Michigan Adventure – The Last Day

It was not until on the way back to Farmington Hills on Friday that we actually decided the schedule for our return home. We decided that we would stay on Saturday, basically to give the kids a break from the car. So Saturday, we had a great breakfast downstairs came back to the room and decided to enjoy the pool. We actually ended up in the hot tub the entire time because it was much warmer and with the jets the kids enjoyed playing around in it. We were the only people in the pool area until the last five minutes. We spent over an hour in the water. I thought I saw a microwave in the room so I plan to feed the kids mac and cheese for lunch. Matt and I were going to eat the leftovers. But after getting back to the room we realized that the microwave did not exist. The kids laid down for a 2 plus hour nap. It was awesome. After the nap we had planned to head to both Costco and Trader Joes. We made it to Costco and it was as Matt described it, “The reason I moved out of Michigan.” Traffic was awful and people in Costco were rude. We ended up at Keith and Belinda’s were the kids watched Toy Story 3 and we enjoy conversation and laughed.

This is the part were the adventure begins. We ended up staying at Keith’s until around 8pm. When we opened our hotel room door, we realized that our room was located directly above the ballroom. A bar mitzh was taking place in the ballroom and we were able to identify the songs as they changed. I did call the front desk and was told there was nothing they could do about the noise. It was strongly suggested that I call the corporate office to. I did there was no resolution but I did receive our breakfast for free both morning and got a discount of half on the price of the room. Luckily, the kids were so tired they went right to sleep. Matt and I played name that tune until it stopped at 11pm.

I don’t regret waiting to start our trip home until Sunday at all. We had the car loaded up on Saturday night. Sunday morning we enjoyed a great breakfast and the ladies were nice enough to send us a to go box loaded with pastries and fruit. Travel was fairly smooth until around 4 pm getting on the West Virginia turnpike. Things went downhill from there. First the brakes on the car started to vibrate. We are coming up and down mountains and each time you try to slow down the whole car shakes. At one point we were literally sitting in traffic, moving at approximately 5 miles an hour. The reason…..traffic. As we were sitting in traffic, Lily suggested we pray so that we could start moving and get home. We did. From the point that we prayed we maintained a steady movement forward with only 1 other time when we came to a complete stop. It was amazing. We decided to pray again to thank God for letting us start moving. Around 15 minutes after our thanksgiving prayer, we came to another stop. Matt mentioned we might need to pray again and Kendall agreed. Lily was very clear with her statement “I already prayed and God gave us a miracle so I don’t have to pray again.” The faith of a child…boy do I have a lot to learn from that girl! Lily was right we did keep moving slowly but steady. Zach ended up car sick as we entered North Carolina so we had to stop and clean both him and the car seat up. Total travel time on Sunday was 14 hours. We ended up not even stopping for dinner because we just wanted to get home. We made it, the adventure is now complete!

 

Kendall Update

Kendall has reached one of my favorite ages, 2.5 years old. Over the last several weeks, she has really developed a personality and is a sponge learning everything. Potty training is still that training. She currently has one accident a day but does not poop in the potty at all.

In the area of communication she is so much fun. She is speaking in sentences. She gets frustrated when someone does not understand what she is saying and tonight I heard her repeating things off the news just to see if I noticed. She definitely has her own opinions and like to be heard. In the car, she and Lily often fight over whose turn it is to talk. Kendall loves to sing. Currently she sings ABCs, Wheels on the bus ( her favorite is the mommies), 5 little monkeys, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Ba Ba Black Sheep and Jesus Loves Me. Kendall is usually the one that reminds us to pray at dinner.

Kendall is definitely 2 but she is the only one of my kids that you can reason out of a tantrum. If I can get her to listen to what I am saying she will usually stop kicking or crying when explained that is not how we do things. She also can turn on and off the tears in a minute.

And yesterday she achieved a major milestone. Yesterday, morning the first thing she told me was “My pappy broke, I throw it away.” I had her repeat it twice and then told her to go ahead and throw it away. I didn’t have any more because she has bitten all that we were able to find in half. I discovered several months ago that they had changed the design of her Binky so I stocked up then. Kendall was able to take a nap yesterday and last night she verified that she had thrown her pappy away before going to bed. Again this morning she said “I throw pappy away it broke?” But she has been sleeping without it! WOW this was easy! I am so excited. The cutest thing was as I was telling my mom about it, Kendall heard and repeated “I not need pappy anymore cause I a big girl.”