March brought us a few more snow showers and finally some warm weather with the start of Spring!!
Rose was involved in her final Middle School Play "Annie" and chose to be stage crew this time around. Our whole family put in lots of time building sets and the show was fabulous!
The following weekend Justin and Rose had daddy-daughter date night to see the "Wizard of Oz" at the High School.
Sometimes I get these cute pictures while I'm working...Justin is able to swing by school and pick up Rose so she doesn't have to ride the bus home, they even get treats!
And they are still the best dinner crew :) I love coming home to dinner ready to go!
Our kitten crew is still fabulous and growing fast!
They are also mischievious and and like carbs...
We got to cheer on Rose and the Middle School Jazz Band when they competed in a local festival and won several awards!
We also celebrated Easter the weekend before our trip with Rose going on a hunt for her basket
and decorating some eggs :)
Spring Break Roadtrip 2026!!
We covered 13 states, with over 50 hours in the car driving 2,600 miles :)
The first part was making it down to South Carolina, we started Friday night and drove a few hours before sleeping for the night. Our first stop was to load up on some snacks at Buc-ee's, Rose takes road trip snacks very serious :)
We were back at it Saturday morning with snacks and coffee.
We lunch stopped at Southern Tier outside of Charlotte, this was acutually our second time there and it was a great meal!
We made another snack stop at a Trader Joe's which unlike PA, sold wine!!
Mostly our hotels were pretty good, and we had lots of fun with luggage carts and requesting to stay on the highest floors possible :)
Our first adventure was Congaree National Park in South Carolina. We booked a kayak tour which was memorable for all of us :) About 15 minutes into the 3 hour tour Justin and Rose went for a swim, but still had a great time.
Then we had our Trader Joes's food for a picnic in the park
and explored several trails in the park
Lucky for us at this time of year the mosquito's weren't around yet :)
Rose also completed the Jr Ranger book and received another badge
All that fresh air made us hungry and we found the nicest little brewery (Good Girl Brewery) for dinner before driving to Atlanta.
Rose's request during the trip was to visit the Georgia Aquarium, which is the largest aquarium in the United States. We saw lots of animals and several shows.
Our best moment of the day was putting on wetsuits to meet some sharks and rays!
We all loved this experience and learned so much about sharks and rays. Show sharks some love!! They are very important to the ecosystem and do not want to eat you :)
For dinner we visited a Chick Fil A Dwarf House which did not disappoint! We all agreed it was one of our favorite meals of the trip :)
And we found the cute little dwarf!
From Atlanta it was our longest drive to head up to St Louis and visit family.
We were fueled by coffee and Buc-ee's
We made a quick little stop in Paducah, Ky for some more beverages and to see some sites.
There was the world's largest needle
And part of the Lewis and Clark trail
Then we kept going until we made it to Aunt Kate and her crew outside of St Louis.
Rose and Aunt Kate go waaaay back and I know Rose has missed time with Aunt Kate. These two made us a yummy breakfast and look how tall Rose is!!
We went with everyone to a children's museum in St. Louis and had a wonderful time exploring.
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We went out to a yummy brewery with the whole gang.
Rose and this little guy were best buds and she was ready to take him home with us :)
A fun surprise was that Kate now lives off of Rt 66
And has this giant catsup bottle down from her house! She loves it ;)
We also made a return visit to the St Louis Zoo. The penguins are still close enough to touch, but they won't let you..it's ok for the penguins to splash us though...
Some of the other animals we saw:
Rose just loved her Aunt Kate time :)
Uncle Justin was a hit with all the kids...especially because he had all the electronics :)
We headed out Friday morning, but before we left St Louis we made a return trip to the City Museum which is hard to describe, you just have to go!
We saw an axoltol
spun in our favorite chairs
Went down 5 story twisty slides
Got lost in caves and tunnels
Enjoyed some old pinball games
And found the world's largest pencil and underpants!
Then it was time to make the journey home. We pit stopped in Ohio for a night before heading through Pennsylvania with a stop at a favorite brewery for some food before getting home.
That's it!! Another epic road trip in the books with tons of memories to last forever :)
