Visiting family and friends

We took off on our road trip today to see family and friends. Our first stop was JNP's aunt Donna and uncle Dale that he hadn't seen in 12+ years and I'd never met. A surprise was his cousin Jennifer also came to visit us and brought her son Owen. Jenny, as John called her growing up, is the closest in age of all his cousins and when he was young he told his Mom that he was gonna marry her. JHP was in a good mood and was only a little shy at first. Once he found some toys and a new buddy to play with, he was just fine. Our visit was a little short, but we had to make do with our allotted time. John would be needing a nap all too soon. We'll definitely have to see them again on our next trip to Ohio.

Next up was my friend Ronda and her family. They only live about 30 minutes or so from John's relatives, but we didn't have a map, missed the turn off because there was no apparent sign, and ended up going the long way to their house. Finally we made it and had some lunch. Poor JHP was asking for milk the minute we hit the car. He must have been ravenous by the time we finally ate. He ate his lunch, but then was most interested in playing with Ronda's daughter Vivienne. They had much fun together. Inside. Outside. Upstairs. Downstairs. And lots of tickling. Again the visit was too short, but John was ramping up the silliness, a sure sign of an impending crash. A nap would be needed VERY soon. We said our goodbyes and by the time we made it back to I-70, he was down for the count.He slept almost the whole way (about 1 3/4 hours), waking only as we turned for the last couple of miles before arriving home to the house. He was quite happy to be home at MawMaw and PawPaw's house.

The house was full of (Great) Grandpa and 3/4 of the Rodenmeyers when we arrived. John was content to sit in Daddy's arms for quite a while. While sitting there, John quizzed him on who was sitting around and sure enough he could produce all the names of these not-so strangers. I think that exercise really helped him warm quickly and before too long he was making his way around to most everyone. Susan and Laura eventually joined us as did Andy. There was no drama and we all had a very pleasant evening. John had great fun playing around and moving from lap to lap. He put up no fuss about taking a bath or getting ready for bed and happily ran around giving good-nights to all his family.

I can only say that today far exceeded our expectations in terms of John's behavior and attitude. We had little to no meltdowns and those we did have were easily averted with the DVD player in the car. We can only hope this continues throughout most of the rest of the trip.

-EBP-