Summer Trip

We’ve been on the road for the last couple of days, traveling to visit our relatives in Tennessee.  It’s a little cooler up here, thankfully!  When we left Texas on Friday, it was 103 degrees. 

We drove fourteen hours on Friday from Fort Worth, Texas to Gadsden, Alabama.  Grace did really well and actually slept for a little while thanks to this nifty kid’s travel pillow:

I usually don’t make spur-of-the-moment purchases, but Grace and I saw this at Target when we were picking up some travel snacks on Thursday.  She fell in love with it, and I figured if it helped her sleep, it was worth $14.99.  (She never slept on our recent road trip to Orange Beach because she couldn’t get in a comfortable position in her car seat.)  She took a nap with her new pillow and was in good spirits when we arrived at Nana’s house on Friday night.

Nana has acquired a teacup Chihuahua since our last visit, and this is how Grace reacted at first:

After a few minutes of realizing that the worst thing little Roxy would do is lick her, she had a blast playing with her!  Here is Grace sitting in Roxy’s bed and feeding her morsels of dog food, one at a time.

We woke up early on Saturday morning and drove across town for a morning visit with my aunt and uncle.  Grace immediately asked Uncle Don to take her outside to see the fishpond.  Then she came indoors and “read” a book to Aunt Sassy.

After a quick trip to the Magic Burger Drive-In for lunch, (where Todd enjoyed a Reece’s Cup Triple-Thick Milkshake while I poutingly sipped a Diet Pepsi), we headed north to Tennessee.  The drive was breathtakingly beautiful and it made us nostalgic about moving back to the East!  We arrived in Jefferson City, Tennessee in time to eat dinner with Todd’s mom.  Grace was so over being in the car by this point, and she was thrilled to finally be at our destination!

My mom-in-law and I rose early on Sunday morning for a brisk walk around Cherokee Lake, then we got dressed and worshiped in Todd’s childhood church.  We came home, took a few pictures in the backyard, ate lunch, and now everyone’s taking a nap!

Tonight we’re going to visit Todd’s aunt across town and eating dinner at Cracker Barrel.  Tomorrow we’re going to Dollywood’s Splash Country!