Family Vacation

I love having time off... it's so great.... You get to spend time with your family traveling, cleaning the house, and picking up after people.

Well, my family (Ryan, me, my mom, dad, sis, and brother) took a trip to Ohio to see my mom and dads' side of the family (that's where they're from). And man, it was the longest five days I've ever had.

We left at 6 p.m from Hinesville and drove (all of us in a van) to Atlanta (about 3 hours away) and found a hotel to stay in. We had a plane flight at 11 a.m the next morning. So, we bundled into two rooms and then wisked away to the Airport. I hate huge airports by the way. They are way too busy and the people aren't as friendly. Well, needless to say we arrived in Ohio without any bumps or bruises but didn't know if we had a minivan rented or two cars (that would be fun trying to figure out our way around Ohio I thought....). Then it turns out that they had a van for us (but the thing was a bit tiny on cargo room and we had to store some of our items in our laps).

Needless to say there was snow everywhere and I thought we were going to die because it's been so long since any of us had drivin in snow. But, we made it to my aunts house (my mom's sister) and was able to eat dinner after starving for 3 hours on the plane and car trip over there. Now the fun part comes along, trying to accomidate everyone in beds so they can be comfortable. Luckily my Aunt had a couple of extra rooms and we had some air mattress. Otherwise, we would have been SOL. It snowed a bit that night, so Ryan and my dad had to de-ice the car, which was fun to watch... but very cold at the same time.

Then we were off to my dad's side of the Family for the Richards annual Christmas Party. Ryan had never met any of my extended family so it was time to drag out the family tree and explain how everyone was related to me. Luckily my dad was there to help because it had been three years since I had seen any of these people and I didn't know if I could even remember who was still married, which kids belonged to who, etc. But it was fun trying to get Ryan to understand it all. He put the pieces together much better once he saw all of them. That night of sleeping wasn't as great as the first one. All of our air mattress deflated, so by the morning we were practically on the floor. But, we had fresh snow on the ground so we decided to play outside. It was so cold, and jens aren't exactly the best snow playing attire either. But, we did get to go sledding down a hill a few times (I fell a lot, but don't have those pics unfortunatly.. my dad does).
Julie getting clobbered by Ry
Ryan trying to build a snow Reindeer

Contemplating on whether or not to throw the snow balls at me.

We then had to head to a Hotel in order to get some sleep for our 8 a.m flight the next day. I was just praying that we would get out of there because of all the ice clouds and snow storms that were projected to come into the area.

We get to the airport and everything goes great. We board the plane and sit, and sit, and sit some more. Finally the piolet comes on and notifies us that the de-icers aren't working. We then have to deboard the plane and pray that we can get another flight to Atlanta. The only bad thing is, the flight we were on was a combined flight of 3 previous cancelled flights. So, that was going to be fun. Well, needless to say we got a plane ride back home that day. And didn't get into Hinesville until 1 a.m. But, over all I think it was a fun family vacation. I'll just have to remember to go to Ohio when it's not snowing.