Abby’s Saturday // Two Hundred And Fifty

Highlight of the Week

Ahhh vacation. Our time away was SO good – so so so good.
I’ll be 100% honest: I was a smidge nervous about our trip (not like laying-in-bed-awake anxious, just this little check in my brain that said, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”). We had plans to go to 4 new amusement parks, in 3 different states, over the course of 5 days. If it had been just Derrick & I – no problem whatsoever – but we were bringing Braelynn & Leander: a 4 year old and a 6 month old. I won’t lie: there was a small voice in my head that said, “Are you crazy?”

But, we did it. And it was WONDERFUL. We had the most amazing time together & this trip will be something I remember for the rest of my life as an incredible milestone in our family’s lives.

It definitely isn’t something we’d recommend to just anyone to do (in fact, I’m convinced it takes a very special kind of crazy to do what we just did) but it was perfect for us. With my experience working at “the king” of theme parks and Derrick’s theme-park-smarts, we were able to not only navigate the parks & ride everything we wanted to ride, but we hardly waited in any lines at all & really packed as much into our days as we possibly could. Derrick rode his 200th roller coaster on our trip (which was quite the feat to experience) and, I just can’t say enough about how much fun we had! We have tons of stories & photos & videos from our trip (since a large part of the reason for this time away was to get new content at new parks for Derrick’s YouTube channel). So, stay tuned!

Yes, This Happened

• We had plans to leave early Saturday morning & drive to our first park. However, Derrick came home from work Friday afternoon & excitedly said, “How spontaneous are you feeling?” And so, we decided to hit the road early & leave Friday night! Why not, right? The trick was, we weren’t even packed yet! I had plans to pack when Derrick got home & could help me. So, we hustled our butts, got our stuff packed up, and off we went! It was so much fun & made our drive to the first park just a little over an hour on Saturday morning.
• In the same way, we had planned to get up on Wednesday morning & head home. However, since we had bought Six Flags Memberships for our trip (it was way cheaper than buying individual tickets – more on that to come!) Derrick said, “Why not go back to Six Flags Great Adventure for a few hours before we drive back across the state?” So, we did! We went back for a few hours & it was literally the perfect ending to our trip.
• The kids did amazing while we were away. Leander took naps in the stroller (not the greatest quality naps, but he did sleep, just like if we were at home) and he slept in his Pack-N-Play every night. He fell asleep every night easier than Braelynn, but overall, she slept good every night too. You’d think that after going to 5 theme parks in 5 days with 2 small children (and 1 roller coaster junkie), that we’d return home absolutely exhausted. And while, yes, there was a certain level of “tired”, we really weren’t as beat as you’d think. And that’s entirely due to the fact that we went to bed way earlier than usual every night. Being all in the same hotel room – when the kids went to bed, we went to bed too. And that made all the difference!
• We got home from vacation on Wednesday night & were beyond shocked to find that my sister Amy (who was watching our house & Abby) had not only cleaned our house from top to bottom for us, but had done a bunch of gardening & landscaping around the house, and my brother had cut our grass! I have the best family – there is no beating them!
• If you’re curious about this week’s Abby’s Saturday photo – it’s Abby’s birthday this week!! Our sweet pup is 9 years old – that’s so hard to believe – and she’s been a huge part of our lives for 8 1/2 of those years. She is literally the best dog & a major part of our family. We missed her so much while we were away!
• Speaking of birthdays – today is also my sister Ruby’s birthday!! She is 14 years old today. She is growing into such a beautiful, amazing young woman and, don’t tell the other Aunties, but she is Braelynn & Leander’s “favorite”. Shhhhhhhh.
• Leander turned 6 months old while we were away! (How is that even possible?!) It seems like he’s grown up so much in the last few days – like he officially turned 6 months & suddenly changed into a tiny little man instead of a baby. When we got home from being away, we re-introduced food to him (we tried to give him some baby cereal a few weeks ago & he was just not ready for it, so we took a break). Thankfully, this time around, he is 100% ready, and has been loving it!! He eats away like a professional & it’s so much fun to watch! He is the happiest little dude on the planet and I just can’t get enough of him.
• We did come home to a tiny problem: ants. We’ve never had a problem with ants, but they have simply invaded our house this spring! We keep finding them everywhere. Not a ton in any specific spot, but just exploring around our house. How do we get rid of them? In the past, we’ve used cinnamon to deter them from coming in, but we can’t figure out where these ants are coming from. Do you have any suggestions to help us get rid of them? They freak me out!

Feeling Blessed

Vacation-high is totally a thing, right? Because, we are definitely there. I can’t wait to share more specifically about our time away & share some of the hundreds of photos we took! And, we’re already trying to figure out where we can go next – summer is just starting after all! We’ve always gone on vacation at the very end of summer, so this is a really fun change of pace – to still have the whole summer ahead of us!