Road Trip!

On Saturday, our family took a road trip to New York to visit our friends Kelli and James. We typically make this trip for New Years but didn’t make it there this past January, so we were due!

Scott and I were both a little bit weary about taking Brinley on a 4 hour car. To prepare we went out and bought a portable DVD player that she could use in the car. Much to our surprise we didn’t even turn it on on the way there. For the first leg of the trip Brinley amused herself by reading books in the back seat. She also went through what we affectionately call a “brain dump”. This is when she will just start spitting out almost everything she knows back to back. It usually goes something like this: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, the ABCs, counting to 11 three or four times, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, more ABCs, more counting… etc. When she’s done she often asks Scott and I to sing some of her songs as well. Its quite amusing.

We stopped for lunch about 3 hours into the trip. I’m not entirely sure where we were but we stopped at Friendly’s for about an hour. Then we made a quick pit stop at my all time favorite store, Target. Once we were back in the car, Brinley fell asleep and slept for the remainder of the ride. Scott and I got to have some much needed adult conversation.

We spent 3 nights with Kelli and James. They are such awesome hosts. They made sure to plan fun things for us to do that would also be fun for Brinley. On Sunday we went over to James’ parents house and had a BBQ and went swimming. Brinley got to run around and play in the yard and got to go swimming in the pool. The water was a bit cold but she didn’t seem to mind (daddy was a bit chilly and mommy chose not to go in).
On Monday we went to the Bronx Zoo. This was the highlight of the trip. We were joined by Kelli and James’ friends Carlos and Sarah and their children Little Carlos and Gabby. It took us about an hour to get to the zoo from their house but the ride was sooo worth it. Though at first we thought the day was going to be a bust since it began to torrential downpour less than 5 minutes after we purchased our tickets. Luckily there were a few indoor exhibits that we could escape to. Once the rain stopped we began our tour of the zoo. Brinley was in awe. I’ve never heard her say “wow” so many times. She was so excited to see all of the animals. Her favorites were the giraffes and the zweebas (zebras). Scott and I were equally amazed by the animals. (Please check Brinley’s website for pictures of the animals that we saw.) On the ride home from the zoo we stopped for dinner and then headed back to Kelli and James’ house where we watched the Olympics and played Rockband (which Scott and I will be purchasing soon!).

Our visit came to an end on Tuesday morning. We packed up the car and set up the DVD player for Brinley figuring that we wouldn’t be as lucky the second time around. We put Finding Nemo on but Brinley only lasted about a half hour with it. She is not quite yet capable of following a plot of a feature length film. We made a pit stop and changed the DVD for her. We drove about 2 and a half hours before stopping at Ted’s Montana Grill in Connecticut for lunch. This was quite an experience. Ted’s is a totally environmentally friendly restaurant. Their straws are made from cardboard and their take home containers are made from CORN! It was pretty cool. We got burgers and they were pretty good but about 4 inches thick so a bit difficult to eat. After lunch Brinley fell asleep for the rest of the ride home. We had an awesome visit with our friends who we don’t get to see quite often enough!!