Hubby was supposed to have gone to Ohio two weeks ago for a family reunion, but had a huge sense of foreboding just before he was to leave. This past Friday morning, we set off at 7am. We had driven perhaps 20 miles or less when our Lincoln lost all power and left us dead in the road at the head of a stop light. Lots of phone calls ensued with panicky, yelling results. A service guy got the car running and we got it back to the house.
We left the car running, transferred everything from one car to the other, took the Lincoln to the repair shop (me following with the car with flashers). Now we're finally off to Ohio, 2.5 hours after we left the house we are now 30 minutes down the road. Quint was very whimpery on the drive and at times I thought that I would completely loose my mind! We stopped I don't know how many times to let him toddle around rest stop park benches. So the drive up was extremely long. At one point, I was singing, "this is the drive that never ends...it just goes on and on my friends..."
We finally arrived around 5pm local time and pretty quickly went to the lovely back yard to turn everyone loose to roam. Heaven. Wonderful lawn, fenced yard, play scape including slide and baby swing. Wonderful visit. Wonderful pork chops for dinner. Perfect weather outside.
Lots of fun just talking with my mother-in-law while the men were elsewhere for one reason or another. I loved laying in the grass while Quint tried to climb up the slide. 
Quint actually liked the baby swing which is different from the park swings around here.
At Quint's regular bedtime, we put him down in Grandma's pack and play with some blankets. I had forgotten to bring his soft and fuzzy blanket and his teddy bear. BIG mistake. He slept for a couple hours while I foolishly played on the internet. Starting at 1am, Quint woke up every 45 minutes until, you know, dawn. At 5:00 or so, it occurred to Hubby to give him some benadryl to make him sleepy. Why on earth didn't me or my mother-in-law think of that?! Quint woke up again at 6:30 or 7am and we got up for the day. At nine, he went down for a 2 hour nap and I got to sleep some more.
In between everyone's naps on Saturday, we had a fun time visiting and playing on the floor with Quint. In the evening, we had a huge gathering of family and friends at Hubby's favorite pizza place, Marion's pizza.
We had a George convention:
Seldom seen great-aunts got to hug on Quint.
Even more rarely seen relatives got to be visited with and loved upon.
A good time was had by most everyone and the festivities continued at my mother-in-law's house afterward. Hubby got to spend a good long time talking to his cousin and his girlfriend, too. It's been a few years since they got to talk and they really needed it.
Saturday night went much better for Quint now that he was used to his room and bed. And I also draped a blanket over the edge of his bed so he couldn't see the scary, big plant.
Sunday morning we were on the road about mid-morning. I was so frustrated with our ride down that I bought a car DVD player and two kids DVDs for the drive back. Also Quint was running a fever when we loaded him into the car. With the DVD player, we had 2 hours of non-whimper time due to singing cucumbers and the rats of NIHM. Pretty good deal.
That sounds like a great trip! Except for the car breaking down part. We had the same thing happen to us, but we were only on the way to eat dinner with some friends. It cracked me up how you said you were going to "bounce across the surface of the non fun parts" and then proceeded to tell us about the car breaking down. LOL!
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