Strange sites, flying creatures, a wedding, screaming baby, rocking chairs, wrong directions, missed flight, new friends.

It's been 4 days since we've returned from our week long vacation and I think I'm still recovering. :)

We left July 4th, early in the morning for Pennsylvania. Aidan did pretty well on the flight, only fussing until we let him lie down on a pillow for a nap (he is very particular about how he sleeps).  After renting our car, we started on the almost 2 hour drive from Baltimore airport to my Grandma's house. Aidan fell fast asleep in his carseat (this is the one trip in the car that he actually did well on). We stopped at Wendy's for some lunch in this littly podunk town, had horrible service, and an interesting experience involving an old man peeing outside of Walgreens. Yes, you read that right. An elderly man was standing outside the door of his truck, parked near the entrance to Walgreens, pants down, relieving himself in the parking lot. It was the oddest thing I've ever seen.

Once at Grandma's we spent the rest of the day with family. Nathan and Sarah arrived with Xan and it was great getting to finally meet him. After such an exhausting day, we quickly tucked Aidan into bed and collapsed for the night. About an hour later, I woke to a weird sound. I thought maybe Aidan was stirring in his bed, so I got up to check on him. I couldn't see a thing because it was super dark so I went to lie back down. A couple minutes later I heard the noises again. Now, I thought it was an animal....maybe a chicken or something (not that a chicken would be at our second story window, but we were staying at my Grandma's friend's house that live on a farm, so it was somehow possible in light of those circumstances :) ). I nudged my sleeping husband and asked him to hand me his phone so I could check on Aidan again. I got up and walked over to his bed, letting the light shine eerily in the room. Aidan was as still as could be. Just as I was pondering that fact, I see something flying out of the corner of my eye. A bat! I freaked out and jumped back in bed, frantically pulling the covers over me. (On a side note: I feel somewhat guilty for not thinking to first protect my child from the creature, but I was so scared that all I could think was to get away from it) Seth woke up to me flailing my arms and pulling the covers and I whisperscreamed (that's a new word for what you do when something terrifies you, but you don't want to wake your sleeping baby) for him to turn on the lamp. He obediently turned on the light without really knowing what was going on. The next thing I hear is Seth whispershouting and peer out of the covers in time to see him ducking and flailing. The bat apparently swooped down to the ground and came right at him. Then all was quiet...the bat had disappeared behind the curtain nearest to Aidan's bed. Fearing for my child's safety, but more freaked out by that disgusting creature, I stayed put in bed with the covers ready around my head. Seth went to get some help. I ended up picking up Aidan and taking him to the other room while the owner of the house killed the thing with a tennis racket and then flushed it down the toilet. We then put Aidan back in bed and went to sleep (our precious little one didn't even stir). An hour later, I woke up to Seth flailing and falling out of bed. Apparently, he was dreaming the bat was coming at him again. All in all, we didn't get much sleep that first night.

The next day, we went to my cousin's wedding. Aidan had a rough time with having his naps interrupted and really let us know about it. I think he spent most of the day screaming his head off. We did capture at least one sweet moment together.



After such an exhausting day with Aidan, I was ready to come home, but he did better the next day during our family reunion at the camp. Here is a sweet picture of my sister and my sweet little nephew Xan.


The next day, we drove to Church House, an old church made into a summer home that is owned by my sister in law Sarah's family. It was a four hour trip that turned into a 7 hour one, with Aidan screaming most of the time to get out of his carseat. Needless to say, I was emotionally exhausted by the time we arrived. That evening we had a nice meal out on the porch and watched a storm come sweeping across the river. We had a relaxing couple of days there with my family and enjoyed floating down the river too. Here are a few pictures of Church house and our time there.

 Cousins!

 Church House

 I like this rocking chair!

 The beautiful view we had.

 Aunt Steph and Aidan

To end our trip, Seth and I drove to Baltimore airport from Church House. This was a 4 1/2 hour trip that we gave ourselves 8+ hours to make. We had to stop often to keep Aidan happy and thought we were making good time only to discover that when we were "almost there" we were really 2 hours away in a different direction. We were going to miss our flight! I am amazed that I never lost my cool during this part of the trip. It was 6:30 in the evening, we weren't going to make our 8:50 flight and the next one out was at 6:30 in the morning. We have a 3 month old who hates to travel, we are both tired, and we were just charged $350 to make the change. The Lord provides. We were blessed to meet some ladies that took us to their church so that we could use their computer. One of the ladies let us stay in her home until we left at 3:00 am to drive to the airport. We arrived, returned the vehicle, got on board, and sighed. :) Aidan did quite well with being flexible, despite his earlier travel preferences. Oh yeah, on the flight home, Seth realized he left his iPod in the rental car. He was pretty bummed out. It was immediately rented out again, so he didn't hear back from the rental company until yesterday. They found the iPod and will return it to him. Once again, a wonderful blessing. When we arrived home on Thursday, a day later than we expected and with little sleep, we all took a long 2 hour nap. Aidan was great and let us sleep that whole time with no interruptions.

I now officially need a vacation. :)