driving home

yep. that is madelyn on yet another carousel. this one was in a mall somewhere in iowa. we chose the mall as one of our stops in the hope that we could eat something besides mcdonalds and that mason might be able to crawl around a little.

we had made it out of papa and nana's driveway at almost 6am on the dot. we had said our goodbyes the night before so that the kids could just be put straight in the car without having to really wake up. we stopped for breakfast and a snack and that is when mason started to decide that he was over this whole strapped in thing. he took it easy on us the ride up because of his fever, but he was starting to feel better and just wanted to be on the move during our return trip.

the mall we stopped at was a huge complex with a children's museum too so i thought that there would be some sort of carpeted space he could enjoy for a little break. there was a family restroom area with a play table that we spent some time letting the kids play a little. and, much to matt's delight, we were able to have lunch at panera instead of mcdonalds - again. it was a nice stop, but we had to keep it short because we were trying to be home by 5pm - when our house guests were arriving! yes, we were hosting friends from florida and their two kids thursday through sunday and wanted to get home a little before they did.

we ran into an interstate closure somewhere in iowa that added at least a half hour to our trip, but thankfully, our guests were running late too so it was going to work out okay. i think we got home at 5:50pm and our guests arrived around 6:15pm. we had just enough time to unload our car and open the windows for fresh air. more about their visit tomorrow. love.