Henry's First Road Trip

Henry made his first official road trip last weekend to Tulsa, OK.  It was such a last minute trip and while I was a little hesitant at first I'm so glad we went.  Last Monday Ryan suggested that we go to Arkansas to watch the A&M game on Saturday and I thought he was crazy.  A few hours later.... we pretty much had everything in place. We had a few different options but ended up deciding to take Henry along with us and would stay with our good friends Anna and Reid in Tulsa.  They hadn't seen Henry in awhile and we would be able to visit my Grandmother who also lives there.  The best part about this plan was that Reid would go to the game with Ryan on Saturday so I got out of that :)

The plan was to leave Thursday after work and drive to Dallas.  We were hoping if we at least split up the drive on the way there Henry would do better.  And while he ended up doing great on the first part of the trip and sleeping most of the way, our trip didn't start out so well as you can see below....

My mom had picked Bennett up before we headed out and Henry had the meltdown of the century when she left our house.  He loves his Mimi and couldn't understand why she was leaving him then.  So the first part of our trip was a little rough but he soon calmed down...

Of course when we arrived in Dallas around 10:30 Henry woke up and was wide awake once we got to the room. He was so excited to be in a new place and wanted to check everything out in the room.  I've never known a room to have so many lights, buttons and switches and I'm pretty sure we played with them all. Ryan and I were pretty exhausted at this point but Henry wanted nothing to do with his pack n play and going to sleep.  He ended up sleeping in our bed that night and I will say that it will be the last time.  I really don't know how people let their kids sleep with them because Henry was ALL over me at night.  Anytime I rolled over or moved he had to get even closer to me to make sure I was still there.  I'm sure he was a little nervous about the new environment that night but I think that was the worst night of sleep I have had in a long time!

The next morning we grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel and snapped a few pics before heading out.

The plan was to go to the Dallas Arboretum and let Henry run around before putting him back in the car for the rest of the drive to Tulsa.  Ryan and I had never been to the arboretum but have heard great things and it definitely did not disappoint.  They had all their pumpkins out and it was fun to see everything.  Of course Henry had more fun picking up dirt, pushing his stroller and throwing the pumpkins but I did manage to get one picture of him smiling and sitting still.

After the arboretum we loaded back up in the car and grabbed a quick lunch before hitting the road.  I was hoping Henry would sleep since it was nap time but he was more interested in playing peek a boo and checking out all the trucks that drove by us.

 We had also loaded up the iPad with some of his favorite shows which was a great idea...

We arrived in Tulsa around 3:30 and made a stop to visit my Grandmother.  It was great to see her and my Uncle and Henry made himself right at home in her apartment.  I was afraid he was going to be shy which was definitely not the case!

Later that afternoon we headed over to Anna and Reid's new house to meet up with them after they got home from work.  They recently moved into a new house and it is beautiful!  We had a good time catching up and chatting in their kitchen before heading out to dinner.  We decided to try a local pizza place which was delicious. Unfortunately this was the only picture I took with Anna but I promise to take more when we go back up there in two weeks!

The next morning we headed out for a walk which is always one of our favorite things to do and stopped at brunch afterwards.  Of course it started pouring while we were there and had to wait it out before we could head back. Henry had a great time playing in the rain but it didn't seem to be clearing up anytime soon so Ryan made a quick dash back to their house to pick up the car and come back and get us :)

Ryan and Reid left for Arkansas around noon and Anna and I decided to take Henry to the Aquarium since it was still raining.  This was a first for Henry and I must say that he loved it.  I'm pretty sure the Stingrays were his favorite...

Checking out the fish with Anna :)

Later that afternoon we came back to let Henry nap and watched the OU game.  Henry was still exhausted after his nap that he even fell asleep on me afterwards which he never does!

That evening we met up with Anna's family and went to dinner.  It was great to see them and Henry had a great time at the restaurant.  He was definitely the entertainment for the evening.

Ryan and Reid had a good time at the game and I'm thankful the Aggies won.  I'm also thankful Reid took my place because I would have not made the whole game in the rain while standing up!

We didn't hang around long the next morning as we wanted to go ahead and get on the road.  I was dreading this drive the most but honestly it went surprising well.  Henry was so exhausted from the weekend that he slept the first three hours in the car.  We then stopped for lunch when he woke up and picked up some ice cream before heading out.  Of course Henry was sporting maroon on that Sunday :)

He was awake for the rest of the trip but did great.  We read lots of books, watched shows, colored, played with stickers and of course had a lot of snacks.  While we had a few rough moments I must say Henry did great in the car and we ended on a much better note than when we started :)

It truly was a great trip and a lot of memories were made this past weekend.  I'm so thankful Anna and Reid were able to host us on such short notice and I loved being able to bring Henry up there.  I just hope we didn't push back their timeline on having kiddos with this crazy man :)