A Little Trip to Louisville...

This past weekend was an amazing little adventure for our family of 6 :)

We and our neighbors planned to take the kids down to Louisville to go to the Louisville Slugger museum. We planned this a couple of weeks ago and did not tell any of the kids anything! So Thursday, as soon as we got home from work, we packed up the car and told the kids we were going on a trip. We picked Kylie up from gymnastics and I handed her some clothes to change out of her leotard into and she gave me a puzzled look. In her little mind she thought we were just going out to dinner! But when she got in the car, her brothers quickly filled her in :) We then went through the drive-thru at Wendy’s and the timing was perfect enough that our neighbors were in line in front of us. Their order was taking a long time and John and I kept saying things like “man, these people in front of us are taking too long, this is ridiculous!” Then when we finally both got through, we pulled up next to them in a parking spot. It took the kids about two minutes, but they finally looked over and Kylie goes “that’s Brett and Kim next to us.” They thought this was just a weird coincidence! So Kimmy comes over to the window and we tell both sets of kids that we are all going somewhere together – but we still won’t tell them where!

The drive down went very smoothly. All of the kids except for Kylie slept at some point, and we did have to stop to feed Colton once. I had bought them some new movies for the trip (thank goodness for the $5 bin at Wal-Mart :) ) and before we knew it we were there. We got in around 10:30 and the kids were wired once we got inside. I pricelined a hotel, so we were staying at a local hotel downtown that had a lot of character to it. We also got luck and got an end room that had a lot of space! The kids slept great and even Colton slept really well in the porta-crib.

The next morning we got up and went down to breakfast…all 10 of us! This was the worst part of the whole trip…the food was just OK and the service was not that great, and our bill, for just OUR family, was $90!!! I’ve never been so upset and sick to my stomach over a bill in my life! John just kept telling me that we got such a great deal on the room and to put it past me, but it still to this day makes me so mad!

After breakfast we headed to the museum. We walked in and saw the giant glove with a ball in it and immediately the kids started playing on it. They also hit balls in the batting cages. After that, we went and placed our bat orders (All of the kids, except for Colton, got bats with their names and the date on them). After that we went on the factory tour and it was so interesting hearing and seeing how the bats are made! After the tour we went through the exhibits and then to the gift shop. After we were done with the museum, we walked through downtown a little bit and found a place to eat.

We ended up heading back around 3:30 and we hit some really nasty storms along the way. The first time we pulled over, only to realize that we had to drive right back into it because it was following our highway. So we pushed through and finally came out on the other side. It was the scariest car ride I’ve had in a long time!

The kids really had a great time down in Louisville (even Kylie!). It definitely showed John and I that we could actually travel with our 500 kids, and that the kids really like surprises. We had so much fun doing that that we’re in the process of planning another surprise getaway right now :)