Sharing My Weekend – Peanut’s First Real Road Trip

This past weekend Peanut had his first real road trip and HE DID GREAT! (I say first real road trip because his first actual road trip was only a couple of hours and didn’t require us to make any additional stops for him. I fed him right before we left and he slept the whole way. But, just for the record, he did great then too.)

We headed up to Northern Virginia to visit with some of Hubs’ family and to celebrate his Grandmommy’s 87th birthday! Amazing! We left early on Saturday morning (around 5:30 AM) and got there around 10:30 AM.

He looks super tired (probably because we woke up at 4:00 AM) but he was still all smiles! He slept for the majority of the ride and just looked out the window the rest of the time. He was so quiet and perfectly content just sitting in his car seat. We did make two stops for feedings and diaper changes, and I let him lay out for a couple minutes on the back seat of our new (to us) vehicle so he could stretch.

Hubs’ mom, dad, and younger sister rode with us and it was a blast! When you have a vehicle full of people it somehow makes the trip more enjoyable and feel less long. Hubs was driving, his dad was in the passenger seat, I was in the middle row with Peanut, and Hubs’ mom and sister were in the way back.

When we got to our destination, a lot of the family was already there so we went straight into introductions and partying away. (It was my first time meeting a lot of them, but everyone’s first time meeting Peanut.) Of course, everyone loved him and he got passed around from family member to family member (with me close behind – lol). I’m just now realizing that I didn’t really get any pictures of the family while we were there, which I kind of regret, but at the same time I was too busy interacting to think about sticking my face behind a camera the whole time, so I guess it’s okay.

We talked, laughed, shared stories, loved the babies, and ate food! The guys all played a little basketball…

And when the babies weren’t being held, they got some “stretch out” time in their strollers.

We were at the park from about 10:30 AM to about 5:00 PM or so and then everyone started saying their goodbyes. We headed to our hotel to check in, clean up, and head to dinner. We went to Firehouse Subs for the first time and it was SO GOOD! I got the Firehouse Hero Sub and man, I want another right now! After dinner we headed over to Grandmommy’s house to have some one on one time with her.

I really wish I would have gotten a better picture of her with Peanut. =\ We visited with her for a couple of hours and then headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and sleep! It was around 1:00 AM when we finally headed to bed and we were all exhausted!

Peanut was such the bed hog! ;] We normally don’t sleep with him in our bed, but to save some space in the vehicle (since we had 6 people and all of our stuff) we decided not to bring the play pen he normally sleeps in. We got a king size bed and let Peanut sleep between us. It worked out totally fine, so no worries!

He was SO tired from all the activity during the day that he fell right to sleep as soon as I put him down.

The next morning we all got up and headed to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. It was my (sort of) first time. I had gone once before, when I was much younger, and don’t remember it at all, so this was kind of like my first time. I’m not really a breakfast person, but I got the French Toast and it was very good! Of course we browsed around the Old Country Store before we left and I got a beautiful scarf, Peanut got a cute little decor thing for his nursery, and Hubs got his favorite old-fashioned candies.

That little fishing fox went perfectly with the rest of Peanut’s decor. (True story – I actually took a picture of the fox and then realized that I still hadn’t filled the frames on that shelf with pictures… Peanut’s only five months old now… oops. Mom fail! :])

I also have to tell you a quick story about Mister Monkey…

While we were waiting to be seated we were browsing the Old Country Store. It was SO crowded that it was hard to stand in one place for long – and poor Hubs was carrying Peanut around in his car seat (which now weighs one million pounds), so he kept putting down the car seat to rest his arms. Well, after breakfast and after browsing the store again we were about to leave when Hubs decided he wanted to get some old fashioned candy before we left. So, he took Peanut to the car to set him down and I ran over to the candy area to grab some goodies. While I was grabbing the bag of candy guess what I saw on the floor, pushed under the candy rack?? Mister Monkey!!! I hadn’t even realized that he had fallen out of the Peanut’s car seat! It’s a good thing Hubs likes his sweets because Mister Monkey would have been lost forever!

Before heading home we stopped at the cemetery where some of Hubs’ family members are and just visited. It was very sad but also a good moment to stop and appreciate and remember. ❤

We started heading home around 12:30 PM (I think) and got home around 6:00 PM. We hit a little bit of traffic on the way and of course made a couple stops for Peanut plus a stop for food for everyone else. Again, Peanut did great! He actually didn’t sleep at all the whole way home. He just looked out the window and randomly laughed and made cute baby noises. After we dropped off Hubs’ family, Peanut started getting a little squirmy, whiny and I thought it was because he was just tired of sitting in his car seat. Well, when I finally got him out of it he had a diaper full!! Poor little guy – ha! So I cleaned him up, showered, bathed Peanut, unloaded the bags, got Peanut’s stuff ready for the week ahead and went to sleep!

It was a busy and fun weekend, but I could use some sleep now!