Just one of those days...

I finally have a second to sit down and write and honestly, I am just wiped!!  Our niece is getting baptised this weekend so I drove up to Connecticut with the kids today.  I usually aim to leave the house by 9:30 but with Samantha getting up so early lately, I decided to take advantage and get us out the door early too.  I was ecstatic when we pulled out of the driveway by 8:15!!

I was a little bummed because I realized I forgot the base to the GPS (which is how you plug it in) so we didn't have one to use.  It wasn't a huge deal though since I know how to get here, but I like to see our eta as I'm driving.  We made a quick pitstop at Dunkin' Donuts for some breakfast and hit our second annoyance of the day.  They were out of pumpkin syrup so no pumpkin iced coffee.  :-(  I did get a pumpkin pie donut however to help with the pumpkin craving, but the hazelnut coffee just didn't do it for me.  We were able to somewhat quickly get to the highway after that and it was smooth sailing.  We crossed into New Jersey by 11:00 and I was feeling great.  I figured we'd get to my in-law's house by 3 or 3:30.  Perfect!  Then it happened...traffic came to a complete stop.  I noticed an emergency sign to the side saying that the turnpike was closed!!  Of course as soon as this happened both kids decided to wake up and make it perfectly clear that they were NOT happy.  I was hoping the traffic would inch along but it took forever.  Almost 2 hours to get to the exit.  Two hours with screaming not happy children in the backseat.  It was awful.  At one point I was ready to pull over and nurse Zach on the side of the road because I couldn't take the screaming any longer.  Finally though, we made it to the end.  They had traffic down to one lane and we all had to exit the highway.

After getting off the highway, it was a huge bottleneck.  Five cars wide in two lanes of traffic, it was crazy!  It took us another 30 minutes to get off the highway and find a McDonald's for lunch.  I got miss Samantha a happy meal and let Zach chomp on some fries.  I feel bad but I sort of made them eat quick so we could get back on the road in hopes of missing New York city traffic.

I was so excited to eat my meal after we left and I pulled my burger out, only to bite in and find it freezing cold.  Nice!  I looked past it and got excited for my Dr. Pepper since after the long day I needed a kick of caffeine.  Took a sip and well...I don't even know what I was drinking.  I could definitely taste orange, but the drink was brown so who knows what it was.  Needless to say I did not drink the rest.  Such a bummer.
I ended up taking some backroads and getting back on the highway a little ways down the road.  Oh - speaking of the shutdown, turns out there was an accident involving a car, dump truck, and bus.  The accident happened at 9:30 (ugh an hour after I left...if only I would have known and taken an alternate route. We were too busy listening to Raffi and Potty Time to listen to traffic lol) and the turnpike didn't reopen until 3:30!!!

We made it through New York city fine but then hit traffic in Connecticut.  I was SO done!  I ended up calling my mother-in-law to see where she was since she had gone into the city with my father-in-law and her two brothers.  As it turns out, they were only 2 exits ahead of me.  Thank God they are wonderful people and they pulled over and waited for me.

Can you spot my father-in-law?!  My wonderful mother-in-law hopped in my car and drove the rest of the way home for me!!!  Zach screamed the whole way but we just pushed on since we were so close.  We were all so so happy to finally get here.  We ended up arriving just after 5:30.  What should have been a 6ish hour drive took us 9.  We were all so happy to get out, stretch, and run/crawl around.  The kids played, we ate dinner, played some more and then the kids went to bed.  Phew!!  Samantha had a sort of rough time going to bed since she's in a new environment but thankfully finally fell asleep.  MIL was to the rescue again and pushed Zach in the stroller until he fell asleep too.

Now I'm watching the Project Runway finale with my sister-in-law and then I will be joining the kids in bed. It has been quite the day and I need some sleep!!!