Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Long Road Home, Day 5



As great as it would be to just sit in a hotel room and watch cartoons all morning, we had to get back to reality. We wanted to try to take the trip home for a bit more fun and a little less sadness. We stayed in the 'family suite' at La Quinta about an hour outside Columbus. We joked it was the penthouse since we were on the top floor. What that really meant was 2 rooms, one with a foldout queen for the kids (and Eric) and the other a king, for Lisa and I. But after we put the kids down the grownups watched a Chopped marathon and drank a lot of wine. It was nice. Quite nice! In the morning, we took the big kids for a swim before we hit the road. Again, a casual start in the morning makes for much happier children, AND parents.

We didn't hit the road until almost 11. And we called my Dad and MB, they were about 20 miles behind us. :) So we decided to break together for lunch. We stopped after about 20 minutes for gas, Starbucks, and McDonald's. A road trip bare necessities. The McDonald's had picnic tables around back, and a grassy area for kids and pooches to play.



So Daddy let Schnitzel, their 2 year old german shepherd puppy out to play. She was barky, but loved the kids, and they loved her too. Schnitz thought Charlie particularly tasty!



It was refreshing, and a lot less sad to have a better change of venue for the kids to play with Oma and Opa.



Chris was playing peekaboo with Opa, which morphed into tag, and they were just so sweet, I couldn't help but laugh.







Posing by the Ronald McDonald statue.



Oma and Opa weren't able to stay with us as long, they didn't need the play time. ;) So they hit the road, and the kids ran around the grassy knoll for a bit.




Before we hit the road, we wandered down to the lake for a peek at the geese.



Not quite sure which ones are the silly geese.



The kids did really well not getting too close, and I was able to hold my camera out to to the holes in the fence and get cool pics.



Pretty cool.



When the geese got up to go for drinks in the pond, we took that as our cue to hit the road.



Our next and last stop was the Amish Cheese shop at the Connersville exit, about 20 minutes inside the Indy border. Oh my word. We picked up some scrumpdiddlyumptious cheeses, but the Cheddar Jalepeno Bread that had just come out of the oven Rocked my world! So Good, we were eating it by the fistful, and it was only through conscious effort it made it home. However, even with scrumptious snacks, that last leg of the journey was the roughest. The kids were done.



There was a lot of trying to find good music, switching movies, and fighting over books and the magna doodle. I did think it was pretty adorable that Chris wrote down the names of everyone in the car.



The players were: Charlie, Annie, Lisa, Daddy, Mommy, Chris, Sam. I'm grateful for their joining us on this adventure, it was a Blessing to have them along. And a bright sunshine in a sad trip.

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