New Jersey Part 1

May 10-15, 2007

Hey. It's Julie. Well, we got into Cape May, New Jersey, at about 6:00 p.m. We drove off the ferry boat and onto the southern most part of the state. We called Robin and got directions and also stopped at the local pizza joint, "Santos" and brought pizza to their house. My kids inhaled it, of course. Shortly after we got there some friends of theirs who were helping them out moved and delivered their piano to them. One of the guys was wearing a Red Letter 9 t-shirt, which Jimmy recognized and noticed he had added his own art to the shirt, after spilling bleach on it.

So, that night, Thursday, and all day Friday, we helped Robin move boxes, organize bookshelves, and set up our sleeping arrangements. The first night was rough and involved a lot of screaming but after I confiscated lots of cardboard to 1) cover bright windows and 2) make a barricade so Cash couldn't see us when he woke up, things began to run more smoothly in the sleep department. (Although Cash woke before 6 a.m. for like the first 5 or 6 mornings. Vacation? I think not!)

Somewhere along these days Robin's washer quit working. Uh-oh. Daren and Elissa were to arrive the next day (Saturday) and I already had a load from being at the beach in Rehoboth and all. Jimmy spent many minutes on the internet and phone trying to diagnose the problem...long story short, it was on the fritz the whole time and we were a house full of 14 people, which included four children in diapers (and you already know mine don't always hit the target) and the babies of course get quite messy at meal time. Heck, Jimmy gets messy at meal time. Anyway, it all worked out and during the week we did get to do some wash at a family member's house. It made me appreciate clean clothes.

So Daren, Elissa, Zachary, and Nate arrived Saturday and all was reuniting and fun. Sunday was Mother's Day and Robin's kids, Corey, Jamie, and Jordan, cooked an amazing meal of salmon, asparagus, wild rice, salad, bread, and yummy desert and all us mom's enjoyed not having to cook anything. Although Robin spent hours in the garage moving furniture and boxes, I figured Mom's who do nothing on Mother's Day are wimps. :-)

Early in the week we went to the Cape May Zoo which amazingly has tons of exotic and wild animals. By this day I was getting to feel 100% BLAH. Like, tired of being away from home and everything began to feel so complicated, juggling everyone's schedules and needs. But I made a vow to "fly by the seat of my pants" and told Jimmy I would do my best to be laid back and have fun. And really, the zoo was good for that, I guess. I seemed to turn a corner, get a little more sleep that night, and just accept the fact that being away from home for days on end just gets hard every once in a while. I think this is enough for now. We will do more.



Mother's Day at Robin's church. The Lighthouse.



Robin's Kids and our lovelies at Cape May Zoo.



Large Bear and lots of kids.



Big Rodent.



Julie and Elissa. "This zoo is so deep. Yah I know."



Me and Daren. We're in talks over the dowry.

Cape May-Lewes Ferry

May 11th, 2007

Here is a map of the area where we traveled. Basically the route of the ferry was between Lewes, DE, about 10 minutes from our hotel, and Cape May, NJ where our friends live. In the morning we played on the beach and boardwalk went swimming, had lunch, took naps and anxiously left for our ferry ride. None of us had ever been on a ferry so it was very eye opening. The fact that you can drive all of these heavy vehicles on a large boat and go out into the open sea is amazing to me. It was all too easy. We chose the ferry for a lot reasons like we could rest the last leg of our trip and the kids could run around who wants to drive through D.C. and Philly.

This is our boat the New Jersey. We rode this over and back 9 days later.










As we were waiting to get on the boat the Police Unity Bike tour was getting off. Read the link.










Cash and Julie enjoying the view.











Since arriving in Rehoboth, we had nothing but fog everyday. I was hoping that would change for our boat ride. It didn't. The pilot had to blow the fog horn like every 2 minutes because we had low, low visibility. Libby didn't to want to ride on the way back because she said it was too loud.










This is the inside of the ferry. Complete with a bar, little concession and tourist shop. I love this picture. We were on the boat about an hour and twenty minutes.










This is the Cape May lighthouse from the ferry.

Rehoboth Beach

May 9th until May 11th in the afternoon

We arrived in Rehoboth Beach about 9 to the luxurious Brighton Suites about a block from the beach.
Three things I was looking forward to was sleep, Wi Fi, and indoor heated pool. Well I got one. The Wi Fi was down and the pool was under maintenance. The pool came online our last day and the Wi Fi was fixed a little sooner. The reason we went with this hotel is that the rooms were suites. Like two rooms instead of one. When you have three kids this is a luxury you can give up a few things for. Overall our stay was nice. Some fun things we did while staying there included:

Really cool boardwalk
Made sand castles
Collected rocks
Jackson and I went to the arcade.
Went to the Tanger Outlet Mall.

Doesn't seem like much but with our crew that is a full stay.

Being this was my first boardwalk I really didn't know what to expect.There were a lot of candy shops and I saw a putt putt course on a roof. The arcade did had one of those fortune teller machines as featured in the movie "Big". Julie wouldn't let me do it. I wanted to find out exactly how many more dirty diapers we could expect the rest of the trip. Libby and Cash had shared 6 that day alone. Had to throw that in there for Jim.



Libby making her sand sculpture.



Born on the fourth of July.




Had to show this one.




Tired of shopping.




Hotel pool is open. No heat. Check out the lips.



There was one game Julie liked at the arcade. Burgertime!!!!!

Nine to Nine

May 8, 2007

Tuesday we were in the car from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. My wonderful amazing blessed children were amazing. Cash had some trouble sleeping his morning nap. Even though he was exhausted (5:45 a.m. is his new wake up time) he only rested for 30 minutes. So, when about 12:30 rolled around and I knew he was getting tired again, Jimmy told me to give him some Benadryl. For those of you who may not know, it's an antihistamine that causes drowsiness. The meds paid off and he slept for like two hours.

Meanwhile, Jackson and Libby are in the far backseat of the van by themselves, doing their thing. What's their thing? Well, it's acting like an old married couple. Jackson is the man, of course, and Libby is the woman, who knows the better way to do things, but has her hands tied because she's strapped into her car seat. (Jackson can at least bend over and pick things up or unbuckle for a short time because he's in a regular seat belt.) So basically, Libby calls out things like, "Jackson, keep your hands to yourself...My headphones aren't working...I dropped my water..." and Jackson says, "What do you want Libby...I'm trying to help you Libby...Here, have your sandwich...No, you can't use my headphones..." the bickering back and forth is really pretty entertaining. Within minutes of our first day on the road there was a big problem because Jackson was trying to adjust Libby's pillow and he just couldn't get it just like she wanted it. Like I said, an old couple.

Okay, a few more comments. I am in awe of how many cords are involved in a family trip. It's a good thing I'm pregnant because if not I'm pretty sure the number of electronic devices would outnumber the number of people in our family. We have a computer, a DVD player (2 screens), a cell phone, a digital camera, iPod, and a video camera. Between these devices I laid in bed last night trying to count the number of cords I am required to make sure we don't forget and I lost count somewhere around 18. What is up with that? Are we aliens? Crazy.

At about 6 p.m. We thought we were only about 90 minutes from our destination and we decided to stop for dinner. We did something crazy. We went to Chili's. I hated to spend the money but I just wanted a waiter. I didn't want to squirt ketchup out of plastic packets. I wanted silverware. I say it was crazy because it's so expensive, mostly. And because my kids had been in the car all day. But they were fine, and only one person commented on how much Cash can eat. I asked for sweet tea, only to discover that in the course of a day, I was not in the south anymore.



You know we had to stop.



Cash likes to spit to pass the time.



This is about 9 hours into it. She's really hungry.



This is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. It was long.



This is Maryland. It looks like Kansas.

South Carolina

Monday, May 7th, 2007


Well we enjoyed our new digs in the basement. Julie and kids enjoyed breakfast with Brady when he got home at 7:30 . I woke up after Brady was in bed. We made lunches and headed to Table Rock State Park to enjoy the beautiful South Carolina terrain and weather. After we arrived the kids enjoyed the playground and we ate lunch while the inmates from a local correctional institution watched. Very weird. The inmates I guess were there to work but two or three of them found pleasure in watching us and were very obvious about it. Needless to say we moved on after lunch to let the kids see some cool waterfalls. At this park you can get as close as you want to the waterfalls so we did. I actually had the bright idea to let the kids take their shoes off and wade. Well that turned out bad as Libby lost her balance and fell in the water. The water was freezing. Poor Libby. On the way home we went to a roadside waterfall close to their house. I love a state where you have waterfalls on the side of the road and you can just pull over and check it out. When we got home we took naps. I walked Julie and the kids down to the large rocks and creek on their property that evening. We also had a small fire and shot off some rockets. We introduced Leah to "Heroes" by forcing her to watch it with us that night. Crazy show.









Noelle, Tyler and Jackson sitting on one of the huge boulders on their acreage.








Enjoying lunches at Table Rock.









Table Rock



Pre-falling in and Post-falling in.









Julie and Leah

Julie's turn to blog

Sunday, May 6, 2007


Hey, it's Julie. Jimmy is making me take a turn at the travel blog...He has been doing an amazing job documenting our trip with the camera constantly in his hands but what's up with the maps and historical facts? What is this, Jimmy, the history (slash) travel channel? :-)

Sunday when we arrived at Brady and Leah's we got a tour of their house and property which is beautiful all around. They have a basement which used to be a m-in-law quarters for the former owners so we had our own little apartment down there, which Leah has decorated so cute and hip of course. Jackson quickly oriented himself with their zip line, which Brady designed, built, and reinforced himself. I wanted to get on it but decided it wasn't the best idea, being prego and all.

Brady woke up about 45 minutes after we arrived. He had worked 7 pm to 7 am and had to go back to work at 7 to do it again. We saw and talked to him enough to hear a few stories about the South Carolina folk who call their pharmacist in the middle of the night. Pretty entertaining. We'll never forget "the gas lady."

I went to bed early but honestly, when you're on the road with three kids, you go to bed telling yourself that there WILL be crying in the middle of the night (except for Jackson--he enters a comatose state while sleeping) and that someone WILL wake up at least an hour before sunrise. That way, when it happens, you're not quite so bitter. Seriously, I have been learning so much about my children and our family dynamic being away from home. Libby told me I'm her best friend. Cash has fallen asleep on my chest more than once. Jackson always wants to show me all the new things he sees and does. Moments like that are so valuable and precious and even though I think I may have been on some kind of heavy drug when I agreed to travel this far with these kids those moments have been worth it.



The Zip Line













Their house

On the Road Again

Sunday, May 6th 2007

We left Zach and Heather's Sunday morning around 11 o'clock. We woke up to Zach's french toast and the kids got to spend a few more hours together. The highlight of the trip was stopping at UGA and seeing their stadium. It was a little walk but the kids were pros. What we saw of the campus was Ok. I guess after seeing the Georgia College http://www.gcsu.edu/ campus (where Zach works) no campus could compare. After the South Carolina border we had to check out fireworks. I left disappointed though. I found out that selling the regular bottle rockets is illegal in South Carolina. But Jackson and I scored some big rockets from Crazy Steve. I noticed in South Carolina there are a lot of stores with Crazy in front of the name. Very interesting. Jackson got to see mountains for the first time on this drive. At first he was asking if the little hills were the mountains. But as we got closer to Brady and Leah's the real mountains appeared. We arrived at Brady and Leah's around 4ish.



Here we are at the stadium. Notice how the road runs right next to the field. Very cool.










Come back to Florida State Mark Richt. Pleeeease!!!










Posing near the stadium.










Excalibur!!

The Day in Milledgeville

Saturday May 5, 2007

Did you know that Milledgeville was the state capital of Georgia pre-civil war? Did you know it sustained no damage during the Civil War? These are a few of the things I learned on this day. On Saturday we had an early start with Jackson waking everyone up at 5:45. In the morning the kids played in the driveway and did a paper mache project with Zach. After a play filled morning we packed up and drove everyone into Milledgeville for lunch at Quizno's and to let the kids run around. Did you know Flannery O'Conner grew up and lived in Milledgeville? We walked by her house. It is still occupied by her relatives. We walked around downtown M-ville and went to an old fashioned candy shop/ice cream shop that had just opened, Scoops. MMMM! After this we made our way back to our vans for our afternoon naps. When we got back the boys waited patiently while Zach aired up the inflatable pool and slip and slide. Cold water and good times. Here are some pics.









Here is Libby and Benjamin playing out front. They were following each other around.









Piggin out at Scoops!









Here is the pool. Notice Benjamin and the hose. He asserted his control by spraying everyone in the face. Pretty funny.













Libby. Is this kid a model or what?










Enjoying some popsicles in the Georgia Sun.