The One in which She meets His Family...

Yesterday we revisited when Maverick met my family in Arkansas. We both made it with our sanity and on a plus we discovered that we travel REALLY WELL together. Almost a year later we took a trip to Florida to see his Family... And this is how it all went down.

PreVaca: Thursday Evening after work.
We got the rental car and went to the Pyramid club for a few drinks with Maverick's coworkers. Came home and packed the car, got the animals ready for travel.


Day 1: Friday
We woke up at 5 am and headed towards Arkansas. Nothing much really happened just a lot of traveling on the highway. About 3 pm we arrived at Jed's house in the NW corner of Arkansas and dropped off my babies. I then proceeded to bawl like a baby myself. And Maverick took me to have ice cream at Sonic and then we were off to my Dad's house in the Western Central part of Arkansas.

Yes - my ex-husband kept our animals. It was actually his wife's idea. He had started playing SneezyMud again and of course she was smart and got on there herself. We started talking and kind of became friends. When she heard we were going to have to board them for over a week she volunteered to keep them for us... It was VERY nice of her!

Day 2: Saturday
Maverick and Daddy went fishing and I went to visit my grandparents. Maverick asked daddy for my hand in marriage and Daddy said "we can go down to the courthouse right now and get your license and I'll marry ya tonight". (make sure you read that in a thick southern drawl). We ate dinner, laughed and joked around the rest of the night and my sisters stopped in later.

Day 3: Sunday
Was spent driving to Florida and talking about our upcoming wedding... He had not officially proposed to me yet but we had been talking about babies, buying a house, if we wanted to get married or not and then he asked daddy for my hand in marriage.

Sunday when we arrived in Orlando it was a nightmare. We were stuck in traffic and when I do long trips my back starts bothering me (this was all pre-fusion) and subsequently cause a headache. I tried to be the best guest I could that night but it was really hard. All in all I don't think I made too horrible of a first impression. This was the first time I got to meet Mumsy & Hollywood.

Day 4: Monday
We woke up early and went to Busch Gardens. We road lots of rides and walked around a lot. Afterwards we went out to eat Chinese and Sushi which was horrible (it was the restaurant) and I was really feeling my migraine. We went back to the hotel and I doped myself up and went to bed.

Day 5: Tuesday
We decided to go back to BG instead of SeaWorld to take a 2nd look at the animals and take pictures while Mumsy headed back to South Florida early because her doggy wasn't doing too well with grandma. We met Mumsy at her place and went out for dinner at a very good Seafood Restaurant. While our waitress tried my patience and the irritated Jester that rears her head with the painkillers and migraines showed her ugly head... It was not how I wanted Mumsy to see me. After getting a new waitress we had a wonderful time and dinner was marvelous!

Day 6: Wednesday
We all went to the Miami Metro Zoo. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out, enjoying each other's company. My migraine was finally subsiding from all the travel and I was a normal human being again!

Day 7: Thursday
We woke up early and went to the Everglades National Park. Saw lots of alligators. After that we went to the Keys and visited grandma. Then we went back to Mumsy's house, had dinner and headed back to Orlando to get a jump start on the LONG drive that is Florida.

Day 8: Friday
Woke up early and drove through Louisiana. Nothing really interesting happened just lots more talking and me worrying that Mumsy hated me.

Day 9: Saturday
Drove to NW corner of Arkansas and picked up my babies and then back to Daddies.

Day 10: Sunday
went to church with Daddy & Momma then drove back to Chicago-Land. On the way out of Arkansas we stopped by a part of the Buffalo River where our families use to go floating.

All in all I would say we had a very fun time. We didn't go to Seaworld like we had planned but that's ok. We ended up planning 70% of the wedding during the driving days and I hinted several times when was he gonna "officially make me an honest woman".

On the brighter side Mumsy didn't hate me! Maverick had warned her already that long travel periods put my already out of whack back out of further whack and caused migraines so she was prepared for that. I have a fantastic mother-in-law!

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This post is the 5th in a series of posts that will chronicle milestones and anniversaries. We're coming up on our 5th year Wedding Anniversary & this summer marks 10 years of our relationship officially beginning... I hope you enjoy!!