TEN HOURS LATER...AND WE SURVIVED

Our second trip to Florida went much better than the first one. We didn't lose a single tire. There were also no tornado warnings as we drove across the Panhandle. Phew. The worst part was when Maddox woke up almost five hours into the trip and realized we weren't getting out the car until the GPS told us we had reached our destination.

Of course, we had to make one stop...or else I would have gone crazy. This was Maddox on repeat: whine, growl, scream, kick. The one thing that kept him quiet for about ten minutes was me sliding the sunroof open then closed. Yea....I know.

We stopped at the Huddle House off of I-10 because that was pretty much the only building we saw for what seemed like 100 miles (slight exaggeration, but there was a LOT of endless green grass).

Maddox ate his grits and waffle (and coffee creamer) standing up.

About 4 hours later, we were all pretty excited to see our house. I will be even more excited when the last two carloads of our stuff get put away and when the garage is box-free. We spent the day trying to organize the house while Maddox demanded most of our attention. His favorite part of the day: opening and closing our bedroom French doors to the deck, throwing rocks into the pond, and staring at some half-chicken/half-duck thing that floated by our yard.

He picked out this outfit, head to toe, by the way.

favorite part of day 1 in FL: getting out the car
worst part: saying bye. It is Maddox's latest fad word. The whole way out of my parents' driveway he said, half-asleep..."bye...bye...bye."