The family and I made and impromptu trip to the mountains this weekend. Hubby’s military sis and her kids were staying with their parents and youngest sis’s child had a birthday last week. It was a good time to see everyone, celebrate the birthday, and for military sis to meet Peanut and for us to meet her youngest son.

It was our best trip yet. We spent the whole weekend with family, had a great time with them, and Peanut was amazing. We left around 4 pm on Thursday and finally stopped at about 1 am in Kennesaw, GA (north Atlanta). He had his fill of Elmo and movies and made nary a peep. He got a little hyper when we stopped for dinner and wanted to climb all the chairs/booths in the joint, but after being cooped up for 2 hours, it wasn’t surprising. Once we got him into a highchair, he settled right down. The only hairy spell was when we stopped for the night and he had a crying jag. The hotel room didn’t suit him and he repeatedly asked for bye-bye, but with some snuggling he zonked back out. He was up at the crack of daylight ready to get outtta there.

The ride back was no different. We left around 2 pm on Sunday and got back home around midnight. He didn’t fuss at all and passed out in his bed once we got home and changed into jammies.

It was so nice to see Military Sister. She’s doing well, but she and her husband are still stationed halfway across the country from each other and will be for another year or so. The kids are doing better (older son went through a bad angry/aggressive phase when they first moved away from their dad), but holy hell, the kids are a couple of ruffians. The 4-year old is HYPER and the 1.5-year old is big (32 lbs – he has 10+ lbs on Peanut) and doesn’t take shit from older bro. Older bro had the bite marks to prove it. Hubby’s younger sis is doing amazingly well. She’s on meds and was the best we’ve ever seen her. She even warmed our car up for us one night so Peanut wouldn’t be cold and gave Hubby a beautiful jacket. She’s never been that considerate of us.

Mostly, the weekend was chaos with 4 little ones running around jacked up on cake, soda, cookies, or whatever they could pilfer. Niece’s birthday party got off to a rocky start when Papaw joked about smooshing the cake – the birthday girl broke into tears. Cake and presents got her over it, but we weren’t allowed to make any more cake jokes.

Peanut loved seeing the grandparents. He knew both houses by the end of day one and would announce where we were once we turned onto a driveway. He especially had fun running around with Papaw.

Saturday evening brought a great surprise – SNOW! It flurried on and off all day, but we wound up with about an inch and a half. Peanut loved it and had a blast tromping around in it Sunday morning before it melted. We made him come back inside after an hour or so and he threw a killer hissy fit.

Peanut learned some new words during the trip when Hubby had rotten gas. “P.U. STINKY DADDY!”