Across Country With Three Kids, a Dog, and Our Sanity {Part III}

The Road Trip Across America Saga Continues

Welcome to Part 3 of my crazy road trip across America! If you’re just popping in, what the heck?!? I’m just kidding, it’s cool, you can catch up here: Part 1 be warned though, you may need Kleenex or Xanax. Part 2  gets better but still… vodka. 🙂

 

So, where were we… ah yes, jamming to Kanye’s Homecoming while entering Chicagoland. We made it to our old home of 8+ years. We lost a day because by the time we got there it was late, we were tired and hungry. Before we set off for our hotel we drove past our old house.

                 (If you have been following me over the last few years, you may remember these pictures. 🙂  This is when I was trying to get this house on the market in a down market. :-/  We got an offer in less than a week! But we didn’t finish paperwork until months later.)

Homecoming 

That house was too small for our growing family, but it held a copious amount of memories. My husband and I were two young kiddos when we purchased this home, we had two little girls and a furry one too. We had no idea we would one day bring a little boy home there too.

Anyway, we drove by the house, and I wanted to jump out of the truck and ring everyone’s doorbell to announce we had arrived, but we were dirty, hungry, and we all looked like… what’s that word… BUSTED! We would come back, so I thought…

We made it to our hotel, not the one in Chicago because we decided to drop Chicago from our trip (because of the whole accident and losing a day thing). We had to cancel plans with my husband’s friends. We ended up staying in Naperville, which is where we lived. Well to be honest, our house was in the township of Naperville, which was not technically in Naperville.  We were so happy to show up in a real hotel, one that was not appointed to us because there was only one to choose from. This hotel was gorgeous there was a fireplace, pool tables, snacks, friendly faces!!  And there we were, the hot mess squad.

The computer at the front desk was acting up, so we had to wait a little bit to finally make it to our room, but oh when we did…

via GIPHY

We thought we would clean up and go out, but that didn’t happen. We had beds calling us and room service… 😉 and mama and papa had rum and ginger ales too 🙂 My husband and I didn’t have to share a bed with a kid! It was nice, really nice. 😉 It must have been nice for everyone because we all slept in! Those hotel blackout curtains are no joke!!!

Apparently, while we were deep in our merry slumber it sprinkled overnight, and when your tarp is a blanket, things get damp. :O  BOO! We decided to eat at one of our favorite places for brunch and then head to Lowe’s to purchase a real tarp and heavy duty ratchet straps. The day just kind of flew by. We went to the mall because we lost Homie. I was determined to get a new homie for my son. 🙂

About 4 years ago my little guy picked out & created Homie at @BuildABear. On Wednesday we lost Homie. I went back to the truck and pulled him out before I thought it was about to flip. ( I realize that was crazy, but Homie is and was important to m’little guy + the truck never flipped. The officer also gave me permission to get blankets from the truck too.) Between warming up with blankets, a thousand hugs & kisses, plus taking separate tow trucks to our hotel, we lost Homie. ? Since I knew we were stopping in Naperville, we decided to stop in @BuildaBear. We couldn’t find the same monkey, but we did find a wookie. ? I have one happy little guy in the back of the truck cuddling his Chewbacca while watching Star Wars.

A photo posted by Mrs.AOK (@mrs_aok) on Aug 15, 2015 at 1:22pm PDT

My eldest daughter went to visit her best friend, which made me insanely happy. I sadly didn’t get to see any of my friends, I want a redo. Again, the day got away from us and the traffic there is INSANE. (We also had to go shopping for “going out” clothes, because someone only brought travel clothes, even though he said he could finish packing. His nice clothes were in the boxes in transit to WA. Whoops!)

Reunited And It Feels So Gooood

When we all reunited we ended up going to Downtown Naperville. Downtown Naperville is special to me. It’s the place two broke kids would go to with their baby girl and walk around and look at all the shops and maybe, just maybe, if they had enough money they would buy a coffee and read a few books at the huge Barnes & Noble. Their life would change, he would join the ARMY (again), they would move back to Texas, he would go to war, and she would say no more. Those kids were happy to come back to their stomping ground with one more kid years later (and make another).

We’re not kids anymore, but we have a gaggle of them.  🙂 When you have a gaggle of kids of course you go fill them up with sugar!  #SayWhat

Le Chocolat was a favorite celebration spot for: birthdays, good report cards, the holiday light ceremony, Saturdays, and guests.

I mean really, can you get enough cookie shots? I think not. Right, Tamara?

Excuse the picture quality…

 

I love this city and I LOVE this boy!!!!! Always dancing 🙂  (Sorry this video is sideways.)

 

So, Downtown Naperville puts up different sculptures every year. The kids can get maps and find them all. The last time I was there, over the holidays, they had gingerbread men and women. 🙂       You can see all of the car sculptures here.

This candy store is the best!! They have a vent that pumps out the heavenly aroma of popcorn and candy, and that’s it, you have to go in! We stocked up on candy for the road. Again, what were we thinking with all that sugar: Ummm… a) we needed it b) we deserved it c) we were happy and alive. I could keep going… let’s go with d) all of the above 🙂

Before we could walk somewhere for dinner, it started to rain. We didn’t park in the garage parking. Therefore, we decided it was best if we left, which made me a bit sad. It didn’t just rain, it poured! We picked up some Italian beef sandwiches and called it a night.

 

We got back on the road rather reluctantly in the morning. We were all sad to go, we didn’t get to do all things we had on our list, we didn’t get to see all the people on our list, and for a day we had all the bliss that we didn’t have the past few days before. We set off with Chicagoland in our review mirror and the storm ahead…

Have you been to Chicagoland? What’s your favorite thing to eat when you visit your hometown?

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,  Part 4,   End of the road

Thanks for following along!! XOXO