Road Trip to Illinois

By the end of the summer Stephen and I decided we needed to get away! Get away from the Texas heat and the stress of everyday life. So we quickly planned a little getaway up north for Labor Day weekend.  We drove about 12 hours to visit Stephen's Sister Meghan and her family who live in Illinois.

Not knowing how Andrew would do on the 12 hour car ride, we thought we'd leave at 4am....our thinking was that he'd sleep for the first few hours and help shorten the amount of time we needed to entertain a two year old. Boy did that backfire on us!!! We should have known....because he NEVER sleeps in his car seat. So he took a quick 45 minute nap in the morning and then we had a tired and cranky boy on our hands for the rest of the trip.

But it was all worth it! We had convinced Stephen's mom, as well as his brother Jeremy and his family to drive down from Michigan and meet us. So we had a little mini family reunion with about half of the Holden family there. Meghan and Micah were awesome hosts as we had eight people crash at their house. And most importantly we had an wonderfully relaxing time. We played at parks, spent time at the pool, relaxed in the backyard while all the grandkids played, had a girls afternoon of lunch and shopping, went to a hummingbird festival and of course got lots of hugs and playtime with Grandma! It was hard to see this much needed get-a-way come to an end.

Andrew remembered and loved visiting with grandma! Boy has he missed her!

Slides are a favorite of ours! 

Playing in the backyard...he loved jumping on the tramp! 

Having fun at the hummingbird festival! 

I think the little girls had the loved the girls lunch and especially the shopping and trying on shoes! They worked really hard to convince mom that they could grow into the high heels. 

Okay, these kiddos crack me up. We sent them outside to play after church. After a few quiet hours we found them soaking the ground to make the worms come to the surface. They had a huge pile of worms on the tramp.....awww the memories you make with cousins. 

And since we had all the Holden grandkids together we had to take a picture. Trying to get seven kids to look at one camera...let alone smile is quite difficult. This one actually turned out pretty good...

Once again, Andrew loved playing and walking with Grandma. Just the other day the doorbell rang and Andrew and I were upstairs. He looked at me with big eyes and said "It's grandma!"  Needless to say he misses his grandma!