St. Pete Bound -- First Stop, Pensacola

  On Thursday, May 23, Michael, Paul and I set off on a road trip bound for St. Petersburg, Fla., to see two of our best friends finally get married!  We'd planned to do it in two days of 8-hour trips -- Thursday we would drive to Pensacola, Friday we'd head to St. Pete.

I was a bit anxious about how Paul would do in the car -- we've driven to Pensacola a lot with him, but we usually spend 4-7 days there and then drive back, so it's not so bad.  Luckily, Michael's parents were coming with us to St. Pete, so I knew I'd have lots of help entertaining Paul then!  To make the trip more fun for him, I made him several little toys (two sensory bottles, a baby wipes case full of fabric to pull out and a canister with a slot cut in the lid to put different size/color/shape lids into) and a travel pillow (really proud of myself for breaking out the sewing machine on this one!) and bought him a set of four soft cars and two coloring activities.  I also had all kinds of snacks and we loaded the Kindle with the movie Cars and Finding Nemo.  I wanted to be prepared!

Paul was a champ in the car the first day!  He took his morning nap as soon as we left (asleep before we got on the interstate) and was cheery the whole day!  I gave him a few of the new toys, which I also wrapped to make it extra fun.  He also took a good afternoon nap.  He loved the lid toy!  It was a huge hit.  I would hand him each lid and it was so fun to see him stick it in the slot.  He would immediately reach over and grab the next lid until I ran out and had to empty it out again.  It was the easiest thing to make, too.

We listened to some pretty interesting optometry podcasts on the way.  One was about personality types and how to "type" people within minutes and then interact with them in ways that will make them the most comfortable.  It made so much sense.  I figured out I'm tied between a "perfect" and "peaceful" personality, which means I am always in conflict over doing the exactly right thing and what will keep everyone happy thing.  It was really thought-provoking and brought about a  fun conversation with Michael.

We got to Pensacola around 4:30 p.m., and went over to see my mom/Grammy an hour later.  She had a wonderful shrimp dinner for us!  It's been a sort of tradition lately for her to get boiled shrimp and French bread from Joe Patti's when we come home, and we love it!  She also got strawberry and pineapple sorbets, which were delicious!  Paul loves his Grammy and had so much fun running around and exploring.  The only problem was that he wanted to grab everything!

I don't remember what was so funny, but he was so happy!

This is the door to the sunroom.  It has been missing this pane for as long as I can remember -- it came out when my mom locked herself out of the house on accident!

Paul loved the strawberry sorbet!

He was giving us pretty funny faces after each bite, but he kept wanting more!  Silly boy!

We didn't get to spend nearly enough time with my mom, but we were glad we got to see her for a little bit!  We headed back early so we could sleep before our 4 a.m. wake-up!