On the Road Again

This week I had to go to my office in North Carolina to help produce a huge work product. To avoid the holiday rush, we headed down to my parents' house on Friday evening. It was just me, all three kids, a loaded-down minivan, and our portable DVD player. <Dear God: Bless the inventor of the portable DVD player. Amen!>

The idea was that the baby would sleep much of the way down. While that did not work out, the trip went well, thanks to an alternate route my mama had scoped out for us.

We spent the weekend lapping up the gracious hospitality of my parents. My dad bought every kind of food he thought the kids may enjoy (mostly tons of beautiful blueberries, watermelon, bananas, etc.)

What did you give me, Grandpa? It looks good.

What is this delicious stuff?!

Touch my watermelon and die!

He cooked dinner for us every night. (Now that spoiled me. I did not have to cook or clean up from a single dinner for four nights in a row!) He also fed the kids breakfast almost every morning, making them eggs or french toast or waffles with fruit or yogurt, and provided the best snacks ever.

Strawberry Popsicle Goodness

He really loved his popsicle, he's just tired in this picture

To top it all off, one day he brought home a special bottle of wine, just for me.

"Middle Sister" wine. :)

Then there's my mama. Who wipes, dresses, and soothes kids with the best of them. She helped me get all the kids down to the pool, not once, but twice! And she managed to get in a few pictures of the fun, since I had my hands full with a very clingy baby.

Hooray for baby pools where the kids can swim freely!

G "swimming"

S enjoying the water

Baby C, aka the leech baby

Thanks to Nana, we made it through almost an entire church service with the kids in tow. Thanks to Nana, I was able to make this trip, as she took the day off from work to watch Baby C. She and I even managed to escape after bedtime one evening for some shopping followed by margarita girl time! :)

On Tuesday I had to head out of town around 4 AM to go to North Carolina. The kids had been away from home for several days already and I knew they were running on fumes. I called a few times during the day to check in and Grandpa couldn't wait to tell me how great they were doing (or how he convinced Baby C to drink some juice while I was away.) Basically, he tactfully implied "Stop calling! We're doing fine without you!" which is music to a traveling working mama's ears.

It was a whirlwind trip and I had to spend much of it in front of my computer working at my parents' kitchen table. But in spite of all the craziness, never did I have to worry about the babies. My selfless parents took excellent care of all of us.

<Dear God. Bless my generous, loving, absolutely wonderful parents. Amen.>