Road trip to Michigan and Indiana

For the holidays, we made the drive to Michigan to see Andy's mom and Bob. We were a little nervous about a 17 hour drive with a two year old. E was a rock star! The first day, he just sat quietly taking in the scenery. I don't think he knew/understood exactly what was going on. The second day, we put up the tv/dvd player and he enjoyed several movies. We are so lucky that E is a good traveler...I think he did better than I did at times.

E was so happy to see Grandma Diana and Grandpa Bob! He remembered them from meeting them in early Nov. E had fun tickling Grandpa Bob-this is one of his favorite things to do! He also was quite fascinated by the santas(about 3 ft tall) and the collection of nutcrackers(2-3 ft tall). He would walk up to them and say "Hi!" It was quite cute. He would say hi to everyone of them(there were at least 10 nutcrackers!).

After a few days in Michigan, we headed 7 hours south to southern Indiana. Again, E was a rock star. I, however, was quite antsy/excited to get to my parents house. "Andy, drive faster!" "Sara, I'm not going to go 90 in a 70" "Andy, let me drive!" We did make it safely to my parents house and made it with no speeding tickets as well.

As we were driving, I would call with updates as to where we were at so they would know when to expect us. When we were about two hours away, I decided that since I was stuck in a car for a few more hours that I might as well have some fun. My sister was very very excited for us to get there and was counting down the minutes until we got there.

So, being the jokester I am, I told her that we spent more time at the outlet mall than we had so it was going to take us longer to get there. Then, I called to tell them that it was sleeting rain(it was barely sprinkling) and it was going to take even longer for us to get there. The response to that call was "oh my gosh this waiting is killing me".

When we were about two minutes from their house, I called to say we were turning on to the highway that would get us to their house in about 30 min. We slowly pulled into their driveway, snuck around to the front door of my parents house and rang the doorbell. I heard footsteps running to the front door and my sister saying "I KNEW IT!!" as she flung the door open. E was so excited to see his Aunt Laura ! He also was excited to see Grandpa Jerry and Grandma Phyllis. He recognized them from talking to them via Skype.

We spent a week and a half at my parents house. It was the best Christmas! Our first Christmas with E and we were able to spend it with family. It had been a long time since I'd been home for Christmas(8 years!!). E loved opening presents and playing with all the new toys/books. E met lots of new family members and overall did really really well with all the new faces.

E fits just perfectly with our family. It seriously seems like he has been with us forever. He was quite spoiled by the Grandparents, Aunt Laura, and Uncle Phillip. We also celebrated his third birthday while we were in Indiana. He loved the cake Aunt Laura made him.

We were all really sad to leave when it was time for us to head back to Colorado. E once again was a rock star on the drive back to Colorado. He had one two minute meltdown. Again, he did way better than we did. =) We were happy when we safely made it back to our house in Colorado. While we loved spending all the time we did with our families, it was still good to be home. Our dogs were very excited for us to be home(they were boarded while we were gone) and E was super excited to play with Ali & MacInnis.