"Are we at Little Rock yet?"

Late Friday afternoon Paul called me and asked if I wanted to go to Little Rock, Arkansas. He had some meetings he needed to attend there (reasons I will go into later.......if it pans out). "Sure," I said....."do we need to make flight reservations?" His response, "I thought we could rent a car and drive." Oh, wow! Let me just say this is a nine hour drive......without stops. Throw two kids under the age of six into the mix and it becomes a ten and a half hour drive. We spent most of Saturday getting prepared for the journey of a lifetime. The furthest we had ever driven with the kids was back in July when we went to South Padre. So this was a journey in my mind.

We picked up the Tahoe from Enterprise and then began buying lots of car snacks. We also had to find accommodations for our 62 pound baby, there was no way we were taking Jules. Our sweet next door neighbor offered to dog sit and keep her at her house. We told Tyson we were planning a road trip to Little Rock. "Oh awesome......what's Little Rock?" My son loves a good hotel breakfast and a road trip. I don't think he knew just how long of a road trip this was going to be. We were on the road by 7:30 am and arrived in 10 short hours. The kids watched movies and the portable DVD players....and by movies I mean they each watched their own. God forbid they agree on the same one to watch, that would be too easy. They snacked-----A LOT. Tyson counted to 100 at least twenty times and read EVERY road sign we passed and Emmy sang songs that only Emmy could understand. All in all the trip was pretty good, the kids did suprisingly well. I'm pretty sure the highlight of the trip for the kids was the fish pond in the lobby of the hotel. You got to love Embassy Suites. Every morning the kids would go down and "see the fishies" before they ate breakfast.

We spent most of out time there driving around and checking out the local scene and eating out. Little Rock is a beautiful place. It was actually fall. They have seasons there. We explained to Tyson that these trees had different color leaves due to the cooler temperatures (ie. fall) not because there had been a drought and the trees had died, like at home. As we drove through the neighborhoods the leaves blew in the wind. It was quite scenic.

The drive home was a little longer, it took us close to eleven hours due to some rain and the fact that we happen to hit Austin at 5:00. Anyone who has driven the I35 stretch knows you NEVER go through Austin at 5. Well, we did and I was ready to throw myself out the window. But figured that would just prolong the drive even more. So I remained in the truck an played with my new phone(mine died while we were there). Anyway, we got home around eight Wednesday night, threw the kids in the tub and they were in bed by nine. Ahhh!!!! Home sweet home.