We All Made It Back In One Piece

We're back! We survived the trip from Tennessee to Minnesota and back again. The kids handled the drive really well (the dvd player was a lifesaver). Like all vacations it seemed to go by too fast, but I am glad to be home and so are the kids. A note of warning-I have not edited these photos at all. Well, ok I cropped a few, but that's it. I have too many and I am lazy. Right now I am all about straight out of the camera.

We started our journey Thursday morning. We drove about 8 hours and stayed in Bloomington, IL. We found a park so the kids could burn some energy. Then grabbed some dinner. The next morning we woke up and drove about 4 hours to the Wisconsin Dells.

We stayed at a hotel with an indoor and outdoor waterpark. The place was really cool and the kids had a blast. Too bad we only stayed the night.

Saturday morning we played for a little longer. My daughter loved the big huge slide. She kept saying "I love it. I really do. Can we do it again?" It's a good thing that her dad loved it too!

My son's favorite part was the water that squirted up in the baby pool. He discovered that sitting on the water spurting up felt kinda funny.

After a little more fun, we packed up and were back on the road again. We drove about 6 hours to Duluth. The van started acting up and we ended up in the parking lot of a Nissan dealership. We were able to drive it on, but knew we would have to take it back in on Monday to get checked out. Man, oh man!

That's my niece on the left. Isn't she a cootie patootie? Yes, we fit all 3 of them in the backseat. Grammie and G-Pa (my husband's parents) were with us too. So that's 7 of us in one minivan. We finally made it to our destination and had a lovely dinner with family. It felt good to be there. Sunday was the family reunion. It was a bit chilly which was fine by me.

The kids loved fishing. My daughter stood on the dock forever casting her bobber into the lake. You can see her just barely in the right corner of the photo above.

Look a photo of me. How did that happen? My son is very shy and wanted to be held the first 2 days. I actually enjoyed his clinginess a little bit. He was so sweet and cuddly plus he wasn't getting in trouble, bouncing off the walls. Isn't that horrible?

On Monday my husband took the car into the shop and the rest of us hung out. It was nice to just relax and have no worries. The kids even took naps. Later my husband let the kids do some very supervised fishing with worms and actual hooks. My son is kissing the fish below.

A part had to be ordered for the van so we took it back in on Tuesday so they could install the part. Originally we were going to stay in Duluth and do some shopping and sightseeing, but since it was our last day and the weather was nice we decided to go back to the lake. We drove all day Wednesday and Thursday. We were home by about 5:30 pm. What a trip. All things considered the trip went really well, but we spent way too much time in the car. I think we will save up our money and fly next time.