We're here!!

We made it...finally... to Florida. We left at 10:30 on Thursday morning in the pouring rain.  Louie picked up the trailer around 7:30 that morning.  He managed to back-up the trailer into our garage, next to my car, up our ginormous driveway, in the rain without, surprisingly, doing any damage to any of the vehicles (or nearby landscaping!). He then loaded our 4x8 trailer, cursing me the entire time (for some reason, he thinks I packed too much) and we were on the road right about the time Kinsley was ready for a nap. Perfect. :)

We made it to Bloomington, IL the first night. It was a little over 400 miles. We stopped once to let everyone stretch their legs.  Kinsley was a doll.  The only fuss we got from her was when we had to stop at a toll in the middle of her nap. It startled her awake and it took a good 15 minutes for her to calm back down.  Here is a picture of her riding the luggage cart at our first hotel.

The next day was a long one.  We traveled from Bloomington to Chattanooga, TN.  We drove 550 miles.  Again, Kinsley did a great job.  I fed her meals in the car.  That way when we stopped to get gas and food for Louie and me, she was able to play the whole time.  It worked pretty well.  I did a little research about traveling with a toddler before we left and this was one of their tips.  I also had a bag of new toys I picked up from the resale shop, some exciting new snacks and, the ever controversial, DVD player (a.k.a the "life saver"). When we decided to push Kinsley a little further then she would have liked, I whipped out the DVD player and popped in Veggie Tales "Jonah" and we had another hour and a half of driving. :) Here is a picture of her veggin' out to Veggie Tales.

The last day seemed to drag on and on just because we were so close and so ready to get there. We drove from Chattanooga on into Jacksonville, which was about 465 miles.  Kinsley was really great until about the last hour where she started to get pretty antsy.  Once we arrived, she pretty much fell apart. I fed her dinner and she was asleep by about 6:30. She slept until 8 this morning.  Poor baby girl.  She has a pretty decent cold so hopefully she will get caught up on sleep, settle back into a routine and get healthy.

Louie and I spent all day today cleaning, unpacking and cleaning some more.  We made a monstrous trip to Walmart and have pretty much settled in. 

More to come on our Florida adventures soon.

Love,

Catherine