I simply am unable to believe that we just got home yesterday. It seems like the trip was last month already.

Leaving the house for two weeks, we emptied the cabinets and fridge of anything perishable. Before we went to restock today, I wanted to wipe out the empty fridge. Then there was a mega avalanche. A simple wipe down meant pulling the fridge out so that the drawers could be pulled out, then we had to clean the yuck we spotted under and behind, then it became a full scrub of every drawer and shelf taken apart, then we gutted and scrubbed the whole kitchen. We got carried away.

Trevor helped.

Because they are pretty much just tripping hazards now, we decided to remove the baby gates. Trevor can open them easily and freely so they don’t work anymore. Brendan just climbs over the couch. Bye-bye era of babyness. My boys are growing up.

They are growing naughtier too. When left to play together unsupervised….

We are home! 3765.5 miles on the truck later..
We are all exhausted and buried in work to unpack and re-organize. I am very proud of the boys for making the trip such a success. Bill and I will never forget it even though the boys will have no memories of it, just pictures.

Brendan demonstrates how difficult it is to sleep in carseats, but we will all be sleeping hard tonight.

It took less than three minutes to make a giant mess in the playroom. They were so excited to see all their toys.

When I was getting Trevor in his pajamas, he says, “ooh someone got a big new bed”. He went to sleep easily, I hope he sleeps all night!

Drive, drive, drive, drive, drive….. it is tough to spend 7 days out of a 15 day vacation on the road. The boys did very well again, this time it was a laptop with a couple episodes of “Bubble Guppies” that kept them entertained.

We are stopped for the night in Grants, NM at another KOA campground. 336 miles to go until we get home tomorrow.

We stopped in the middle of Texas at a rest stop that was also labeled a “Safety/Rest Stop” because they had a storm shelter there. Encouraging! It was a big place with a nice playground.

One of the things I always found a bit annoying about Texas is how much they love the shape of the state, and make it in to everything.

Brendan is getting to be my fearless little monkey.

This is the third KOA with a scary playground, this slide might take the cake though.

I can only imagine this metal beast was picked up in a tornado and bent in half, then straightened out and put back in to use. It was tall and steep and there is no platform on the top at all.

Brendan would have climbed the ladder if I would have let him.

The nice part about shorter driving times is stopping while it is still light and being able to make dinner and be done with driving. Brendan got his own plate of spaghetti and he was licking off the noodles!!

Putting noodles in his mouth is a huge deal!

Yeah, HUGE DEAL! Yay Brendan!

We are looking forward to a non-rushed morning and getting home tomorrow afternoon. I can’t believe this trip is almost over!