A Funk Road Trip to Remember | Florida to Texas

This has been a week for the books.  I haven't blogged since we have been on "vacation", but I wanted to update everyone on what has been going on in our little world.  I use the word vacation loosely because it hasn't been much of a vacation.  My girls and I have traveled the 20+ hour drive from our home in Florida to visit my family in my hometown in Texas before, but this trip takes the cake.

We made this trip last year (driving with kids for the first time) and it was pretty easy.  We left in the evening and the girls slept the entire way.  My littlest one, who was about 6 months old at the time didn't get fussy until we were less than hour from our destination.  It was great and the best part was they stayed on a schedule, so their routine didn't mess up.  I was hopeful that this time around would go the same.  You'd think that I would have learned by now that with toddlers, most things do not go according to plan.  At least not for us.

We took a different route than we did last time and that part of the trip wasn't bad.  The reason for this was that we didn't stop anywhere like before, so we took the quickest route.  I had planned to leave in the evening so the girls would sleep, but I was encouraged by my husband (who knows now not to change my plans) to leave early and we did.  That resulted in one cranky toddler before bed time and one bored toddler who had colored every single page in her Crayola Color Wonder Book before we were even a few hours into our drive.  They finally fell asleep for the night and we made really great time.  I even realized that we would be driving through my Instagram Bestie's town in Louisiana and we were able to meet her for breakfast and take a little break from driving.  It was such a nice impromptu meet up with her!

From there, we made it outside of Dallas and just in time for a huge thunderstorm to hit.  We ended up having to pull over twice and wait it out.  That definitely was not fun with two toddlers who did not want to be in their carseats anymore. 

28 hours later (thankfully not the movie), 5 states, 55 toddler potty breaks (one where a highway patrol officer pulled over to make sure we were ok), one blowout from little sis, a breakfast date, a thunderstorm, a 20 minute power nap and a lot of coffee later, we made it!

The girls were happy to be out of the car and I was happy to see my family.  My sister arrived with her 4 kids early in the week, for a total of 7 kids running around, getting dirty and having a good time.  So far, this trip was going well!....

And then the stomach bug hit and it hit hard.  It started with nephew #1 on Wednesday, spread to nephew #2 and #3 that next day, niece #1 later that evening followed by youngest sister.  We spent most of our time at my grandmother's house praying that we didn't get it before we had to head back to Florida.  This pretty much resulted in all of our plans being cancelled for the week.  Just when we thought it was over, my aunt, my dad and my other sister caught the bug followed by my nephew getting it again.  They couldn't catch a break!

Finally, Saturday everyone seemed to be back to normal and we got to enjoy a fun Easter egg hunt at the park, minus one nephew who chose to nap instead :)  It was a lot of fun to let my girls run around at the park in my hometown.  I even got to visit with an old friend from high school and let my girls play with her girls who are the exact same age. 

Despite the chaos, we did get to enjoy confetti eggs (cascarones), which is a fun childhood memory that I got to share with my girls.  They had cookies for breakfast, played at the park and had a lot of fun with family.  It has definitely been an eventful trip.  We are all tired and ready to head back home.  Who else feels like they always need a vacation after their vacation?  We would appreciate prayers as we make the long drive back today!

What has been the most eventful experience you have had on a road trip/vacation?

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