The Great Northern Exposure

We didn't travel much this summer due to our busy schedule here at the house and daddy's limited vacation time. But when we did travel we made it count by taking in all the sights and sounds and by enjoying the time we had with each other and our family. We took our annual trip up north to see Martin's family.  It is approximately a 14 hour drive (with stops) to our final destination...Fairfield, CT. Any normal family would probably stop and make this a two day trip (which we have done in the past), but as the kids have gotten older and we have become more anxious to get there we literally do it in one day. Last year, daddy had this grand idea to get up at 2:30 in the morning to start our journey. He believed that it cut down on our travel time and we could avoid some of the traffic through DC and NY. Secretly, I think he was just excited to get there and was experiencing some homesickness.  Of course reluctantly, I went with it and oh how I wish I had went with my gut instincts. If we had only waited a couple of ours, I would have never met the little mouse that had made himself comfortable underneath my seat to accompany us the whole 14 hours. Yes that's right on the camping trip that we had taken a couple of weeks earlier, we picked up the fifth member of our family Fidel. Needless to say, I spent the entire 14 hours with feet in the seat scrunched up like a ball.  And on top of the rodent problem, our transmission in the ole family wagon gave out somewhere in between the Bronx and Concrete City (NY). We were able to get it to CT but it spent most of the week in the shop costing us $4,000 in repairs! But with all kidding and challenges aside we had a great time in CT!  Our week was jammed packed with lots of fun filled excursions and adventures. Too many to put into one blog entry...so I have decided to do a three part blog series entitled the Great Northern Exposure to detail and outline our week. So stay tuned for more adventures and pics to come!