We headed to Houston for Spring Break this year. Garrett unexpectedly got the week off a few months ago (he was originally scheduled to work nights that week), and it turns out that our break matched up with Emma's kids in Houston, so we decided to go for it! At first we looked into flying, but we really aren't close to any major airports (and we need a major one if we're buying 5 tickets!). Flying out of Atlanta was affordable, but even then we'd be driving 5.5 hours to the airport, parking for a week, renting a car for a week... it all sounded like a lot of work. So, we drove. Yep, we drove 15 hours one way.. and it was totally worth it. (Correction: *I* drove all 15 hours, each way. Garrett's back has been bugging him so he had to recline his seat a bit the whole way). The drive actually wasn't too bad. We left on a Thursday afternoon around 5pm, and drove straight to Birmingham without stopping (5 hours, but we got there at 9 since we changed time zones). We stayed in an Embassy Suites, which was so nice because there were two rooms. And yep we are totally the parents who have their 3 kids sleep on the [huge] pull-out couch in the main room, while we get our own queen beds in the bedroom. Haha. They loved it.
The next day we drove the 10 hours to Houston, and actually made really good time. It said it would take us 10 house, and we made it in exactly 10 hours even with two brief stops (we packed lots of food and snacks so we never had to stop to buy food, just bathroom breaks and gas fill-ups). The Odyssey is quite comfortable and the kids literally just watched movies the whole time. I feel kinda bad about it, I probably should have done games and activities but honestly I just wanted some peace and quiet. I bought some cheap new DVD's at Walmart (they have a lot right now for Easter baskets - Nanny McPhee 1 and 2 for $5 total, the new Cinderella, Babe, An American Tale (and the sequal), and a few others. We took out one of the captain seats and put in the middle seat so that either Abbie or Ellie could sit next to Henry and keep him fed and entertained. That worked great and he did wonderfully the whole time.
We got there Friday night and stayed until the following Saturday, 8 nights. It was SO. FUN. and I'm so glad we did it. It would have been really easy to just stay home and find things to do around here for the week. It's hard to do things with 4 kids. But, we would never do anything if we let that stop us. I'm trying to be a more adventurous mom, and really make some good memories with our kids. This was a pretty high-impact / low-budget trip so it totally made sense to go for it. Plus, my dad's health has declined pretty rapidly over the last 9 months or so, so we need to spend time with him while we can (my parents live in Houston during the winter).
Rather than write a huge long post about what we did, here's the video Garrett made. We hung out at home, went to parks, walked on the path from Emma's house to Molly's house (where my parents also live), ate lots of yummy food, went to the Houston Rodeo, played games, and just had an all around great time. It was fantastic.
And just a shout-out to Garrett for two things: first, he made this incredible video... over the last few months he's really stepped up his photography game now that he has more time to dedicate to his hobby. I'll admit, I totally encourage him to buy any photography stuff he wants because then I get to benefit by having these awesome videos, which I cherish. He recently got a drone, and a mirrorless Sony camera and a nice lens to go with it. They really helped make this video awesome. Second, a huge shout-out to him for having an awesome job with (lots of) flexible vacation time. I love that when he was job hunting, schedule and family time was his number 1 priority. We've been able to spend so much time together since he started this job and it's been a huge blessing for our family.
Here's the video he made.. enjoy! (I think you can also open it in Youtube if you want to make it bigger)
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