Road Trip!

In mid-March we took a drive to Fargo for the weekend to meet Marshall's dad and stepmom at a hotel. It's about 1/2 way between Mandan (where they live) and the Twin Cities..so it's a good meeting spot and we've done that many times now over the years. Caleb was really excited for this, of course..he loves swimming now (he used to hate it!) and he loves to spend time with them. We had a crazy drive up there (usually about a 4 hour trip)...it had snowed the night before and the roads were awful. From Alexandria to Fargo, 1-94 was actually shut down, until just before we got that far. It was scary, but we drove slowly and we made it eventually.
At the hotel, the kids went swimming with Grandma and Grandpa and cousin Alex. Caleb just LOVES Alex and had so much fun being with him. And Alex really does a great job with Caleb, too. It's not easy having a 4 year old who talks nonstop follow you around, let me tell you. It was Ella's first time really swimming and she did ok. Grandma carried her around in the pool and as long as she couldn't see me, she was fine. She looked so darn cute in her swimsuit..the pictures of her here just crack me up. She is looking in the mirror on the closet door and then looking down at herself, like whoa??? What am I wearing?! Caleb went down the waterslide probably 100 times and was in the water for hours. We went out for dinner later and everyone was just exhausted. Caleb could barely hold his head up at the table! We had a rough night with Ella sleeping...apparently she's getting too big for the pack and play. She never slept much in it anyway and I had a really hard time getting her to fall asleep. It was a fun time but it's really a challenge to travel with kids! It will be easier when Ella is a little older.