Final Day & Drive Home

We had yet to get donuts during our vacation, and today was our last chance.  Since it was Mother's Day, I decided we were going to drive past Dunkin Donuts and find a Krispy Kreme.  There was one about 15 minutes away and when we got there the "hot and ready" sign was lit.  The kids got to experience their first, fresh from the oven Krispy Kreme donut.  Since my sister's family was coming up, and it was so hard to decide what to get, we bought 2 dozen (that's only like 2.5 donuts each...if you don't count the free one at the store).  Yes, it was a lot of donuts.  Why I am devoting an entire paragraph to Krispy Kreme, I can't say.  Well, except they are good and there isn't one near us in Maryland and I've missed them.

Okay, enough about the donuts.  My sister's family got to our house around 10:30 and we chatted for a while and decided to go out to lunch.  We went to TGI Fridays and it was good, I had a delicious summer salad (see, once in a while I do make a good choice, it even had lite dressing) then it was back to the rental house for swimming.  Kara perfected her dive, which was amazingly similar to a perfect belly flop. It was awesome!  My dad also came up to say goodbye.  It was nice to have another day with family and I was glad we had decided to stay the extra day.

Jack and Anna took off their puddle jumpers to practice swimming.  Jack was able to make it from one to the other by the end of our trip!

JD was very conscientious of his younger cousins and made more then one "rescue."

It's not easy to say goodbye.

Everyone left by dinner time and I started doing laundry and packing.  We had taco bell for dinner and just lazed around the house.  After the kids went to bed, Thomas packed up the car.  The plan was to leave at 0230, although I was pushing to just sleep in.  Thomas didn't fall asleep until midnight, so he changed the alarm to 4 and we were on the road by 0430.  It was a good time to leave, we were out of Florida before any traffic hit and the rest of the drive was pretty smooth sailing.  Well, there was a lane closure in Virginia that caused about a 20-30 minute delay, but nothing exceptional.

Something we hadn't noticed on the drive down, probably because it was dark, was all the beautiful wildflowers in North Carolina.  They were amazing and we loved seeing them.  Jack probably enjoyed the drive the most.  He spent from about 830 until we got home around 630pm on the iPad playing Angry Birds Star Wars.  I am not exaggerating.  He didn't even want to get out of the car to go to the bathroom.  It was insane!  We bought little treats for the drive (small toys, sticker books, candy, etc) and we'd periodically hand them out.  Jack wouldn't even look up.  I think I caught him briefly watching a movie at one point, but that was a short-lived distraction.  Under normal circumstances, we let him play in lieu of tv once or twice a week, so to him the constant play was amazing.  And, it kept him from fighting with Anna and Kara, so we went with it.

It was very nice to finally get home.  I didn't want the vacation to end, but after we walked into our house, I felt a sense of relief at being home.  I love our new house and I felt anxious to experience living here with Thomas.  It was wonderful to be on vacation without the threat of his deployment looming over us and it was even more wonderful to be home.

And, that my friends concludes our vacation posts.