We spent the beginning & end of our Easter holiday in our car. For 16 hours. With a toddler.

We drove to what I lovingly refer to as “yankee-land”.  Andy calls it home (or Pennsylvania). It wasn’t Nicholas’ 1st time to yankee-land  Pennsylvania but it was his 1st trip as a toddler who is aware of his surroundings & can let you know (loudly) how happy or sad or angry he is.  This type of trip requires a level of patience & grace that between the 3 of us we collectively might have. I tend to seek out the humor (& the road side bathrooms), Andy reacquaints himself with his yankee road rage pretty early on into most road trips (more on this in a minute) & Nicholas finds a reason to laugh, sing, or shout at the most inopportune but hilarious moments.

Here’s the Top 5 Things You Learn When Road Tripping with Our Family:

1. Road rage & backseat driving are inherited traits. From the father’s side of the family. About 2 hours into the car ride we were stopped in some light traffic. Andy had finished his latest “This is ridiculous. Move people move! The gas is on the right!” tirade when we heard a confident voice from the backseat demand “GO.”. And again “GO.”. And finally “GGGGGOOOOOO.” complete with a semblance of a certain hand gesture (I really don’t want to admit I know what hand gesture he was trying to make while demanding those in front of us “GO” – remember this is inherited from his father. Not me. Never.)
2. Apparently I do now know how to “GO” like Nicholas & Andy. They both now like to tell me how to drive. Bless.
3. Veggie Tales Songs are catchy. We have a DVD player in our car & this trip was the 1st time Nicholas was able to enjoy movies on our ride. He loves Veggie Tales. LOVES it. So much so that we watched a few of the movies several times through. The songs are catchy.
4. Veggie Tales songs are so catchy that if you watch them enough in the car & you listen for it, you just may hear Andy singing along to the songs. OK, you don’t have to listen THAT hard for it. Like I said, the songs are catchy.
5. Nicholas, like his mama goes from happy-go-lucky to hangry in 0.2 seconds. There’s no warning (poor Andy). And, it’s usually in the middle of nowhere. So Andy can do nothing but listen to both of whine (& one of us ask for wine) about it until we reach the next town.

All in all, we made it to Pennsylvania where Nicholas was loved on by more friends & family than I can count. We were thankful for the trip. We left Pennsylvania with full hearts (& bellies) and sleepy heads. It was oh.so worth it.