Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long....

This was the theme song of our vacation and of really the last few weeks.

• Life is a highway and it keeps going even when you're on vacation and that helps describe how I feel now that we're back - lots to catch up with.
• The all night long part is also indicative our nights as Lydia continues to wake up at least twice at night. The 5-7am period is particularly difficult for sleep. (I'm trying white noise now and it seems to have helped a little but she's still getting up twice. I'm going to try not feeding her at night now.)
• Dylan has been singing this song because it's from the soundtrack of his favorite movie - Cars. While we were on the 800-mile stretch of highway from our house to Martin's parents' house, which bares the name of Dylan's favorite race car - #95, Lightening McQueen - we pretended we were in the scene of the movie where McQueen is trying to catch up to "Mac" after he falls out of his trailer. "Mac, Mac, wait up." Then we would catch up to the nearest tractor trailer and say "You're not Mac!" That entertained our little chatterbox for a good portion of the trip.
• We made it to FL in one day and with one speeding ticket. It was me driving. My first speeding ticket in almost 17 years (my first was when I was 16). We were listening to The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again and I guess I didn't realize how fast I was going. The very polite Southern police officer gave me a ticket (although he decrease the speed he clocked me at so I wouldn't get any points on my license) and told me to have a great day, but to slow down a bit.
• We didn't ride any waves in FL but we did go to the beach once and Dylan "went under" in the ocean, with me holding him. Lydia seemed to like the beach - she ate some sand and sat and splashed.
• Lydia started crawling while we were on vacation. She won't have to ride as much now - she can move on her own! She also cut another tooth on top and turned 8 months old!
• While we were visiting Martin's parents we took highway 4 over to Orlando and went to Sea World for 2 days. Dylan loved it. He still shouts "Shamu, Shamu" around the house. They had an Elmo show that Dylan and Lydia both enjoyed. Sea World was a great place to take the kids at this age. And they even had nursing mothers rooms where the moms get free bottled water! A+ for family friendly-ness!
• On our last full day in Daytona, Martin and I got to go on a date while the kids were napping. We went mini-golfing for the first time since Dylan was born and shopping and out for ice cream. Life is good.
• We then took highway 10 over to the panhandle to see my sister and her family. Dylan and Steven had a ball playing cars and monster trucks together and jumping on beds and into the pool. Dylan jumped into the pool with his swimmies and went under all my himself for the first time this summer. He and Steven also got to sit in one of Uncle Rob's helicopters!
• On Sunday, after visiting with my parents a little who had come to my sister's for a visit, we hopped back on the highway and headed home. This time we broke the return trip up into two days and stopped in Charleston, SC to visit a friend of Martin's from college for lunch.