On the Road...!!!!

Last Thursday (well a few Thursdays ago now since I am way behind on the blog AGAIN!) we packed up the Rav and finally headed out on our family vacation we have been planning and waiting for! We did a countdown with Linnea when there was a week to go so she knew something exciting was happening Thursday too :) Way back in January (I think) we started planning a trip to South Haven, MI to meet up with two of my best friends and their families. I met Julie and Meghann the year I lived in New Orleans. We were houseparents together parenting teenage girls in our early 20s...now we meet again in our early 30s with our husbands and baby girls of our own. It has been around 5 years since we all have been together. We are so blessed and lucky to have met 10 years ago and hit it off so well.  South Haven was a somewhat midway point for all of us to meet and it was by Lake Michigan which had beautiful beaches which was important in our search of where to go. We found the perfect cottage for us to rent and an evening and a day of driving later we arrived!
Back to the journey...we drove through Red Wing thinking Free Energy was performing there at 5 since that is what their twitter and FB page said and the Red Wing Central Park website also said that. Free Energy is one of our fav bands and Linnea likes their music too. Chris knows 2 of the performers so we were super pumped there was a concert at a decent hour and in a family friendly location that we could all go to...well it turns out they didn't actually start until 8...we got to hear them warming up and sing one song. We just couldn't stay that late. We wanted to drive 3-4 hours and starting driving at 9 or even 10 with a 9 month old and 4.5 year old who don't sleep in the car wasn't going to work.

this doesnt really fit with the paragraphs of this post but I dont know where to put it and I think it's so cute of daddy and his girls making trail mix for our trip :)

Waiting for the show...before we knew it wasn't happening until 8.

all ready with her "ear muffs"

The one song we heard.

Aunt Allison was even there hoping to see the concert with us.

Im ready! 

still warming up...

two music lovers. daddy and daughter.

We left at about 645pm instead which is when we hoped to leave if we had heard the band anyways but with stopping for one thing or another we still didn't get to Janesville, WI until around midnight! We checked into a disgusting Motel 6 and fell asleep right away.
Since all we needed to do was sleep we thought we may as well just spend 50 and do that and spend more on our way home.

Everything just takes longer with kids...especially one who is nursing and one who needs to stop and pee somewhat frequently. We also needed gas and ice cream once which of course doesnt always match up when Harper needs to nurse or Linnea needs to pee:) The girls did good overrall though and eventually did fall asleep for about an hour. When Linnea wasn't sleeping she watched one movie on our Tablet and did some games. When Harper wasnt sleeping she was fussing on this stretch of the trip. I made a ton of busy bags with new activities in them for Linnea but we saved most of them for the next day when it would be light outside.
My mom also sent a bag of new presents for her to open :)
Lucky girl!