARD on the way home. Even after their snackfest they still ate the meals when we stopped for Lunch (Cracker Barrel) and dinner (Pizza Hut). I was real tempted to not stop for dinner since we were only about an hour and a half away from home, but the boys hadn't been out of the van in a while, and we didn't have any food at the house so we decided to stop. We got home at around 13 hours again,but the drive didn't seem that bad. Pulled in the driveway, called everyone to let them know we made it home safe, put the boys to bed, did a quasi unpacking and finally headed to bed after a bit of an unwind.

Overall the trip was really great. The boys did well in the van, and didn't destroy my dad's house too much, even though his collection of cars might need some repair. It was a good time, but next time I think we will do a whole week down there.

Thanks to Dad, Betty, Kirsten and Cami for a fantastic time