Road Trip Round Up

Now that summer is officially o-v-e-r I decided to finally post the remaining pics of our marathon summer road trip.  Matthew and I (and my very brave mother for portions of the trip) made our way through more than 2,400 miles.  He was a dream travel companion.  I was super lucky because the whole trip could have gone south very quickly, figuratively speaking.  Ha!  It did go south, literally... anyway, 
Lots of miles = lots of pictures.

 

Iowa - Illinois - Missouri
Oh, Nick, what lovely hair you have.

Someone enjoys being spoiled rotten. 

Nick and Anna were happy to oblige before we left town.

Then we made it to GG's house!

Um, some cousins apparently had the same wardrobe idea.

 

Missouri - Oklahoma - Texas
At the hotel's happy hour everyone was really impressed with little man.

Texas was HOT, HOT, HOT.

Can you believe this lovely lady is about to pop with baby #3?

Matthew's first real visit (where he actually paid attention) with real life ducks. 

This is where he decided that our "quack, quack" wasn't an accurate portrayal of duck noises.  Maybe he'll become an expert duck caller?

Slogan is not accurate.  Just sayin'.

Matthew was being helpful and brushing the monkey's teeth.  Cracked me up.

Thank you, Ikea, for mass producing super cheap kids toys.

 

Dallas - Austin - San Antonio
Last summer Amy, Dawn, and I managed to get our act together enough to make it to the same place at the same time for Amy's baby shower.  This year we were really ambitious and had a little overnight visit.  This was our successful posed pic of the kiddos.

This is more par for the course. 

Poor baby Matty was the youngest and the only non-walker. 

He tried so hard to keep up!

He was also terrified of the group swim. 

Every pool pic included a shot of Matthew trying to climb out!

I have a zillion of this particular shot.  Little Kade was such a big boy and wanted to hold the baby!  Matthew is such a snuggler that he was more than happy to oblige. 

I think poor Kade got more than he bargained for!

Matthew and Miles meeting for the first time as outside babies.  Makes my heart melt.

And this last shot is just to prove a point.  That point is that one of life's greatest pleasures is having friends that have known you so well for so long that you can spend the day in your pj's, unshowered (teeth potentially unbrushed), and still be happy to have your picture taken with them after a day outside in 100+ degree heat... and no one will hold it against you or decide it will make good blackmail. (And when someone posts it on the internet they won't get mad, right?)

Add those 2,400 miles to the 1,100 from the Nashville trip and the 650 from the family reunion, well let's just say that this little boy is becoming one heck of a road tripper in a very short period of time. 

Maybe next year we'll hop on a plane for a change.