Adventures and Mishaps at Ariane's

After a long, very long, car ride, we arrived at Ariane and Matt's house. We left at 8:30 am Monday morning and arrived at 1:15 in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. We even gained an hour on the way because of the time change, so that makes it a 17.5 hour trip! I don't know if I've ever been nearer insanity then I was at that point and that's saying a lot!
We spent all week at my sister's house and left Sunday morning. The ride home was a lot shorter and the kids were much better behaved, thank goodness! We left about 6:45am and got home about 11:15pm, so it was only 15.5 hours on the way home. We only stopped for gas and food (I let the kids eat in the car while I fed Elias). Even though the ride back was much more bearable, I still don't know if I'll do that trip alone again.
While visiting Ariane, we went to IKEA (our favorite store ever), visited almost all the thrift stores within a 20 mile radius (we love thrift stores, too!), and had an adventure in Seattle. We got to Seattle later than we were planning because we went there after IKEA. By the time we found a parking place and unloaded all 5 kids and walked to Pike Place Fish Market, it was closed! We heard that the library is cool, so we loaded the kids up again and drove around for a while, trying to find it. Jonas (my 17-month-old nephew) threw up when we were almost there, and then threw up again once we got there. We cleaned up the puke in the parking garage at the library, but by the time everything was cleaned up and clothes were changed, the library had just closed. My kids were about to wet their pants, but they wouldn't even unlock the bathroom to let them use it, even though we made it into the building before they locked the library. To top it off, we had to pay for parking! Oh, yeah! After all the puking, getting lost, and arriving too late, we forgot to drive by the Space Needle, so my kids didn't even get to see it. We didn't even realize we forgot it until we were almost to Ariane's house.
After the trip to Seattle, we decided we needed a nice relaxing day at home, so I convinced Ariane that we should paint Jonas' room. (What was I thinking? I don't know--grumpy kids+ puking child + nursing baby + painting = a ton o fun, right?!) Anyway, Ariane and I painted Jonas' room with three colors. We did a solid all around the bottom half of the room and stripes with two different colors on the top. It looks pretty cute. She's going to hang a wall paper border inbetween the two. It wasn't that hard because Jonas slept most of the day (when he wasn't recycling his lunch) and my older kids played outside in the rain and watched movies. Elias played in the crib in the middle of the room while we painted. I had hoped to paint her kitchen, too, but we didn't get that far! Me and my big ideas!
Overall, I was glad that I made the trip, chaotic and long as it was. I was really happy to get to see Matt before he got deployed (love ya, Matt!) and it was fun to visit my sister. I look forward to seeing her again at Disneyland and my kids are excited to see their cousin again.