Nothing like a last minute road trip/vacation, right?! My sweet niece Mary, had just had a baby. She lives in South Carolina. Somewhere I'd always wanted to go, and we were just dying to meet precious little Nash. Craig had a full week of working days and evenings, so my mom and I decided to hop in the car and take the kids on a road trip!
We were about 20 minutes down the road when I realized I had forgotten Andrew's "comfy" blanket. He was not happy. So he used Kerigan's pink bunny one! Ha ha.
At about that same time, this little one decided to pull out all the stuffing in her travel pillow. Nice, right? We had only just begun!
I didn't take many pictures of the actual road trip, because... let's face it. Illinois and Indiana are slightly boring states to drive through (no offense to those who live there! Iowa is boring too!) We only made a couple of stops to eat, and settled on a hotel just past Lexington, Kentucky. We wanted to get as far as we could, and still have time for dinner and some swimming. We were so tired of being in the car, we ordered pizza at the hotel and the kids had a blast in the pool.
The next day we started out early after breakfast and made it to Charleston by early evening. I love, love, love this picture of Andrew's face meeting Nash for the first time.
Mary took us to this cool restaurant for pizza! I loved the inside!
Love this morning snuggle picture! My mom and I tried to take Nash after Mary fed him in the mornings so she could get some more rest. He was always in such a sweet mood and so alert! A good time for the kids to pass him around and love on him!
Once we got up and had breakfast we packed for a day at the beach!
It had been a long time since we'd seen the ocean, and we all enjoyed it so much!
Sweet girl, she was just a baby (11 months) when we were on the other side of the U.S. in San Diego and saw the ocean.
Andrew was just fearless this time, and wanted to run way out by the big waves! This made mommy a little nervous, but we had fun and I stayed close to him!
I was exactly Andrew's age (7) when Mary was born. We grew up like sisters and best friends. I used to dress HER up, just like I do Kerigan now! As we got older and I was in middle school and high school, I enjoyed hanging out with Mary just as much as my own friends. She often came along with me to events and I just loved being with her. That has not changed! She is Andrew's godmother, and the sweetest person I know.
They had fun digging in the sand!
Love this girl!
Andrew collected all these shells and buried them in the sand.
On the way home we stopped at this little beachy restaurant along the water. It was so yummy!
We quickly discovered we love Charleston!
Mary's neighborhood has a pool, which we got good use out of! Ha! I think we went swimming every day and/or evening. It was just beautiful weather and the kids just turned into fish!
Mom watched Nash while we all went swimming and it was so nice out they even came down to the pool one evening!
My sweet boy!
That night the kids wanted to have a popcorn party with Nash! Ha ha! We got their sleeping bags and watched a movie. They had so much fun!
Yes, this is how she sleeps. Mom and I on each end. Ha!
The next morning we had some special plans to meet some blogging friends! This is how she looked at me when I told her I hadn't brought a necklace for her. I had put one on, and she was not happy she didn't have one! Ha!
This picture is just so amazing to me. These our are heart friends Ethan and Derek, and Derek's sister Jenny Kate. They all live within 2-4 hours of Charleston, and we had always talked about wanting to meet in person! We all met at a restaurant for the very first time!
We all talked about how it felt like we just had always known each other. Joye and Shannon had met a few times before, since they live a little closer. All three of our boys have had open heart surgeries and are just miracles! Jenny Kate and Kerigan are about 2 months apart. I have followed these families since the boys were all babies!
I just know the three of us would be the best of friends if we were all neighbors! I wish! These are a couple of amazing heart mamas!
Andrew, Derek and Ethan. Ethan just had a heart surgery about a week ago and is doing fantastic! He rocked his surgery!
After lunch we came back to Mary's pool to swim!
Such sweet girls! We had an amazing day with our heart friends! Joye and Shannon, thank you so much for driving so far just to meet us! It was a day we'll always remember!
Kerigan just loved Mary!
Sweet picture of mama and Nash
These pajamas were Andrew's! They were always my favorite ones because they are tighter fitting and just look adorable! I loved seeing Nash in them! It was hard to imagine Andrew ever being that little!
This picture cracks.me.up. Kerigan HATED this cat! She pretty much hates all cats and dogs. She would scream and run from this cat every time it came near her. I about died when she was sleeping and he jumped up on the bed by her!! She had no idea!
I just have to talk about how sweet Andrew was with Nash this whole time. I expected Kerigan to be the one that was like a little mother and loving on him the whole time, and Andrew to be disinterested and more into his iPad, etc while we took care of Nash. It was the opposite. Both kids loved Nash, but Andrew especially did. He was so gentle, and careful and sweet. He wanted to help with everything and was interested in everything we did with Nash. It was so sweet to watch. It was ALMOST enough for me to want to have another baby just to give him another baby sibling! (Don't worry, it's not gonna happen!) He wasn't quite like that with Kerigan- now he's the perfect age.
The last night these two wanted to fall asleep together while Mary, mom and I watched a movie. When I came in to check on them, they were like this. SO sweet!
Our last day happened to be July 4. We had wanted to either be home on the 4th or stay until after the 4th, but it just worked out for us to leave this morning. We sort of played things by ear and it was just time to head out. It was so hard not being with Craig and up at the lake on this day. We were sad to leave Mary and Nash, and we were also sad not to be home with the rest of our family. Driving all day was not exactly the way we wanted to spend the 4th.
We tried to make the best of it! We got to somewhere in Indiana in time for dinner again, so we grabbed a pizza and drove to a field to watch the fireworks and eat. It was definitely an adventure! And the fireworks were so far away we couldn't even see them. It was a far cry from the amazing fireworks display over Clear Lake.
We decided to leave after about 5 minutes of watching them and head back to the pool so the kids could swim again.
Selfie on the way home the next day! We were about 3 hours from home in this picture and were sick.of.driving! Mom and I commented that the kids could not have been any better. Thank goodness for the DVD players and iPads. They saved us! Overall, they were good little travelers and I would do it all over again if we had the chance!
And when we got home... daddy surprised Kerigan with an early birthday present... a room makeover! He worked so hard while we were gone! It looks so amazing. We just have to add the chair rail (where the pink and green meet), and get things hung up, but otherwise it's done! Kerigan was so excited! Thank you, daddy! And thank you, Mary, for an awesome vacation!
