Day 1: (the drive)

Usually I am so good at blogging our vacation adventures each night as they happen. This year I got sucked into "The Hunger Games" books and spent my evenings reading with the background sounds of the ocean... So here I am, hoping to kick some blogs out before I forget too much of the fun details!

This year we were off to meet my parents in Myrtle Beach. We had thought that we would probably stop somewhere on the way down but to our surprise, the kids were great! We'd stop to get some food (the kids were thrilled with fast food), use the bathroom, stretch our legs, gas up the van and get back in and eat on the road. It was perfect and we actually made the trip in a day.
Everything was going wonderfully until our lovely GPS (which I DID have a love affair with) decided to quit on us... in the middle of no where... and no, we rely on technology so much that we didn't have one of those... oh what do you call them... maps! Thankfully I recently invested in a SMART phone (which really is quite smart and syncs all my calendars together which with our busy schedules is such a help). My phone has maps (and a GPS of sorts) on it so we were able to make our way to our destination without any detours.

On our way down something exciting did happen though. We were driving down a two lane road in the middle of nowhere (between the Carolina borders) when we saw some flashing lights in the distance. There were a few houses here and there so we thought perhaps there was an ambulance or fire or something. As we got closer, we saw three police officers in the middle of the road. Jeff stopped and the officer asked for his license while one of his buddies shined a flashlight in on our sleeping kids. They were very nice and made small talk (most of which we couldn't quite understand because of the deep southern accents though we laughed and smiled along) and sent us on our way. I immediately got on FB (via my phone) and asked if there was some excitement happening where we were and thought perhaps we'd be featured on the next "Dateline" special or something.
My friends responded that this is something that they do in the south to look for drunk drivers and such. I can't imagine that ever happening around here on our roads. I was a bit disappointed about the lack of excitement, but the whole thing did make for some good blog fodder. By the time we got to where we were staying, Z was the only one still awake. We called my parents who joined us with a luggage rack and suddenly the troops were all up and raring to go! In fact the littlest Doran ended up spending the night in our room and that picture below would be the time on the clock when I finally took my glasses off and laid my weary head upon my pillow (right before it got body-slammed by a wide awake two year old). Thankfully he fell asleep soon after~ or perhaps he just knocked me unconscious...