Leaving on our family vacation & a birthday

I always have a hard time blogging after we come back from family vacations because there is so much to blog about and I'm never sure where to start - plus it takes a while to get unpacked and settled back down after we get home - plus this time around the kids started school as soon as we got back!

My husband's family decided to have their first family reunion this summer. DH's mom rented a house near the Oregon coast and so we drove up a day early and spent the night at his parents' house before we headed to the coast. The drive takes our family about 13 hours with stops so it is a long drive - especially for Baby K who can't understand why she has to stay strapped in her car seat all day long! We ended up leaving on Blondie's birthday so I brought a few presents with us for her to open in the car and at Grandma's house and told her that we would be having a family party for her with a few more presents after we got home from the vacation. Blondie was really good about it and loved the toy dog that she got, as well as new sunglasses and a pack of gum. We let her pick where we would stop for lunch (McDonald's with a playplace) and she brought a happy birthday button with her that she put on first thing when we got in the car to leave for our trip. The button was given to her by her kindergarten teacher the last week of school since her birthday was in the summer. DH got a kick out of seeing her wear the button around and whenever we were around other people she tried to draw their attention to it!

DH's mom was kind enough to have dinner for us when we arrived at their house and she even made a cake for Blondie for her birthday. Blondie was able to open another gift from us there as well as the gifts from DH's parents. Then we broke out the sleeping bags and set up the kids on the floor in the family room for the night.

Stretching out the legs at a rest stop.