We took an epic road trip and headed to Nashville, Tennessee for Christmas this year. I have wanted to take a nice long road trip with my boys and see part of the United States of America! We left after church on Sunday and drove 8 hours to Oklahoma City. One of the best parts of the trip was finding this awesome hotel in OKC. I was surprised at the good price and the beds were incredibly comfortable! The boys woke up early Monday morning so they could swim before we hit the road again.
It was absolutely awesome to drive across the Mississippi River at night. Edward and Nolen were super excited to see the largest river in the US. It took us longer than we anticipated to drive to Nashville on Monday, but we made it in 10 hours arriving at 9:00 at night.
As soon as we arrived we decided to hit up the local Walmart for some supplies. That was a terrible idea! We spent 20 minutes shopping and an hour in line to pay! HA!
We spent Christmas eve just hanging out at Kendra and Michael's house. We flew the airplanes, had a Christmas eve fire outside, and played a lot of games.
Kendra and Michael have the coolest back yard! Nolen loved taking the dogs for a walk and playing in the creek that ran through their back yard. The park was right behind their house, so it was easy to walk and play all day outside. Just what we needed!
Christmas day was really low key. We opened presents then made dinner.
Our last night at Kendra's house was filled with excitement! I decided to go to sleep early because we needed to drive 10 hours the next day. That proved to be harder than I thought. All the kids play a game called "Ghost" that day and apparently, that scared them all. So, I guess Nolen woke up my Dad and asked him where I was sleeping. They both headed to the loft where I was just about to fall asleep. I saw my dad turn on the flashlight to his cell phone and shine it around the loft. I tried to fall back to sleep when Nolen said to me, "Mom, I'm scared! Can I sleep with you?" Now keep in mind, I am sleeping in a loft on a cot. A single cot. Nolen climbed in bed with me and I tried to fall asleep. Impossible! I got out of bed and climbed on the floor. No dice. It was so uncomfortable to say the least. I decided to get up and put Nolen back in bed.
Kendra's house is made up of different levels. I had forgotten there were three stairs leading to the kids bedroom. I missed them all. I fell down three stairs and jumped right back up hoping I didn't wake any one up. Too bad, I woke up Ellie. I looked in the bedroom and saw that Nolen had been sleeping on the top bunk and there was no way I could get him back up there to go to sleep.
I, then decided that I would go down stairs and sleep on the couch. I looked down one of the staircases up stairs and saw the light was on down stairs so I went down another set of stairs. I missed the last three wooden steps and fell.
I just laughed. What a klutz!
I laid down on the couch and finally started to fall asleep. No such luck. Someone got up and cooked some food in the kitchen, then left the refrigerator open. I got up and closed it.
Then some one else got up and rustled around cooking food in the kitchen.
After all the noise was gone, I closed my eyes. My this time it had to be about 3 in the morning. Then the dogs got in a fight and started eating and drinking. ARG! I decided at that moment I was never going to sleep again. Just as the dogs settled, my dad came downstairs to play a game because he couldn't sleep. I lost it!
Anyhow, I didn't sleep, but luckily my mom got a lot of good sleep so she drove home!
