Mini Family Vacay

This year's "Official Family Vacation" consisted of a handful of smaller low-key vacations.  Which, when you have so many kids as young as we do, it's a blessing in disguise.  Really, it is.  Our final mini-vacation consisted of a long extended weekend trip to visit Grandma Parr and Aunt Ann and Uncle Roger.  Ever since John and I have been married, we've been talking about taking a trip to visit them.  I had never met them until their earlier visit just this year to Arkansas.  They were just so fun to hang out with that we didn't want it to end and decided THIS would be the year that we finally followed-through and made the trek to Albingdon, IL.  Of course, with any trip with little kids, our drive consisted of a lot of little stops along the way to help break up those long car rides.

Brooklyn is liking this trip so far!  Who knew it'd include french fries!?

Jonas and Addison got quite the hook-up with fun driving activities thanks to Mommy.  Jonas is such a novice to coloring that he has yet to learn what crayons are actually used for....besides poking in things.

The trip itself was about 8 hours (one-way).  Luckily, we went through St. Louis on our way and decided to make it our half-way stop.  We arrived in time to check in to our hotel and unpack.  Unfortunately, since it was so late we didn't get to take advantage of the hotel pool and ended up going straight to bed with sleepy little kids.  However, we did arrive just in time to evacuate the hotel due to a fire alarm being set off.  Literally, it was within minutes of us dumping all of our suitcases, and kids, off our arms and sitting exhausted on the beds.  Once we heard the loudspeaker in the room telling us to evacuate John and I both immediately looked for Jonas and were asking him "Jonas, what did you touch!?"  It was funny really....only after we confirmed that he had nothing to do with the alarm or the evacuation.  But it did set our hearts aflutter for a minute there.  

It made for an exciting adventure to load up all three kids and once again exit the hotel via three flights of stairs, in the dark of the night, in a big city.  Luckily, it was a nicer part of St. Louis so that helped.  We had fun watching the firemen and the bright fire-truck do their thing while we waited for all floors to be searched.  Eventually, we got to go back in and settle in to bed.  With kids in tow, anything can be an exciting adventure, even the frustrating, boring, scary, fire-false-alarm evacuation.

We were all quite enamored with the pretty sparkling lights at 11:00 at night.

The next morning we were off to explore the St. Louis Zoo.  I spent my single years visiting this attraction frequently so I was thrilled for the opportunity to share it with my little family.  The best part of the zoo is that it's free!  And of course, the other best parts is that it is quite a nice zoo.  Since the day was soooo hot and we were only halfway to our trip destination we didn't spend a ton of time there.  We quickly had tired kids and tired parents and were ready to hit the road to IL.  We did enjoy the seeing the monkey's, the reptile house, and watching a sea lion show that had us all enthralled.

Checking out one of Mommy's favorites...the orangutan.  

Trying to keep cool in the heat.  This big mist blower was probably our favorite attraction.  We are Hufford's after all!

Eventually, we made it to our destination and were SO happy to see Grandma Parr and Aunt Ann and Uncle Roger.  They were beyond hospitable and the kids just thoroughly enjoyed our stay at their house.  Once I got past the anxiety of my kids trying to play with (break) all of the fragile decorations, I enjoyed myself too!  

Aunt Ann with Brooklyn and Addison.  They loved sitting in these two wooden chairs so much that Aunt Ann gave them to us to take home.  We were thrilled!  Especially since they apparently belonged to Grandpa Joe when he was just a little boy.

Jonas and Addison were quite impressed with Uncle Roger's disappearing quarter tricks.  I must say, I was pretty impressed myself!  The man has skills!

Tucking Jonas into bed.  He and Addison were lucky enough to share a room and also got to cuddle with their own stuffed animals provided by Aunt Ann.  She thought of everything folks!

Addison cuddling up in her bed for the night.

Grandma Parr & Aunt Ann were SO good with the kids.  Aunt Ann bought toys specially for these kiddos to play with when we arrived.  They also immediately took them on a walk to the park once we arrived which gave Daddy & Mommy a much needed break!  We were all smitten with them pretty quickly.

All in all, it was a great relaxing trip.  They showed us so much of their hometown, treated us to so many yummy breakfasts out at their favorite diner, and even made the yummiest homemade meals for our dinners.  They were even kind enough to not tell us their house was haunted until AFTER we finished our stay.  Cool but definitely creepy!  It was a beautiful house and had LOTS of history so I'm not too surprised but I'm very glad the ghosts decided to leave us alone while we were there.  They showed us a cool small airport that had such old classic planes that were taking off and landing.  Roger, Ann, and Grandma Parr were so hospitable and we were so grateful.  I'm very glad we had the opportunity to visit them and their stomping grounds.  Until next time!