One of my best Texas friends moved to Dallas last year and it’s left a pretty big hole in our life! Halloween is her favorite holiday, so we decided to road trip to Dallas to spend the holiday and a few days after with her and her family. The catch, of course, was that Michael had to stay in Houston to work. So, a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old in a car for a 3.5 hour drive with just me. I was relatively confident we’d make it at least halfway peacefully, but I had no idea what would happen after they both woke up from naps. Neither Noah nor Maya really like the car very much, so I was a little nervous.
But apparently I needn’t have been worried! At least on the way there. Noah slept for almost the entire 3.5 hour drive, only waking up for a few minutes of crying every hour or so. Maya napped and then played in her seat and ate snacks for the whole ride, only getting restless in the last half hour. I couldn’t believe it!
(Just a note, one of the things that’s been keeping me from blogging lately is that my camera is on the fritz. So these are unedited iphone photos, because the other thing keeping me from blogging is time 😉 I’m aiming for less perfection and more frequency!)
Maya was a strawberry for Halloween and Noah was a pumpkin. Both costumes were lacking in the creativity department, but they were easy and cute, which are the biggest requirements in this season.
When we left Houston it was 83, and when we got out of the car in Dallas it was 52! We ate gumbo and Halloween candy and the kids ran around the yard taking 3 licks of dum-dums and then digging in the bowl for another.
The next day, it was hot again, so we took advantage and played outside. Maya had never scooted before, but Olivia taught her the ways. Now I think we know what her Christmas gift will be!
We also stayed in our jammies until noon and then spent the afternoon at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden running around the pumpkin display. It was crazy! Apparently there are 90,000 pumpkins of all shapes and heirloom varieties. Maya and Olivia literally didn’t stop running from house to house, pumpkin pile to pumpkin pile the entire time. There was a Wizard of Oz theme, which you may see glimpses of in these photos.
On the way home, we sort of missed the prime nap time window and stopped at the slowest gas pump known to man, through which both kids screamed relentlessly before we got on the highway and knocking out. But they were troopers and we made it to Huntsville before Noah was letting us know that he was really very hungry. I took the opportunity to let Maya stretch her legs, and while I struck out trying to find a playground, we found a field full of horses and a helicopter. Double win in Maya’s book!
All in all, a total success, despite the fact that Maya ate about 6 dum-dums on the way home and I needed about half a bottle of wine by the time they were put to bed that night. But still, it wasn’t so bad for wrangling two little ones on my own – and well worth it for a visit with dear friends!
No Comments