Last week we headed to Detroit for the annual Jeppson family turkey week/end. This was our 4th year traveling to Joe's Dad's home, but our first time renting a minivan for the week. It definitely made the trip much more enjoyable and comfortable, and was still cheaper than flying (tickets were outrageous!).
We left KC on Tuesday morning, and headed north through Iowa, so that we could stop outside Chicago for a visit to an outlet mall and a late dinner at Lou Malnati's before continuing on toward Detroit. This year we loaded a bunch of Disney movies onto the ipad, loaded the storage bins in the van with toys, books and snacks, and not surprisingly, Joseph tolerated the long hours stuck in his car seat really well.
We stopped for the night in Michigan City, IN a little before midnight, knowing we'd need to get up and moving early Wednesday morning to finish the last few hours of driving. We had made arrangements with Linda to pick up her, Mike and the kids from the airport before heading to Joe 5's house.
We spent most of Wednesday afternoon visiting with everyone and letting the kids play before Thursday morning's turkey trot race. This year, Lisa, Dan, James, Ruthie, Linda, Ethan, Joe, Joseph and I all headed to the Cobo Center for the annual race. The little kids ran the Mashed Potato Mile, while Lisa, Linda, Joe and I had planned on doing the 10K. Since the weather was nice (for Detroit, anyway), we opted to bring Joseph and Joe pushed him in the jogging stroller. Joseph wasn't a big fan of being out in the race, probably due partially to waking up so early and having to sit still in the cold for so long. After the race was over, we let him run around for a bit and that seemed to cheer him up.
Joseph really was not interested in being picked up and held for a photo, so this was the best one we got at the end of the race.
He and Ethan had lots of fun going up the escalator and stairs as we made our way to the top of the parking garage attached to the Cobo Center. The last escalator was turned off, so Joseph ended up climbing the entire escalator all by himself! And yes, we left him in his jammies for the morning, and just added layers on top to make sure he was warmed enough. He didn't seem to mind at all.
All that early morning exercise apparently wore them both out, because before long, they were both sound asleep:
This was the first time the babies were in the same place together, and they were both so cute! They were old enough to be aware of the other and spent lots of time checking each other out.
Joseph also took a while to figure them out and decided that a tall perch overlooking the living room would be the best way to keep an eye on the whole situation. See his little head peering out from the top of the stairs?
After he realized they weren't a true threat, he really warmed up to them and by the end of the trip, spent lots of time trying to give each one kisses.
Playing cars with Grandpa. Unfortunately, we don't get to see Grandpa Joe or Grandma Dianne nearly as much as his other two sets of grandparents, so it took a while for Joseph to warm up to them. By the end of the trip, though, he had figured out that Grandpa Joe was quite alright and enjoyed playing with him.
I think we've been bowling as a big group every year, and this was no exception. Although I think this was the first time we've needed three lanes to handle everyone! The kiddos got their own lane, complete with bumpers and the ball ramp thingy. Joseph really enjoyed his first game of bowling, even if he started to lose focus at the end.
Somehow, both babies managed to sleep through the entire event! They stayed wrapped up in their carriers all night, and both Lisa and Linda were able to bowl (and keep them sleeping) while they were wearing them!
At first, Joseph would sit right on the edge of the lane and watch Joe. Then he figured out that there was plenty of other things to do at the alley and wouldn't sit still for very long.
Ruthie took another approach to watching the games...
As I took this set of photos, Joseph managed to score his first spare! You can tell from Joe's expression that something big had just happened, but Joseph didn't really have a clue what was going on.
About 2/3 of the way through their game, the kids discovered the arcade games that were situated right behind the lanes. At that point, they were having too much fun playing with the games and so it took some convincing to get them to finish up with bowling.
Saturday we got dressed for family pictures and headed to Cranbrook. Joe 5 told us about this neat traveling bat exhibit at their science museum, which is situated on acres of beautiful land, along with schools, an art museum and apartments for staff/faculty. Luckily the weather was really nice for the entire trip, so we didn't have to worry about snow, rain or it being too chilly to stay outside. We found some neat spots, so I'm excited to see how they turned out.
After we met back up with everyone and toured the bat exhibit, we decided to take a few pictures of all of the cousins together, since we hadn't gotten a good group shot all week. There were a bunch of boulders that the bigger kids had lots of fun climbing and running around while we got the babies ready for the photos.
Apparently, when you add a couple of infants to the mix, along with chilly temps and toddlers who can't sit still for very long, group photo shoots take a while to get everyone situated and require lots of distractions in the background to keep all those little faces looking the same direction!
All in all, it was a great week long trip, and we really enjoyed getting to spend so much time with everyone. Joe and Dianne were great hosts, even giving us run of their house while they stayed in a hotel, providing great food and entertainment, and a wonderful environment to visit and hang out. Looking forward to making it 5 years in 2012!
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