Alright Team Mezger - it's family vacation time. But this year we're not driving the familiar, short drive to Port A...we think it would be more fun to spend 15 hours in the car...and head to COLORADO!
You can call us crazy, but you can't say we're not adventurous. I think Bee was concerned about our sanity - so she made the kids these personalized goody bags for the trip.
But clearly she is the one that is slightly inside because she put gooey goo stuff (for a car trip???) and candy (so they can bounce off the walls of the van more than usual?). Good choices, mom! ;)
Alright, so Thursday before Kyle went in to work (overnight) we got all packed up) and when he got home Friday morning (thankfully he slept some at the hospital) we hit the road!!!
I think we actually drove for about an hour and a half (which is a stinking eternity in kid-car time) before the first movie went on. Ahhhhhh...headphones.
Later in the day Kyle jumped in the back to watch Despicable Me with the kids (and I put in headphones to listen to music) - it was amazing!
Crazy huge fields of wind turbines near Sweatwater.
Fun small world story: We stopped in Winters, TX at a Subway for lunch. Owner starts chatting to us - where are we headed kind of stuff. Long story short he remembered (by name!) my cousin Gared who he ran against in track when they were in high school. Of course I texted my aunt and before we were even on the road I'm pretty sure all of Stratford had heard the news of Gared's legendary status (from Gared)! :)
So, did I mention we were splitting the trip up into two days? We're not totally insane. We met the entire McBryde - my Auntie Joycie, my cousins Gared and Brad and their wives and combined 5 kids - for Mexican food in Etter.
Then we headed to AJs house to get some rest...after trying to figure out how to calm our totally hyper kids down. Three of the Stratford grand-cousins (is that a thing? I think it should be) - Kenlee and twins Ty and Walker (all 8th grade) played with our kids and ended up spending the night which was a hoot. Kenlee slept on the floor on a palet just in case our girls needed anything. So sweet!
The next morning we had breakfast at a diner (yay for kids table - just missing the oldest two grand-cousins).
And then headed to Main Street because the town was throwing us a parade!
Okay, not really for us - but I'm sure that's what our kids thought. We happened to be driving through the same weekend as the highschool reunion - aka "Stratford Days" so we got to take part in their parade. Everyone kept warning me to not have high expectations - just a fire truck, police car, and tractor or two and some other farm equipment and some decorated floats and lots of people throwing candy...really simple. (I had to tell them about our neighborhood 4th of July parade...that is essentially our neighborhood going on a walk together. I love Brykerwoods but our parade is not a parade. No floats, no candy, no spectators...its a neighborhood walk w/ kids on decorated bikes.)
Stratford Parade = now our kids don't need to go to Disney - it was that much fun!
Girls getting ready to catch some candy!
Waving at Kenlee on the truck!
Owen even got to participate - he road in the parade with the twins and helped throw candy!
The grand-cousins showed our kids a great time.
Me and AJ - the hostess with the mostess. We had to miss out on the town BBQ and dance that night - maybe next year! But always so great to see this crew.
And a special little treat - the Stratford Star (newspaper) had a series of photos from the parade - see the 3rd picture down - that little blond girl picking up candy in front of the float is MAGGIE!!!
Okay, so that was part one of our trek to Colorado...part two is coming up.
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