dallas, sweet dallas!
i am writing this blog more for myself & gabe than anyone else. i want to remember every detail of our final adoption trip to dallas. so i figured blogging about it would help me "write" it down.
my dad decided to skip this trip. BOOOOOO. so my mom, gabe, jay & i loaded my parents minivan and left town around 8:45pm tuesday, july 18. yes, 8pm. we figured we'd drive thru the night so gabe would sleep most of the trip!
my mom is an animal. she has more energy than anyone...ever. jay likes to stay up late so we figured between the two of them we'd be fine going all night. notice i wasn't part of that equation at all. i'm worse than gabe. i think i even went to sleep before he did...
the WORST idea i had was to take tylenol pm a couple hours into the trip. oh gosh. i don't sleep well on road trips so i thought some tylenol pm would put me out and i'd sleep like a champ! well, bad news. there's NO good place to sleep in that dang van. so i was highly drugged and uncomfortable! if i could've stayed awake i would've rather just been miserably tired. instead i was miserably tired & sore. bad idea.
mom & jay pushed through though! gabe and i woke up a couple times. at one point we stopped for gas/snack/potty break (at like 2am). the gas station we stopped at had motorcycle guys and hot rod teenagers everywhere! i couldn't help but laugh wondering if gabe thought...."so this is what happens when they put me in that crib at night??" ha!
i finally gave up on decent rest about 6:15am. we were pretty close to dallas at that point. we discussed the night before that we wanted to stop at cracker barrel for breakfast sometime around 7am. so we started our hunt for a place to stop.
gabe was starting to get hungry and we needed gas so we stopped. no joke, this gas station would let you get gas but not let you in. stupid. i could see the girl!! she wouldn't let me in. i was holding a baby bottle and my urine (ha!)
so i had to play dang frogger across a 4 line highway to hit the station across the street. stupid. i was half drugged, about to wet my pants, wearing flip flops and probably looking homeless. awesome.
anyway, we left there somewhat disappointed b/c my mom asked a texan getting gas if there were cracker barrels anywhere close. he said no :( we probably wouldn't have cared if we hadn't been thinking about it for 12 hours...
no worries. we started looking up places on GPS. i had just about given up and decided we were going to have to eat crap for bfast when i....i saw a sign!!!!!! 40 miles to cracker barrel. bring on the biscuits!
i wish i could've seen what we looked like walking in that morning. i bet we all looked HORRIBLE. we didnt care. we were close to dallas and about to eat :) i think i drank 8 cups of coffee and got one to go. i also had the best oatmeal, egg whites & turkey sausage. oh my. jay ate everything on the menu and mom had a yogurt parfait that gabe ate mostly.
we got back in the van and i finally took a turn driving :) we only made one stop between bfast and the hotel. exhausted jay came out of the gas station and couldn't find the van. it was hilarious. he was so sleepy.
after a couple hours (or less) i brought us into the promise land! yay!! thank GOD our hotel let us check in early. yeehaw!!
we went in, unpacked and settled in for a couple days in texas.
first priority - TEX MEX! we headed to uncle julio's. we loved it last time and had to go back. it was wonderful. we ate until we were about to vomit. then headed back for naps!
i chose to take my nap by the pool :) the other 3 slept inside. mom & gabe only slept an hour. jay slept over 3.
that night we got a redbox and played phase 10. i never cussed one time...believe it or not. i did in my mind...but kept it cool. i have a kid now ha!
we had drama with our house alarm going off several times that evening. jay kept getting emails and calls. craziness! we had our old neighbor & his precious wife go over and check things out :)
we didnt stay awake long enough to watch the movie.
the next morning i got up at 7 and hit the road for a run. thats one of my favorite things about being a runner. you can exercise anywhere! :) this time i decided to explore a new route. the one i ran in january was trafficy! (made that word up...)
i found the cutest little community!! addison circle. if you are in the dallas/addison area go there!! so quaint! fabulous shaded streets, beautiful park, trees everywhere...fun cafes, bakeries, bars, etc. great place.
after my run we went down to bfast at the hotel. this great place gives free bfast and dinner. yeet! but breakfast is the best meal. such great fresh fruit, GREAT coffee and tons of other stuff. i learned to like grapefruit at this place :) we took our time at bfast. it was so nice not to have a schedule.
we went back, played and showered for our day. first stop was lunch. (gotta love vacation!) a friend of jays from CCC invited us to come to his wifes restaurant. OH MY WORD. it was AMAZING!!!!!!! Ojedos. GO THERE. great, great food. wonderful tea. they put bacon in their refried beans.
their son was the sweetest little boy i think i've ever met. i fell in love with him.
after lunch we hit cavenders for some cowboy hats! found lots of cute stuff.
then we drove to dealy plaza and went to the kennedy museum. that was really interesting.
i had to take mom, g and jay to addison circle. so we went there for supper. we found a great place for mediterranean food. YUM. homemade hummus & pita, falafels (sp?), gyro's and baklava. oh my!!
we went by a cute bakery and walked through the cute town before heading back to the hotel.
we were beat! sweet gabe. i cannot brag on that kid enough. he was an angel on the 12 hour trip (both ways!) and never fussed while we drug him all over HOT dallas! what an amazing boy.
once we got "home" we all got in comfy clothes, put gabe down and watched our redbox. we finally rented man on a ledge. good movie. i figured it out early on but it was still entertaining.
i went to sleep pretty early b/c i had a 5am alarm set! i slept like a ROCK both nights. i LOVE dark hotel rooms. ahh, such good sleep.
enjoyed my last dallas run friday morning and got ready for court. we had to rush through bfast to get out the door in time. that wasnt fun. i took 2 cups of coffee to go :)
court was really sweet & easy. we waited on paperwork more than anything. the judge was so kind. she smiled the entire time. the whole courtroom did! which was funny b/c there were lots of folks in there for less fun reasons than adoption :) our lawyer asked us a million questions. i just smiled like an idiot. the judge gave gabe a beany baby that belonged to her adopted boys :) how sweet it that???
she also signed his cowboy hat! along with our lawyer and Gabes foster parents. it was really great to see them again. precious, precious people. they brought baby #96 with them to visit with us!! his name was malachai. he was so darn cute.
after meeting with them, we packed up. hit up one more tex mex joint! and hit the road for Georgia. we left around 2pm GA time. i won't lie. about 4 hours from home i thought i might lose it. but after 12 hours and 1 stop for dinner WE MADE IT HOME!!!!!!!!!!
side note - our waiter at dinner was not the sharpest guy we'd ever met. zero sense of humor. we asked for a side of mashed potatoes for gabe. he said "uhh, i'm going to have to charge you for that..." okkk! what?
yes, 2:30am we pulled into our house.
gabe was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy to be in his crib. bless his heart!! we all slept hard that night.
saturday we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary and gabe NEVER being referred to as "baby boy" again on paperwork. praise the Lord.
less than a year from the time we started our home study he was legally ours. i love it.
*i'm sure i forgot lots of fun details. hopefully mom & jay can fill in any gaps!
my dad decided to skip this trip. BOOOOOO. so my mom, gabe, jay & i loaded my parents minivan and left town around 8:45pm tuesday, july 18. yes, 8pm. we figured we'd drive thru the night so gabe would sleep most of the trip!
my mom is an animal. she has more energy than anyone...ever. jay likes to stay up late so we figured between the two of them we'd be fine going all night. notice i wasn't part of that equation at all. i'm worse than gabe. i think i even went to sleep before he did...
the WORST idea i had was to take tylenol pm a couple hours into the trip. oh gosh. i don't sleep well on road trips so i thought some tylenol pm would put me out and i'd sleep like a champ! well, bad news. there's NO good place to sleep in that dang van. so i was highly drugged and uncomfortable! if i could've stayed awake i would've rather just been miserably tired. instead i was miserably tired & sore. bad idea.
mom & jay pushed through though! gabe and i woke up a couple times. at one point we stopped for gas/snack/potty break (at like 2am). the gas station we stopped at had motorcycle guys and hot rod teenagers everywhere! i couldn't help but laugh wondering if gabe thought...."so this is what happens when they put me in that crib at night??" ha!
i finally gave up on decent rest about 6:15am. we were pretty close to dallas at that point. we discussed the night before that we wanted to stop at cracker barrel for breakfast sometime around 7am. so we started our hunt for a place to stop.
gabe was starting to get hungry and we needed gas so we stopped. no joke, this gas station would let you get gas but not let you in. stupid. i could see the girl!! she wouldn't let me in. i was holding a baby bottle and my urine (ha!)
so i had to play dang frogger across a 4 line highway to hit the station across the street. stupid. i was half drugged, about to wet my pants, wearing flip flops and probably looking homeless. awesome.
anyway, we left there somewhat disappointed b/c my mom asked a texan getting gas if there were cracker barrels anywhere close. he said no :( we probably wouldn't have cared if we hadn't been thinking about it for 12 hours...
no worries. we started looking up places on GPS. i had just about given up and decided we were going to have to eat crap for bfast when i....i saw a sign!!!!!! 40 miles to cracker barrel. bring on the biscuits!
i wish i could've seen what we looked like walking in that morning. i bet we all looked HORRIBLE. we didnt care. we were close to dallas and about to eat :) i think i drank 8 cups of coffee and got one to go. i also had the best oatmeal, egg whites & turkey sausage. oh my. jay ate everything on the menu and mom had a yogurt parfait that gabe ate mostly.
we got back in the van and i finally took a turn driving :) we only made one stop between bfast and the hotel. exhausted jay came out of the gas station and couldn't find the van. it was hilarious. he was so sleepy.
after a couple hours (or less) i brought us into the promise land! yay!! thank GOD our hotel let us check in early. yeehaw!!
we went in, unpacked and settled in for a couple days in texas.
first priority - TEX MEX! we headed to uncle julio's. we loved it last time and had to go back. it was wonderful. we ate until we were about to vomit. then headed back for naps!
i chose to take my nap by the pool :) the other 3 slept inside. mom & gabe only slept an hour. jay slept over 3.
that night we got a redbox and played phase 10. i never cussed one time...believe it or not. i did in my mind...but kept it cool. i have a kid now ha!
we had drama with our house alarm going off several times that evening. jay kept getting emails and calls. craziness! we had our old neighbor & his precious wife go over and check things out :)
we didnt stay awake long enough to watch the movie.
the next morning i got up at 7 and hit the road for a run. thats one of my favorite things about being a runner. you can exercise anywhere! :) this time i decided to explore a new route. the one i ran in january was trafficy! (made that word up...)
i found the cutest little community!! addison circle. if you are in the dallas/addison area go there!! so quaint! fabulous shaded streets, beautiful park, trees everywhere...fun cafes, bakeries, bars, etc. great place.
after my run we went down to bfast at the hotel. this great place gives free bfast and dinner. yeet! but breakfast is the best meal. such great fresh fruit, GREAT coffee and tons of other stuff. i learned to like grapefruit at this place :) we took our time at bfast. it was so nice not to have a schedule.
we went back, played and showered for our day. first stop was lunch. (gotta love vacation!) a friend of jays from CCC invited us to come to his wifes restaurant. OH MY WORD. it was AMAZING!!!!!!! Ojedos. GO THERE. great, great food. wonderful tea. they put bacon in their refried beans.
their son was the sweetest little boy i think i've ever met. i fell in love with him.
after lunch we hit cavenders for some cowboy hats! found lots of cute stuff.
then we drove to dealy plaza and went to the kennedy museum. that was really interesting.
i had to take mom, g and jay to addison circle. so we went there for supper. we found a great place for mediterranean food. YUM. homemade hummus & pita, falafels (sp?), gyro's and baklava. oh my!!
we went by a cute bakery and walked through the cute town before heading back to the hotel.
we were beat! sweet gabe. i cannot brag on that kid enough. he was an angel on the 12 hour trip (both ways!) and never fussed while we drug him all over HOT dallas! what an amazing boy.
once we got "home" we all got in comfy clothes, put gabe down and watched our redbox. we finally rented man on a ledge. good movie. i figured it out early on but it was still entertaining.
i went to sleep pretty early b/c i had a 5am alarm set! i slept like a ROCK both nights. i LOVE dark hotel rooms. ahh, such good sleep.
enjoyed my last dallas run friday morning and got ready for court. we had to rush through bfast to get out the door in time. that wasnt fun. i took 2 cups of coffee to go :)
court was really sweet & easy. we waited on paperwork more than anything. the judge was so kind. she smiled the entire time. the whole courtroom did! which was funny b/c there were lots of folks in there for less fun reasons than adoption :) our lawyer asked us a million questions. i just smiled like an idiot. the judge gave gabe a beany baby that belonged to her adopted boys :) how sweet it that???
she also signed his cowboy hat! along with our lawyer and Gabes foster parents. it was really great to see them again. precious, precious people. they brought baby #96 with them to visit with us!! his name was malachai. he was so darn cute.
after meeting with them, we packed up. hit up one more tex mex joint! and hit the road for Georgia. we left around 2pm GA time. i won't lie. about 4 hours from home i thought i might lose it. but after 12 hours and 1 stop for dinner WE MADE IT HOME!!!!!!!!!!
side note - our waiter at dinner was not the sharpest guy we'd ever met. zero sense of humor. we asked for a side of mashed potatoes for gabe. he said "uhh, i'm going to have to charge you for that..." okkk! what?
yes, 2:30am we pulled into our house.
gabe was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy to be in his crib. bless his heart!! we all slept hard that night.
saturday we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary and gabe NEVER being referred to as "baby boy" again on paperwork. praise the Lord.
less than a year from the time we started our home study he was legally ours. i love it.
*i'm sure i forgot lots of fun details. hopefully mom & jay can fill in any gaps!
I love it! Every word!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely adore you! Love your blog and love the fun side of you! You are an amazing wife, mom, daughter, friend, everything! So blessed to have your family in my life. Can't wait to get to know each other even better!
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