Kentucky/Tennessee Trip

We had a great trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee to visit my family. I decided kind of last minute to go, and honestly wasn't super excited about it. I definitely wanted to see my family, but traveling with kids is so much work (before, during, and after), and our kids have never been great travelers. And, oh yeah, I took them by myself...

We hit the road after Jacob got out of school on Thursday. Its 5+ hours to Bowling Green, and we made it in about 6.5 hours. The kids did surprisingly well. We only had to stop twice - once to eat and once for gas. When we arrived, the kids spent an hour or so running laps around my grandparents' condo!

Thomas, Ryan, and Baby Wade arrived the next morning. Wade had not met his great-grandparents before, so it was very sweet introduction to watch!

Lydia and Jacob were so excited to see Baby Wade! He's grown and changed so much even since we saw him at Christmas. He loved watching and playing with his big cousins!

After a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa, we all packed up and headed to Nashville, Tennessee. The kids were so tired and slept the whole way.

I was so excited to meet up with Meme, who had been visiting Mama Dot for the past week. Jacob was super excited to be staying in a hotel.

That evening we went to dinner and enjoyed some yummy ice cream before heading to bed.

Jacob absolutely LOVES hotel breakfast, specifically getting to eat delicacies, such as Fruit Loops.

Since we weren't supposed to meet up with our family until that afternoon, we took the kids to the public library in downtown Nashville. It was so much fun! There was a whole children's wing complete with a puppet stage, climbing wall, reading fort, train and Lego tables, and a courtyard. It was the perfect place to accommodate all three littles!

That afternoon we joined my family (Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dan, Holly, Dave, Baby Walker, Matthew, Amberly, Caroline, and Audrey) for lunch in honor of Uncle Dan's birthday before hanging out at Holly's house. It was so fun to finally meet Baby Walker! It was also incredibly special to have all the new cousins together. There's no telling when we'll get the opportunity to have all the kids together again.

We headed home on Sunday morning. Once again, the kids did really well in the car. We decided to stop in Knoxville and go to the zoo! The kids were really wanting and needing to get out of the car, so it was a great stop. Plus, kids four and under are free and adults are half price in the winter!

Lydia LOVED the giraffes!

I could have watched the gorillas all day! I guess I was paying more attention to the zoo's monkeys than my own monkeys, because Lydia pulled her bow out and dropped it in a drain while we were at this exhibit. We seem to lose bows every day!

We finally made it home around 8pm and everyone was very excited to see Daddy! We missed him so much, and I think he missed us, too. We came home to clean house and fresh flowers for Mommy! It was the perfect ending to a fun weekend!