Long time no post

It has been a long time...almost 2 months since I have made a post.  For those of you following me I am sorry that it has been so long.  It has been a very busy two months.  The end of school and family vacation and attempting to clean the sty that I call home have been time consuming.

It is hard to believe that I only have about 4 weeks until school starts again!  Where did the time go?  I had such plans for the summer and only about half are realized.  We did have a fabulous family vacation (our first ever, but not our last)!

It was an adventure to travel the south eastern part of the United States camping with my family.  We learned several lessons: drive no more than 4 hours in a day, don't reserve camp sites in advance (unless you must because most sites are already reserved), we must spend at least 3 nights in a location, and it is important to get to the campsite early (so you can set up and still have time to hang).   We also learned that we like to wander around.  We like to stop when something catches our eye (road sign for the Tiger Truck stop, with a live tiger, for example).  My husband rediscovered his love for the beach, and I discovered mine.  Don't tell him, but I think I might prefer the beach to the mountains despite all the sand!  I so thought I was a mountain girl.  I learned that I can and am very happy with 4-5 changes of clothes and so are the girls.  Greg has always been happy with just a few changes.  Going without many electronic devices was not as big a struggle as I thought it would be.  We logged about 4000 miles on our suburban and way too many hours to count.  My girls (ages 4, 6, and 9) did great in the car thanks to books on cassette (really on cassette).  They loved sleeping in the tent and in the car.  They did not miss having cable at all.

We found the Crooked Road.  What an adventure that was!  We experienced the capital on the nation's Birthday! We saw the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean and swam in both.  We drove through the Appalachians and the Smokies.  We experienced lakes and rivers. We drove the 18mi bridge.  We saw the USS Alabama, we got rained on and sunburned, and we loved every minute of it!  We will be doing another trip next summer.

We managed to going through at least a portion of 14 states and the District of Columbia in 15 days.  I think that is a good record.  I doubt we will ever beat it...although anything is possible. 

Food was not the challenge I thought it would be either.  The girls were great with eating pb and chocolate chip sandwiches in the car.  We had eggs, ham and toast most mornings for breakfast.  A french press (which my husband thought of) made some amazing coffee.  I bought an electric skillet and made spaghetti in it a few times.  We also had a coleman propane burner and did have hotdogs a couple of times.  We only had fast food one (yes, really, one) time. 

We also were able to meet up with many of my friends who are no longer imaginary (that is what my husband calls my internet friends).  Best of all I got to hold a brand new, fresh out of the box, not quite 4 day old baby!  That was awesome!

In my next post (probably next week) I will get back to menu planning and deal hunting.  Thanks for reading and taking the time to share the adventure of the first annual family vacation.