Home Sweet Home

Home never looked so good!! I am very much looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. And after 12 nights of sharing beds or sleeping on the floor, the girls requested a sleep-over in Madison's room! I denied that one, hoping everyone can catch up on their zzz's tonight!!

A little recap of life on the road:

Total Miles Driven

(I told the girls we really should drive around for 100 more miles to get it to an even 2,000)

Total time spent in the car

On the road again

These orange construction signs made me want to SCREAM. I lost count of how many slow downs we had due to them. And the frustrating thing was that most of them had no obvious signs of any road work being done but I would still have to slow down through the construction zone.

Passing away the hours
Never out of my reach: food bag, multiple drinks (usually dr. pepper, water bottle and a chai tea), sunglasses, purse (with camera inside), cd case and everyone drives with their own wildflower bouquet, right???

We survived quite easily video free. The girls will probably regret their good behavior, as it proved that we really have no need for that silly dvd player after all. In fact, I had every intention of pulling out my laptop today and draining the battery to allow at least one movie. I also planned to make a stop at a wal-mart to allow for the purchase of some junky toy that would entertain them for 20 minutes. Neither tactic was necessary. Though I will admit to resorting to the use of SUGAR. I can't tell you how far a box of Everlasting GobStoppers will take you on the road. And the girls were thrilled when I let them buy those horrible baby bottle candy things. They both squealed and said "but mom, you NEVER let us have those." I may regret that purchase for awhile:-)

But really I am SO PROUD of my two girls. They were such troopers this entire trip. Hopping to a different house at least every 2 nights, sometimes more often. Getting thrown into groups of relatives they can't remember, or maybe haven't even met yet. And many more opportunities for the worst in a child to show through. Of course there were a few moments of craziness. There were some times of fabulous sibling drama over one sister looking at the other wrong, or putting her leg on the other one. And one near catastrophe when the girls were way beyond tired and hungry and starting to completely lose it in the fancy restaraunt with 40+ relatives looking on. The bread plate arrived just in time to save our sanity on that one!! Overall, I think it was an amazing trip, with lots of memories to last a lifetime. I will be blogging out of chronological order (which I hate) over the next few days to recount a few more special moments we have and then I will be putting together a Shutterfly book to help remember all the people, places and events that happened on our journey.

Mommy Boot Camp starts bright and early tomorrow morning. Topping the list are sugar de-tox, summer chore chart and monitored screen time. Back to reality girls! Of course, it is also back to reality for me with the attempt to be up bright and early for 5:30 swim. Not sure which is going to be worse, the 5:00 a.m. alarm clock blaring in my ear or the brutal swim workout after not being in the pool for 2 weeks and eating horribly (sugar detox begins for me tomorrow too!!).