Ingram the Conqueror: Thursday and Friday February 21st and 22nd, On The Road Again!

It rained all day long on Thursday but the kids all stayed dry at school! Ingram loved going to school today because they were learning the letter "Q" and also had "Show and Tell." He wanted to bring his special quilt that his 2 year old class made him last year and gave him after his surgery. He was so excited about it and even got to sleep with his special quilt during nap time at school. Oh how we love our preschool and the sweet friends and teachers there. I'm not sure what we would do without them either; all three of our kids have been through their program and Ingram is already excited about going into the 4 year old class next year! The girls came home in great moods too because their homework and tests for the night could be put to the side since we were not going to be at school on Friday.

Poor Beau, though, he got all wet in the rain and to make things worse, had to go to the kennel because we were heading to Dallas first thing in the morning to speak at the Tri Delta Collegiate Leadership Conference! I'm sure Lindsey would have loved to sneak him on the plane, but for some reason I don't think he would have made it through security, much less an hour and a half airplane ride with our crazy kids before getting caught! We've been waiting for months for this conference to finally get here and I think we were all excited to see more of the Tri Deltas, especially me since I'm the only one that hasn't met any of them yet. I know it sounds crazy, but these girls are not the typical group of sorority girls; they're more like a fundraising company (who just happen to be primarily between the ages of 18 and 22) that blows everyone else out of the water with how much money they raise! Madison and Lindsey were extra excited to see if any of the girls they had met in Virgina back in October or in Memphis at the St. Jude Patient Panel back in January would be there.

But first things first, we had to get to the airport for our flight with everyone in good moods which was a little tricky since Ingram kept the girls up till almost 10pm Thursday night! We got to the airport and through security with no problems; I guess you could say our kids are traveling professionals; they even know that once they get through security, they can pick out a snack and a drink for the plane ride. We hung out at our gate for a while and the kids were already in crazy mode; sweet Shelby (one of our ALSAC gals) was entertained for sure while we all waited for our plane to get in since she was on the same flight! Once we got to Dallas, we took our craziness to a new level since we were traveling without Daddy...in a new city with a crazy big airport...with a rental car...AND with navigation that kept telling the wrong direction to go. Don't laugh, I'm fairly smart and can figure out things, but the navigation was making us go crazy AND there was construction all around the airport that was making it even more difficult because we had two sets of signs to follow to get where we were going.

Since we hadn't had a great breakfast due to the early flight, the kids "needed" some Chick Fil A for lunch before they melted down into monsters! Once we had lunch and found our way to the hotel (which was actually inside the airport complex...crazy I know!) the girls were set on finding "their people" inside the 92,000 square foot hotel and they did. We saw all sorts of cute girls walking around the hotel and Madison would get so excited; she'd say "I bet their Deltas!" and every time she was right! We ran into our ALSAC team too and the Ingram couldn't have been more crazy with showing them how fast he could run and how high he could jump. Our kids had no lack of energy problems at this point and they decided to go swimming to burn some time until Daddy got in and it couldn't hurt to burn some energy too!

The only problem was that the pool was outside AND it was 49 degrees!!! So I, being of sound mind, decided not to swim and watched my three little fish swim all over the pool like it was 80 degrees outside. The only time time they were cold was right before they jumped in and then right when they got out. Lucky for them, it was a heated pool, but I was so cold sitting outside with them that when they finally were ready to get out that I think I was the one ready for some hot chocolate. Daddy and G-Daddy arrived as we were getting out so we started planning the rest of our night together. First up, the girls wanted to go to the workout room and "play" on the machines. G-Daddy and Ingram took a tour of the hotel including the snack shop where they played with race cars and had orange juice and coffee. Madison and Lindsey used the Elliptical machines while we ran on the treadmills; they were dying to try some of the jumpropes, stretchy bands, and the bars. Those two are crazy for sure, but they managed to actually work out while they were playing. G-Daddy and Ingram found us and of course Ingram wanted to work out too and G-Daddy helped him to walk on the treadmill for a second and even put him on the bike too.

Our next adventure was to fit 6 people in a 5 passenger car to head to dinner; we're going to "take the 5th" right now and only say that we made it to and from dinner without any complications...other than having to pick a second restaurant! We had a fun dinner with G-Daddy and had an interesting time keeping Ingram awake on the ride back to the hotel. The poor little guy was exhausted since he was up late the night before with his girls at home, woke up early to get to the airport, and then had been going nonstop since our arrival in Dallas. The best part of the night though was when Ingram asked G-Daddy if he could spend the night with him! The girls took Ingram and his stuff down to G-Daddy's room for a good night's rest and everyone was in bed at a fairly decent hour to get rested for our big day with all the Tri Deltas!