This morning is packing day. It’s my least-favorite day of our whole vacation. Traditionally, tempers flare, children drag their feet, and everything takes longer than it should. We are trying to combat the trends, but it’s hard. No one wants to leave!

From here we’ll go to Atlanta to see the Bennett clan. Hopefully they know we’re coming. We need to call them and ask if we’re still welcome.

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We’re here! Fortunately the Bennetts weren’t at all surprised by our arrival. They’ve given us our own little “suite” complete with our own bathroom!

Our trip today was a little long, with the usual stops just about every hour. On top of that, we had a hard time getting out of the Orlando area. We had multiple delays before leaving the Disney resort property, and then we got turned around twice with our directions. Eventually we were on the interstate and headed in the right direction, so that was nice.

One point of interest was, when we pulled off the highway for one of our multitude of potty breaks, we stopped at a gas station where there were three blue buses parked. Since Miguel is so fond of buses, I made sure to point them out to him. And then, much to Miguel’s delight, we realized that these buses were carrying army guys!!! Mike wanted to go see the guys, so we unloaded and bravely walked over to where the guys were laughing and talking. To my relief, they were very kind to this little boy who was full of words to share with them. They asked how old he was, how many siblings he had, etc. We enjoyed seeing Mike be uncharacteristically outgoing.

During many of the hours on the road, we listened to an audio book of “Pudd’nhead Wilson” by Mark Twain. I’ve never read the book, so we’re all caught up in the mystery of what’s going to happen next!

Very shortly after we arrived at the Bennett’s house, Amelia and Tabitha found each other and right away “clicked”. We had to get kids to bed before they could do much playing, but there are promises of good times in the morning.