Retreat to South Carolina!

The end of February we decided to take a long weekend and go visit Patrick and Whitney in South Carolina. It was still FREEZING here and we were all sick of the cold. Plus we were dying to see all their happy faces :) We were a LITTLE nervous for the 12+ hour drive, and decided that driving through the night was our best option for heading down there.  We left around 6 at night. Lucy was asleep by 7 and Sadie followed shortly after. Cole (the silly boy) stayed up until almost 10 watching movies :) I love that kid. I think he feels so big when he get to be up past every one else. As soon as Sadie was asleep I started trying to sleep. Devin drove as long as he could. I took over around 2 and drove until Sadie woke up in the morning. We made there as everyone was waking up. It was perfect except for the exhaustion that hit later that day :) Here are the pictures we took...There are quite a few :)

I love this sequence-just watch Sadie's face!

 

 

 Lucy and Alden Swinging

Everyone joined the fun. 

 And another sequence that makes me laugh every time :)

The kids discovered they could 

hid in and 

climb in 

 the bushes.

We got to ride bikes! 

 This one is super blurry, but I loved it.

  Alden and Cole as tigers. 

Sadie and Caelyn got to have some one-on-one bonding while the rest of the kids napped. 

This one was funny because these two kept bonking each other on the heads with that clown toy.

 Caelyn got lots of love from the kids :)

We went to the zoo in Greenville. It is a great zoo, on the smaller side but nice because you can get through it in a couple of hours.

 At the Giraffes

 Everyone on the bear :)

There is a really cool playground by the zoo parking.  

We lost track of Lucy at one point, I looked over and she was WAY over at the big kid playground...She wanted to go spin with all those girls.

 Cole was pretty proud of himself for climbing so high

 this is where Sadie was the whole time we were at the park.

The boys went frisbee golfing one afternoon and there was a castle park where we took the kids for a bit. It was pretty incredible and they LOVED running through the castle (even though it worried Whitney and I, we let them  do it multiple times).

These pictures are the only ones I have of that park, but for good reason. Whitney said this was the first time Leigh had ever climbed down this rope bridge. She was SO cute and so nervous and SO proud of herself while she was doing it so I had to take some pictures.

The can-do kids...

both of them are of the mindset that, 'if mom doesn't know they can keep going/doing/etc' :)

They had finished their lunch and we offered them a few candies, they ended up eating almost the whole box because we got distracted! lol, it was so cute. I came over and Leigh was pouring more out of the box saying, "Do you like this kind?' to which Cole replied, "Oh yeah, yeah, that is my favorite"

We had a relaxing WARM sunday. It got up to 70 degrees! I was SO happy. We played outside the whole afternoon it was great!

We took off Monday morning for our SUPER long trip that turned into an even longer trip because of a pretty bad accident we got stuck behind. 

Sadie and I took some selfies

We got to stop by and see a couple of our friends along the way but somehow didn't get any pictures....I was SO sad about that. My only regret for that trip.

We made it home around 12 that night. It was a long trip but so worth the time and lack of sleep :)