Trip tales part 2

It was a long drive, especially on the way there. We used to drive Abilene-Stoon, but not with kids. Now we live 3 hours closer, but were headed to Houston, 6 hours farther. We did it in 2 days, which we decided to never do again. It was a bit much, but at the same time, there are not many good places to stop to stay the night. There is a ton of road, but not many big centers. We drove the first day from 6am until 9pm and stayed the night in North Platte, Nebraska. It was a nice hotel, but we were too tired to try the pool, so we were sad at missing that. But we were able to get up the next day and be out by 7:30 on the road. Dominique was reading the signs as we were coming in and kept thinking that North Platte was actually the North Pole. She was so excited that we were going to sleep the night at the North Pole!

Emora had the best travel quote though. Brian had some of his music and was listening to Bob Dylan. Emora said "this is Spanish. Is this Spanish?" If you are not sure why she said that, type Bob Dylan into Youtube and listen for about 10 seconds and you'll soon find out.



From the looks of it, it may seem that they were delightful angels on the trip. Actually they were really, really great, but mostly when the dvd player was on and they were all really good about getting out and going to the potty on command for every stop so that we didn't have to make unscheduled stops.



In Houston, the kids went with Nana and Papa to the Nutcracker, the children's museum, the zoo and a park (over the week).

Brian and I enjoyed our own museum excursions and walk in the park. This park is not far from Nana's and his old neighborhood. You do have to drive to get there, but it's worth getting out. There are some animals there and we have memories with the kids here through the years.















Once in Abilene, we went to our favorite restaurant our first night into town and look who got to come too? My bestest friend Tighe, her hubby and kids dropped all plans (or non plans) and joined us for the evening.



The kids and I stopped by our old library the next day and went to the kid's program. It was fun to say hi to Miss Darla who remembers when I first started going when Ivan was a baby and the library in our old neighborhood was not even built yet. It was fun to hear the kids say over and over "that was a good memory". Ivan and Dominique both remember the grand opening of the Mockingbird branch library. Emora was just one or a few weeks old (the time line is a little sketchy in my memory).

Ivan's other "this was a good memory" was making sausage biscuits in the morning. Tighe loaded us up with food and brought us the makings for sausage biscuits TWICE! I had very happy boys. This was a morning food staple for us in Texas and we have either not found it here or balked at the price. I may look some more, because the joy they had making and eating them was priceless.