Friday we left to visit Middle Sister and her family in Illinois. It is a seven hour drive from our house. I wanted to leave early, but ended up working until noon. I went home and packed, because it didn't get done the night before and we were on our way around 2:30pm.

I had good plans for the trip. I had my home laptop and my work laptop for the boys to watch movies on. Little did I know...my work laptop wouldn't play DVDs...not sure why. Younger Boy ended up playing Nintendo DS for the entire 7 hours. Older Boy used my home laptop until he was pounding on the touchpad so much that it turned itself off. Who knew it had an auto-protection setting?

There was only one fight on the way there. It was because Younger Boy and I were "purposely" trying to make Older Boy mad. We were talking about high school and he wants to go to an OPS school. He is also convinced we are moving. Neither of these things are happening in the near future, but seemed to be the appropriate thing to be furious about during the car ride.

We stopped three times on the way. It would have been twice, but when I said "Be sure you go in and go to the bathroom" at stop two I must have used a different language. We stopped again 15 minutes later at a rest stop.

When we arrived...nephews and niece were outside on the porch wrapped in blankets with a flashlight awaiting our arrival. All of the kids were VERY excited!!

We talked very briefly and everyone went to bed.

Praises for safe travel and for excited cousins.