A week spent in PA

We headed back to PA early Saturday morning in order to arrive by noon and not have an entire day which would feel wasted by travel. The kids were great with Robert only fussing occasionally and two stops made for potty breaks. (One being a false alarm on a dirty diaper.)

The goal of this trip was to spend some time with the family before the kids went back to school and to take care of my grandmother while my parents went out of town to TX. Luckily they were not leaving until Tuesday so we were able to visit with them before they left and I was also able to fit in some quality time at the hospital with my brother while my sister-in-law went under the knife for a neck operation.

The first day home was spent with the kids traipsing around down at the campground, in and out of the creek water and running all over the place with neither one of them wanting the day to end. So they both decided to spend the night with Uncle Dan and Aunt Dina until Matt changed his mind and made Uncle Dan take him home to Mommy. ("I'm serious," Matt told him.)

Another afternoon storm clouds began rolling in with plenty of thunder following suit. The skies opened up to a torrential downpour and the temperature had dropped 20 degrees in a matter of an hour when suddenly the pounding of rain turned to something much harder. As we looked out the window we saw a hail storm like none we've ever seen. Now I've seen larger balls of hail before but I've never seen an accumulation like the one that day. It took over two hours for the hail to melt and after it was over I took some pictures to remember the craziness.

Here is a shot of the fog rolling off of the hill as the temperatures were still in a crazy flux...

Tuesday rolled around, Mom and Dad left town and I was left with the 3 kids and Grandma, hoping and praying that we wouldn't drive her up the wall. Fortunately, Megan and Matt spent two nights with Aunt Tam, Uncle Bill and the girls so some of the chaos was alleviated. Grandma and I didn't need to worry about entertainment while they were away because Robert certainly took care of that for us. He climbed up the stairs 100 times a day (of which I brought him back down another 100 times), worked on perfecting his walking skills (ok, so he's still working on that) and kept us laughing with his own crazy personality.

Here he is devouring the can of icing that Aunt Janet left sitting out.

We ended our trip that week at a cousin's 3rd birthday party after which we began our drive back north around 7pm. As is usual, for most of the ride home I sat and thought about how much I miss being back there. Life is quieter there and of course I miss being close to my family. But as I cross the CT state line I always get a bit antsy to go back to my own home, to my own bed, to my hubby and all that has become my life over the past 9 years up here. That last hour of my drive just never seems to go by fast enough.