"Who in this house Mommy?"

Logic would have said that the drive out to Ohio and Indiana was enough time spent in the car in an eight day period.  Our hearts could easily have said that visiting my grandfather, aunts/uncles and cousins along with Kylie's beloved China sister and her family was enough.

And yet, bright and early Sunday morning we scooped the kids out of their beds at Aunt Carolyn's house ~ still clad in their Carter's pajamas ~ and buckled into our van seats for the next part of our journey.  This time a nine hour drive eastward.  (Across the width of Ohio and through portions of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, & Maryland before finally arriving in Northern Virginia).  Psychologically Ian and I were both dreading this portion of being in the car as we would be traveling all day and we figured the kids would get extremely restless.  Luckily ~ due to a brilliant move on our part, forgoing a yummy lunch at Panera Bread in lieu of allowing the kids to burn off some energy at the McD's play area ~ they were pretty much all smiles as long as we stopped every two hours or so for potty breaks...

Ian and I enjoyed some great conversation time while the kids took a hearty three + hour nap, we avoided highway crossing bears this time, and we enjoyed watching for signs of familiar places (Oglebay Park in Wheeling, WV where I broke one of my teeth climbing up a slide when I was a kid, signs for WVU for my cousin Chad who is still on his motorcycle adventure, the exit for Frostburg where my mom grew up,etc...) and signs for places that simply caught our attention.  Like this one.

 Oh please someone else tell me you find it funny that Cheat Lake is located on Fairchance Road.  Are they gonna cheat you or give you a fair shot?

And if there are any others of you who have never been able to get in your mind just how big a cubit is anyway, here's an idea of how big Noah's Ark really was...

 

Despite the relatively easy ride, I (and I'm pretty sure I "speak" for the whole family here) was VERY happy to get out of the van at Ian's dad's house.  My littlest amazed me yet again when she sized up the fact that we were at yet another house, sighed deeply, and asked, "Who in this house Mommy?"  Poor kid had met a slew of my family in Ohio, Caroline's family in Indiana, and quickly realized that there would be more new faces before we headed for the familiarity of home and her dog.

It wasn't long though before she had her Uncle Josh showing her pictures off the fridge

and sampled her first taste of Brie

and then she decided that her next stop on the journey would be just fine for a few days.  

Of course she was right!  Grandpa had apparently bought out the entire produce section of Cosco in anticipation of our arrival and the kids thought they were in "fruit paradise."  Want strawberries?  Got it!  How about bananas?  Of course.  Grapes?  We've got those too.  Apples, oranges, pears, mango?  Yes, help yourself...  (We typically have several types of fresh fruit at our house, but very rarely that many types ~ Grandpa spoiled them well!)

We enjoyed our time in the evenings with Grandpa M_______ .  We took walks, ate GREAT food, and spent most of our time (while Grant was not working ~ we kept ourselves rather busy during the days) sitting around talking, watching the kiddos play with the toys they had brought along, and introducing Darcy to the chaos that is wrestlemania.  We also got the bonus of spending lots of time with Uncle Josh (who is home for the summer after finishing his JUNIOR year at VT ~ where does the time go?  He was a tiny seven year old when I first met him...) and Aunt Rachel (who was home from MIT for a few weeks ~ speaking of where does time go, she was a lovely eleven year old when she was a bridesmaid in our wedding...).  

Caleb gets a little taste of "wrestlemania" with Uncle Josh.  Think giant ticklefest...

 

Aunt Rachel helps out with babysitting the dolls.

 

Caleb and a few of his favorite cars.