today was a very short driving day. but after last night’s ridiculously late bedtime and the inevitable early wake-up time, I was a total mess. I was just soooo tired all day.

but we drove for a few hours and ended up in ann arbor where I was lucky enough to steal a few hours of time from my favorite director of ethica while we  caught up over dessert. man, it is so awesome to be able to just sit and chat with someone about things that are so important to me without their eyes glazing over and Linh’s intelligence and experience absolutely blow me away. I never got to meet her all the time I lived in Michigan so i was so happy to finally get to meet her today.

While I had lunch Tony took alllll the kids to the mall to meet my ex for lunch. Does he get World’s Best Husband status or what?!?!? Seriously, I just love this guy and his willingness to just do whatever and to have a good time doing it. It was so nice for Dalton and Teegan to see their Dad and we arranged for them to spend the night over at their grandparents house tonight and spend tomorrow with them so they can all catch up.

We spent the evening with my Mom, catching up too. We took a long walk becuase i was soooo desparate for exercise of any kind and it was literally cold here. cold. at which point I realized i forgot my sweatshirt. brrrr. anyway we took noah to the park and he had such fun making new friends and running around. and i got to play with my camera and talk to my mom. good times.

all the kids are asleep and I should be too so that’s about it for today. I did take a few pics today….

midwestern sunset

we don’t have these in texas

I’ve wanted to get a picture of a leaf skeleton for a looong time. I’m sure there will be more to bore you to tears.

tomorrow is big business day in town!!! Pictures will definitely be forthcoming!

so today we drove memphis to chicago. it was even easier than yestrday. the kids were sooooo easy and low maintenance with the exception of the last half hour when Addy and Noah hit their limit. there was only one tiny issue….addy would not nap. this was an issue because tony had plans tonight to meet up with his brother and best friend in chicago. she finally passed out at 4:30pm and slept for an hour and a half. Needless to say now its her normal bedtime and he’s been working on getting her to sleep for over an hour and I finally just kicked him out to go meet his peeps because the baby is wide awake. right now she’s pretending to be asleep and i’m pretending i’m not blogging and we agree not to rat each other out. he may just come home at 2am and she’ll still be kickin’!!!

I am such a bad mom because I just lack patience and creativity entirely when it comes to road trips. I am soooo not the type, like my super-creative and fun step-Mom, who comes up with 200 different creative car games to keep the kids engaged and happy. When they get bored and start to whine, I tell them to go to sleep. When they get hungry, I tell them to go to sleep. When they ask how much longer I suggest they go to sleep and not wake up till we get there. see a pattern?

So its always humorous to me to listen in as they make up their own games.

yesterday teegan bet Noah and Dalton that they could not keep from blinking more than three times during the 10 hour bet and of course they took that bet. Dalton, upon his last blink, decided the best strategy would be to just keep his eyes SHUT for the remaining 9 hours and 57 minutes. This worked real well when it came time for him to help Addison turn on DVDs or get some snacks.

fun times, fun times.

in order to keep the kids happy i kept buying sugar in the form of suckers. First the ring pops, then the baby bottle pops. The second was not so smart namely because we handed them out at a time when addy should have been napping. ya think that’s why she  took 3 extra hours to fall asleep today?! ha. Also when we took her out of the car she was covered hair to toe in candy powder. that was fun.

We’ve been staying at Hyatt Place hotels every night since we went to Lucy’s birthday and they are all identical right down to the green apples in the basket at the entrance. I’m sure Addy is totally confused about why it is that we drive and drive all day only to end up in the same place every night! Bwahahah.

At the hotel tonight I knew she needed her hair washed to remove all the built-up sucker gunk but there was no time a bath and we have to leave pretty early tomorrow. so I told her we’d wash her hair in the sink and I stood her up on the counter. I was still trying to figure out exactly the logistics of how that was going to best be accomplished. She’s a girl who hates showers and does not like having her hair washed in the bath either. I turned on the sink water and was about to lay her down on her back like at the salon when she bent over at the waist and threw her hair into the sink and started giggling hysterically. I washed her whole head of hair that way and she just laughed the whole time. She thought that was so funny. Its the first and only time I’ve had a non-traumatic hair washing experience with her - go figure! Dalton said “obviously its because she was in control, Mom”. he’s going to be such a good parent

well addy is done pretending to sleep now and she is pinching my arm randomly and saying “Is that owie?” and sometimes throwing her foot on the laptop screen in an effort to convey the “do a better job pretending not to blog, mom” message. A few times she’s said “Do you need help typin’, Mama?” and just now she said “You sleepin’, mama?” and I said yes and she said “I’m sleepin’ too”. mmm-hmmm. Its going to be a looooong night.

tomorrow we go to my Mom’s house in Michigan. We’ll stay there through the weekend. But first we plan to stop by Ann Arbor for a lunch date that I made and hopefully a visit for Dalton & Teegan with their Dad who they haven’t seen since several months before we moved to Texas. it should be a short driving day and then we can stay put for a few days. I can’t wait! We are already loving that awesome midwestern grass (and by grass I mean the kind that grows on lawns). Is that weird?

We’re driving along I-40 and should be pulling into Memphis in about an hour. We’ve spent about 9 hours in the car today and we aren’t doing too bad. Addison hsa been a total dream, she had a good nap, on time. She has entertained herself and has not been too whiny or demanding which is a miracle. I’m already sick of “road food” which probably doesn’t bode well for the rest of the trip. All I wanted for dinner was hot vegetables. What I got was KFC. Poor Noah is starving since they were out of the only thing he could eat there, Mac & Cheese. Eating on the road is not easy.

Last year we did this trip in shorter increments so we could spend most of the day exploring new cities and doing fun things. This year we decided that, to save money and time, we’d just drive all day and skip the tourism. I thought that would totally suck until about an hour ago when I had the raelization that it is actually FAR less work this way. It was sooo exhausting to drive for hours and then sight-see on top of it. And in order to pull it off we had to leave at the crack of damn which is never good for my mood the rest of the day. But this trip I can actually sleep in, have a nice leasiurely breakfast and not stress about getting out ASAP.

One year I would love to do this trip totally alone, though, so I could stop every 3 miles and take pictures. There are some totally hilarious things that we passed that would have made the best pictures ever! It actually pains me to drive past them and not stop for pictures. There were also some beautiful old barns and horses and other gorgeous and unique sites that screamed “photo” but I had to just keep my eye on the destination. Oh well, some day. That’s what retirement is for, right?

More tomorrow, hopefully with pictures that don’t involve the back of semis or dead armadillos.