Mikaiah's World Tour

15 days, 10 states, like 3500 miles, no dvd player, and about 120 cups of coffee. It all began in late October. I loaded up the kids and headed to Dallas to meet up with my parents. We rented a van and headed east, driving through beautiful states at pretty much the most gorgeous time of the year. We ended up in North Carolina where we spent awesome quality time with my brother's family and various aunts, uncles, and cousins visiting from Michigan (all who had never met Mikaiah, thus the title of the trip). In NC, we trick or treated with super fun cousins, made our very first jaunt to the beach (which the kids LOVED!!!! Too cold to swim, but sand castles galore!), headed to an amazing aquarium right on the coast, joined my nephew's class at a science museum, saw Duke University, went to fall festivals, saw soccer games, enjoyed playing at various parks... AND THEN I LOST MY CAMERA! Over 200 pictures and videos gone. Forever. I wasn't sure whether to cry, puke, or just curl up in a ball and rock back and forth. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. (The other day the kids asked to see a picture of themselves in their halloween costumes. And I just about teared up again. Sigh. Oh well.) At least we made fantastic memories along the way and had an absolute blast. From NC, we headed down to Atlanta to spend time with another brother, then finally made our way back to Dallas to spend some quality time with friends. It was SUCH a precious time with my parents and wonderful time with family that we don't see often enough. The kids did FANTASTIC in the car and had such wonderful, enriching experiences all along the way. We haven't even been back two weeks and have already celebrated 3 birthdays and kicked off the beginning of basketball season, which kind of consumes our lives. More details on those things later.... If anyone knows how to get a picture off of my phone, I can at least show you a picture of our studly Anna, in full harness, climbing a rock wall. She blew me away. And now I'm off to research cameras online. Since it looks like that will be what we are giving ourselves for Christmas. :(