Paul's First Road Trip + Lake Weekend

Paul and I headed out on our first road trip last Thursday. I was pretty nervous about how it would go as he doesn't really like his car seat and sometimes screams for the entire drive when we go to doctor appointments. But luckily he was an amazing traveler! Our first leg of the trip was a 3.5 hour drive to the town where my Grandma lives. He fussed a bit for the first 10 minutes and then slept until we were about 15 minutes from our destination. He cried/screamed for those last 15 minutes as he was hungry but we were so close that I didn't think it was worth it to pull over. When we got to my Grandma's, he gulped down 5.5 ounces and we headed to lunch where he drank 2 more ounces! This boy has finally found his appetite and is gaining weight like crazy!  Phew! Momma is so relieved.

After lunch, he fell asleep in the car on the way back to my Grandma's which worked out perfectly as he was sleepy when she held him. He's going through a stage where he is pretty terrified of anyone besides me or Phil. But he fell right back asleep so my Grandma got to rock a peaceful, happy baby.

I'm so thankful that my Grandma is alive and thriving. She will turn 95 this week but you wouldn't know it as she's in great health and is still very sharp. She emails and uses Facebook and has countless games of Words with Friends going on her computer. I can't seem to beat her at that game. She played Scrabble daily with her sister for many years so is wicked good at Scrabble!

The next leg of the trip was a one hour drive to my parents lake home. Luckily Paul slept for the entire drive! Woo hoo! My parents were so excited to see him as it had been almost a month since they had seen him at the baptism. He has changed quite a bit. He's smiling more and is overall more alert. His new thing is to clasp his hands together.

Sometimes it looks like he is praying.

Sometimes it looks like he's plotting how to take over the world.

He unfortunately continued to have "stranger danger" but my mom was still able to hold him quite a bit. We had a wonderful time at the lake. It's so peaceful there and it was great to have someone cooking for me. Plus my mom is always up for feeding Paul or changing his diaper! She also took care of him on Saturday morning so I could get some extra sleep which I really appreciated.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. The picture doesn't do it justice. Before I saw the sunrise, I was kind of cranky about being up for the 3rd time during the night but once I saw the sunrise, I was thankful that baby Paul woke me up. :)

I think baby Paul is going to love lake weekends as much as his momma. We saw lots and lots of smiles that weekend.

Hopefully by our next trip he will be over this stranger danger phase. He's got 2 big fans who hate to see him cry when they hold him!

Our 2.5 hour drive back to Minneapolis also went smoothly. He slept for most of the drive and only cried for about 10 minutes. We'll take a couple more trips to the lake during my maternity leave so hopefully he continues to be such a great traveler!

Do you like road trips? I personally HATE driving but this trip was not bad at all since we could avoid traffic by leaving at off-peak times.