Pensacola Beach Vacation - Day 1 (The drive)

Technically today (Wednesday) is the first full day of vacation, but driving almost 9 hours with an almost 6 month and almost 3 year old most definitely deserves its own post.  I have to be honest, I wasn't sure how Marshall would make it.  On trips to Paris only 2 hours away, he usually makes it 1 hour before he starts whimpering and by the time we're within 1/2 hour of our destination, it's a full-out wail!  However, I'm impressed.  We left the house at 1:15, but had to go back after some pants for Travis, had to go to Walgreens for prescriptions, had to go to Sonic, etc., so it was actually 2 before we left Memphis.  He napped and whimpered off and on for the first 2 hours and I thought it was going to be a disaster trip.  After his 4 PM feeding though, he was great!  We stopped several times for potty breaks for Jack or feeding/diaper breaks for Marshall, but after his 7:30 feeding (his bedtime feeding at home), he slept the rest of the way and went right down in the Pack n' Play at the hotel.  Now I have to confess.  We hooked up his portable DVD player, so he watched Free Willy 2 the whole way with Jack.  I feel awful about it, but hey, a parent's got to do what a parent's got to do to save sanity and after staying up until 2 AM packing and packing again all day long until we left, I was running a little short on patience.

This picture was taken mainly for my mom with the caption "Mommy decided I drive better than Daddy".  We left Paris on Sunday and Mom and Grandmother followed us most of the way to Jackson.  We were headed back to Memphis and they were headed to Jackson to shop and the reason I say most of the way is that Travis was making Mom so nervous driving that she dropped back and slowed down just to let us get away from her.  Travis is a fine driver, but he is used to being the car alone, so it took a bit of an adjustment for him to be in the car with the 3 of us.

Not to leave Jack out, but driving a long distance with him was never a worry of mine.  For any of you who know Jack, you know that he's a pretty easy kid.  I cringe as I type this because I know his grandparents are smiling and thinking "I told you so" right now because they are constantly telling us we don't know how lucky we are.  We are lucky and we do know it, but Jack has his moments just like any other kid.  However, Jack really is so good.  He's a hard act to follow for Marshall.  Anyways, he napped for maybe an hour and watched Free Willy 2 over and over and over.  Oh and he asked questions..."Where are we going?", "What are we going to the beach for?", "Why?", "What's it called?", "What's it called that for?", etc.  He's at that age and I'm trying so very hard to remain patient and answer his questions, but I even have to admit that all I wanted last night was silence.  It's becoming very apparant that silence is something I quite possibly won't have for a very long time.  Here's Jack during one of his very few silent moments.  I bought that monkey pillow for him for Christmas because he almost always sleeps in the carseat with his "binkies" behind his neck.  Well, until this trip, it's never been used, but when I saw his poor head hanging down, I slipped it into place and it worked pretty well.