First Road Trip

I am so fortunate to be able to stay at home with Stella. I know that. Trust me. I will have to admit, though, it's not exactly what I thought it would be. And that, my friends, is why the blog is struggling to stay alive. Little Sweetheart is completely awesome but is also everywhere! She is crawling so fast, and she's pulling up on everything now, holding on with only one hand while standing and is into everything. That means, the only time I really have to write a post, do the dishes, catch up on laundry, do homework, study, etc. are the two short windows of nap times she sometimes gives me. Again, not complaining. Just admitting that I thought all women who stayed home with their kids did was go to the gym, run to Target, tidy their homes and nap when their kids nap. Yeah, not so much. I'll save all of that for another post a different day, but the schedule is being re-prioritized on a continual basis.

All that said, I do want to write about our first family road trip. It wasn't actually our first attempt at a road trip, but the first one was cut short when I got a stomach bug. Little baby, stomach bug, stuck in a tiny room at the DoubleTree was not what we had in mind when we attempted the same trip before. After swearing we would never try it again, we changed our minds and went for it again a couple of weeks ago.

We drove 4.5 hours to Jackson, Tennessee, stayed the night, and then drove 5 hours on to Knoxville to visit some very dear friends of ours. We met Chris and Jessica when they were also living in Japan, and they are now some of our best friends. Some of our fondest memories with them include traveling to Singapore and Malaysia, canyoning in the mountains of Japan, watching sumo together in our kimonos and too many nights of eating chicken wings and drinking Japanese beverages to count. The best part is that we are all now parents of two sweet little girls. Their daughter, Evelyn, is only about two months older than Stella so we were pumped for them to meet.

Unfortunately, it rained the entire weekend, but we still had such a fun time catching up, watching our girls play and dreaming of more international adventures in the future. Chris even cooked us up some awesome chicken tonkatsu, and it tasted exactly like what we often ate in Nagoya!

Stella was an absolute rockstar. For three of our long drives, she never even exited her carseat. Of course this required some pretty amazing maneuvering by her savvy momma, but her belly remained full. :) I was shocked by how well she traveled. I did end up reading her the same book no less than 800 times, and by the end, I could read it in 38 seconds without even looking at the words! Hey, Travis and I started needing some entertainment, too.

Getting two babies to look at the camera is pretty much impossible.

Cutie!

Love this picture of Chris and Evelyn. We were so brave and went out to eat twice! Girls did great. 

Not sure why the passerby we asked to take this shot cut off our lower halves. But here we are brunching on Sunday.

Stella also took her first swim at the hotel. The water was a little chilly and not exactly pristine, but she loved it! She also said "Daddy" for the first time. Evelyn must have taught her that! Evelyn, however, did not teach her how to sleep through the night...

I'm so glad we didn't talk ourselves out of taking a seven-month old on a 20-hour road trip. We had low expectations for how the drive would go, but we had an amazing time, and I felt so rejuvenated and energized when we returned. It's no secret Travis and I love traveling, and I'm glad Stella seems to love it, too. That, or she thought it would be funny to give us a lot of false hope.