Little Mini Vacation

We just returned from a nice little mini vacation about 4 hours or so.... my oldest two children are upstairs jumping on the beds and being wild, my husband and youngest have been in bed for almost and hour and half - my baby is sick and not herself. :( She spiked a fever and has been wanting to sleep all evening - Nathan figured if she was sleeping now about 2am she'll be up and ready to start the day so one of us should go to bed with her.  Guess who won? :)

We were celebrating something this month (more on that later) and decided to get away for a couple days, a friend hooked us up and we were able to get a great deal on a rental out in Lancaster, PA! My mom, gram, two nieces, and best friend and her two little ones and her MIL also came along.  We went into this weekend trying to be relaxed and focused on family time. 

Friday night we went to see the Miracle of Christmas at Sights and Sounds and it was amazing, all three children did great and we were so thankful that they all made it through without too much trouble (wish I would have brought ear plugs for Lydia, and Josiah was terrified of the fire).  Then it was bedtime... and everything went downhill from there. 

My children have never slept with us, maybe once or twice over the past 6 years, but it's not even close to the norm.  They each have their own rooms, they each sleep pretty well the majority of the time and they enjoy their personal space which is great.  Until you travel and suddenly they have to sleep with each other, in the same room, with us - doesn't go so great. at. all. ugh.  We seriously got no sleep Friday night - well I'll rephrase that. My husband got no sleep Friday night - he took the brunt of it with Naomi and I was able to get some sleep, he's pretty awesome that way. 

Saturday came way too early and we have big plans for the entire day, went to Hershey World for the free tour and had a great time, went through that twice!  Met up with dear old friends we haven't seen in a very long time and enjoyed a great lunch with them (minus the one time I had to take Josiah out to the van for a time-out). Then headed to Indian Echo Caverns for a tour - which while it was nice just really wasn't my 'thing' and my Gram started having some issues with her hip so we were worried how in the world we were going to get her back up to the top but thankfully she ended up doing ok with a couple pit stops. :)  At 4:00 when we left to head back home and Josiah & Naomi both fell asleep and then continued to sleep until 5:30/6:00 on either Nathan or I we should have known bedtime was not going to go well.  And it didn't. Not at all.  By that point my dear husband was also way past tired and fighting a horrible headache so I took Naomi duty and locked her in the living room with me - eventually she fell asleep behind the recliner on the floor but hey she was sleeping!

We did find a very quaint and wonderful church for Sunday morning - it was perfect and just what we needed to regroup and refocus on our time together. (I highly recommend listening to the sermon online if you can.)  Came back to the house, ate some yummy snacks prepared by my Gram and got all the children to lay down for a nap and then my bestie, my gram, and her MIL took off to do some shopping - it was freezing but a wonderful time and recharged us!   God was with us and Sunday night actually went really well and the kids all slept better!  Just in time for us to leave and come home. ha!

And then tonight when we got home poor Naomi came down with a fever... always something right? So even though the weekend didn't go exactly how we hoped or as well as we would have liked it really was a great weekend and one of those you want to focus on the good things and not the bad things because if you did - well you'd never leave again. Oh and this next baby - yes he will sleep with us just so when we travel we don't have those issues... just to see if it makes a difference. hee hee

I am so thankful for our trip and the memories we made plus the special time with extended family and friends!

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