Another Road Trip, Another 1100+ Miles In The Car

Larry & Deb & Grandma Syring were supposed to come to see us the Saturday before X-Mas, but with the bad weather they couldn't make it, and ended up taking Grandma to Appleton for the week. Then we were going to spend the 27th-30th with Chris & Shell in Joliet, IL, but with an approaching storm on the 28th, we canceled the plans. Mara and I really like Kirksville, when we're busy. When we have time to kill, we end up looking for things to do, but you can only take so many trips to Wal-Mart! We decided that we could leave early on Thursday and beat the storm, and head up to Appleton so Grandma could get her "X-mas miracle". So we loaded our dogs up and headed out for Appleton, about 8 hours away. We are SO glad our dogs travel so well! We were able to surprise Grandma and Larry who were laying on the floor playing with Jackson, but the best was when Deb came home from work:

After a nice dinner and some conversation, we headed back to Chris & Shell's. Our dogs got to see their cousins again! They were so geeked up to see each other it was hilarious. We took the dogs to Baird's Creek by Chris & Shell's house and let them run for a while on Friday & Saturday. They all looked like they needed the time to run outdoors:


I think it's safe to say we succeeded in utterly exhausting our dogs. Those are Linus' hind legs stretched all the way up to his chest, and that is Gabee's legs by her face!


On Sunday morning we made the trip down to Milwaukee to stay with Pete & Beth, where Linus & Lucy got to see their dogs Tanner & Fala also. We also went out to Nikki & Crawford's to have dinner and catch up with them and Christy & Jerad also. Lucy & Linus got to play with Nikki's dog CoCo, and their cats (Bob, Stan, Sue, Tigger, & Wilbur). It was really nice of Nikki & Crawford to put on such a great meal on such short notice! Crawford's curries are the best!
Before we left on Monday we made sure to stop over to see Laurel & Elton & Austin. It was great to see them, and Austin is so full of piss & vinegar! He got his strength back quickly, and now is so full of energy!!! He did insist on a picture with Mara, but it had to have the vacuum in it as well...:) He is also one of the kids featured in the MACC Fund Children's Calendar for the month of March. If you need a calendar for this year, this is a great charity to get it from!

After a quick lunch at our favorite Indian buffet with Rebecca, Tina, Jason, Pete, & Beth, we headed back towards Kirksville. We did stop at an outlet mall to shop (and walk off some of that Indian food!), and then made a quick stop at Josh & Debora's to see our newest nephew Thomas (He deserves his own post...). We finally made it home around 1am (after leaving Milwaukee at 8am). It was a long trip, but we made it to see EVERYONE we could in Wisconsin (with the exception of Dan & Holly who were visiting their newest grandson). All in all it was about 1100 miles over 5 days, but as always, worth the trip to see so many of our friends & family!