Maureen and Kenny's Wedding - Day 3

Maureen and Kenny

Chris and Auntie Steff

Maureen and Kenny

Auntie Steff and Mark

Getting ready to eat

Lola and Lolo dancing

Chomping on a dinner roll

After driving for 2 days, our first order of business was Maureen and Kenny's wedding on Saturday. Maureen is a (not-really-related) cousin of Chris'. Originally this was Chris' parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary, but they agreed to move their party to Sunday so that Maureen and her husband could share the date with them. They had a very nice gift presentation for Chris' parents at their reception in honor of their 50th.

Despite having a fever for five days at this point, we suited Miles up and headed out for the wedding. Unfortunately Miles must have gone through a growth spurt right before we left because the suit I got him 2 weeks ago was now inches too short in the sleeves and his shoes caused tears when stuffed on his now over-sized feet. Miles and I stayed at Lola and Lolo's house during the hour and a half ceremony, which I think is self-explanatory. We met up with Chris after and went over to the beautiful reception. Unfortunately due to a fever that didn't want to break that night we headed out early without even having cake. Miles seemed to do well earlier in the evening and managed to get out on the dance floor and cut a rug with mommy for a few songs, but as the hours went on, the fever grabbed hold and we headed back to the hotel for some hopeful but nonexistent sleep.

We stayed in a hotel room with a king bed and a single pull out couch. I would lay down by Miles in his little single until he fell asleep and then move back into the big bed until around 2 or 3 when he woke up feverish again and I had to administer the meds and repeat the whole sleeping process. This went on at least 3-4 more times before we would get up in the morning at which point we were all asleep in the big bed. I don't think I've ever gotten so much exercise in the middle of the night. We just kept hoping each night would be the last and each day seemed to be more of the same. The good thing was that when not stricken with fever, Miles would return to a normal, happy, bed jumping boy at least for several hours in the day.

Vacation '08

We have finally returned from our 3000 mile trip. Just a quick recap:

Left Trinity, FL on Thurs May 22 to drive to NY. Arrived in NY on May 23 after an exhausting 18 hour drive. Did a wedding, an anniversary dinner, a trip upstate, a BBQ and a trip to the emergency room. Stayed in NY until Wednesday May 28 when we left to drive to Cleveland,OH where we stayed until Friday May 30 and then left to drive back to FL for another exhausting 16 hour drive. We managed to make it all the way to Savannah, GA from Ohio on our way home and got a little treat at (the Food Network's) Paula Dean's restaurant - The Lady and Son's.........amazing food!!

Since our trip was so involved and we took about 300 pictures, I am going to blog the trip by photo sections; otherwise I will be here for hours loading pictures. This way I can take a couple of days to go through all of the pictures and write a little bit about each event and what was going on concurrently with us and Miles.

On a side note, Miles did great on our drive out, over and back. Thank goodness for the portable dvd player. He did two 12 hour days, two 5-6 hour days and an 8 when all was said and done, not to mention all the driving up and down and around town. He met tons of new friends and relatives and despite being sick or getting over a sickness, he handled it better than we expected.(In our defense, we don't have very high expectations when it comes to his behavior, sorry to those that did.) He was such a trooper and we are very proud of him and hope that no one took offense to his shyness. It never seemed to last too long.

I don't know if it possible to say that a trip was both horrible and wonderful at the same time, but despite struggling with an awful sickness for all of us and being exhausted from the lack of sleep because of it, we made some amazing memories that we will hold very close to our hearts forever. In the end, all of the highs made the lows well worth it, but there is still no place like home......and your own bed!!

Condensed recap:
We drove over 3100 miles, spent more than 45 hours in the car, took almost 300 pictures, lost over a week and a half of decent sleep, stayed in 4 different hotels, unpacked and packed the car more than 8 times, drove through 12 states, paid an average of $4 a gallon for gas, drove an average of 68 miles per hour, ate over 20 bagels collectively, listened to the same 6 cd's at least 3 times each, introduced Miles to at least 20 new friends and relatives, spent over 5 hours in the ER, ingested liters of ibuprofen, acetaminophen and amoxicillin, saw over 18 dead deer (yes, we counted), and most importantly found out Chris likes bananas after hating them for 35 years.