Are We There Yet?

If you hadn't noticed, I've been gone for a few days. Well, more like a week. We took a vacation of sorts and visited my family in Ohio. We haven't made this drive in several years. It involves driving for two days through many states. We were on the road for 12 hours one day and 8 hours the next. (We broke it up that way so we could spend the night with relatives rather than stay in a hotel). 
I dreaded traveling with four 5-year-olds. I envisioned constantly being asked "Are we there yet?" Instead, they traveled surprisingly well. They asked that question repeatedly, but understood the concept of "No, we have to watch two more movies before we're there." (If you don't have a portable DVD player, get one. It was a wonderful thing to have on this trip!)
Here are somethings I learned on this vacation:

• The Tooth Fairy will find you even if you're not home. Roo lost her first tooth on the 4th of July. I knew the tooth would likely come out on our vacation, so I took her gold coin with us. She, her sisters and her two cousins were delighted to wake up the next morning and find the gold $1 coin.
• Clouds are made in Indianapolis. We drove by some type of steam-emitting factory in Indianapolis and the girls insisted it was a "cloud factory." Who knew Indiana was home to Mother Nature?
• Water parks are fun at any age. We spent an afternoon at a swimming pool with a water slide. None of my girls nor their younger cousin were tall enough to go on the water slide by themselves. Fortunately we had enough adults to take them down. It was fun, but I was pretty bruised at the end of our water adventure.
• Old habits are hard to break. As a child and teenager, family vacations meant popping on my ear phones, turning on my Walkman and sleeping in the car. I can become severely motion sick, so sleeping was the best way to get through a long trip. Now that I'm an adult I sit in the front and motion sickness isn't a problem. Unfortunately, if I'm in the car for more than an hour, I have the irresistible urge to sleep. I'm not sure how Hubby felt about that, although I tried to stay awake for most of the drive.
• It pays to have a creative sister. My sister has my mom's superb sewing skills. She made pillowcase dresses for the girls and their younger cousin for the 4th of July. The dresses turned out amazing! (Can you tell which one of my daughters wants to be on Toddlers and Tiaras?) 

I had a heck of time adding this picture to the post, so I'm not going to worry that it's not all nice and centered like I wanted!
All in all, we had a blast. We are exhausted! We returned on Saturday and since then I have been frantically doing laundry! I'll have more to post about our vacation in the days to come.
On a side note, I wanted to let you know about a deal being offered by Purex and Parents magazine. The two have teamed up to offer a full year subscription to Parents for just $4! All you need to do is visit 
https://www.purex.com/parents-promo and enter promo code PX0167 at check out. (You'll have to cut and paste the link because Blogger and I are not getting along this morning).