Ingram the Conqueror: Friday March 15th, Driving Home!

4:45am was very early this morning, but I didn't press the snooze button. We were awake and out of the house by 5:05 to beat the traffic out of Houston. I know it seems crazy to wake the kids up that early, but there's a short window of light traffic before the rush hour begins from 5:30am to about 9am. G-Mommy and G-Daddy both were up for the last set of hugs and kisses for a while. After about 30 minutes into the drive, all three of the kids were back asleep and got another hour and a half of rest.

Other than avoiding the traffic, the best part of leaving early was seeing the sky start to lighten up as the sun was coming up. It was a little over 2 and a half hours into our drive, but it was definitely worth the wait! Madison was awake by then and captured pictures of it while the others were still asleep. Once they woke up and started to ask about breakfast, we were to Marshall Texas (where we stayed on our way down) and pulled into McDonald's for their favorite hash browns and orange juice. Since we like leaving a mark where we've been, Ingram decided to leave one on the floor!! That little stinker drank half of his orange juice at once after he ate a whole hash brown and up it all came all over the seat and the floor. Ingram hadn't thrown up like that in a while and the girls were out of practice and let out the biggest "Ewwww!" possible drawing lots of attention. I guess I'd probably look too if someone else's kids did the same, but it didn't seen to bother Ingram.

We were trying to be sneaky and not let Daddy know how far we were but when he called we just couldn't trick him! He was so excited to be coming home and especially excited that we really did get out early. During our breakfast stop we also got gas and the kids changed out of their pajamas and it only took an hour; if Daddy had been with us, we'd have to remind him that it's about the journey and not just the destination and we'd try not to make our other stops that long. Speaking of the rest of the trip, we only stopped once more for gas, food, and the restroom making it home in record time! We even stopped to pick up Beau at the kennel before heading home and he was sooo excited to see us!! I guess you could say the feeling was mutual as we were all on the floor of the kennel playing with him!

We unpacked in just enough time to make it to Ingram's T-Ball practice at the park. It seems Daddy's flight got in on time and he surprised us at the fields!! We were all so excited to see Daddy, but Ingram was in the field and was the only one that couldn't go running to Daddy with a great big hug. The funny thing was that Ingram just said "Hey" when he saw Daddy and it didn't register that he hadn't seen him since Sunday after church. I guess we'll have to work on his excitement level later so Daddy won't get his feelings hurt on the next trip! We were planning to have a movie night after practice, but with getting up at 5am and going all day long all week without naps, the kids (especially Ingram) was not in the best shape to stay up and watch a movie. Guess we'll have to save the movie for another night!