A fun road trip?

We're about an hour from our suburban Chicago destination for the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, which is amazing :). Tonight we will visit Richard's aunt and uncle and cousins, and the conference will take place tomorrow evening, Saturday and Sunday.

I have to say I've actually been enjoying the road trip. Richard and I are so busy and it's given us some time to just be together. Of course, road trips "to" are always so much more exciting than "from." But non-the-less, it's been going great. It's an 8-9 hour trip, and we've figured out how to travel fairly succesfully with the girls. We left yesterday around 5:30 and I drove the 2+ hours to my brother and sister-in-law's in Columbus where we had a nice visit and dinner. Gigi was in love with their cats and chased them around the whole time saying "Meow. Meow." During the drive, Richard read to me from his youth ministry text, required for him and enjoyable for me. I'm not really a "music" girl and I'd rather listen to talk-radio, so this was even better because it was Richard reading to me. :)

We left my brother's at 9:30. By this time, the girls had burnt off some steam and Gigi was ready for bed. This was the toughest leg of the journey because Richard and I were so tired, but it makes it so much easier on the girls. We popped a movie in for E and R, since I knew they weren't ready to sleep after sleeping all the way to Columbus. I rearranged the van for this journey, flipped Gigi facing-forward, and moved Evelyn over in the back. With the help of a t.v. tray I was able to set our mini-DVD player up so they could all see it.

We made it to Indianapolis a little before 1 a.m. We managed to get a sweet hotel rate from hotwire! Slept nicely and got up and had a nice breakfast. Richard managed to finish some school work after breakfast while I let the girls play in the bath. We hit the road again around 11:30 a.m. just in time for Gigi's nap (Riley took one too)! Woot! I drove again while Richard did more reading from the youth text outloud.

Richard's finishing up the last leg while the girl's take in some Dora. And with only 47 minutes remaining to Linda's, I have to say, it's been our most successful road trip to date!

P.S. Evelyn has spent a lot of time playing with an activity book and crayons. And snacks, have also been vital!

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel