Vacation 2013 - Part 1

From 6/28 - 7/7, the Whitakers were off doing our biennial vacation.  This year, all FIVE of us made the trek to St. Louis and then to NJ.  Would we all get along for 10 days on the road?

Our trip started bright and early Friday morning.  We had a 7 am flight to catch to St. Louis to visit Daddy's side of the family.  This would be Kalissa's 2nd trip but she had no memory of the trip when she was only 2.  She was definitely looking forward to getting on the plane and was completely fearless!

As the plane was taxiing, she said, "heeeeey....why isn't this thing flying??"  Daddy joked that we were going to drive all the way to St. Louis in the airplane.  *lol* but then the plane took off and she loved it!

Once we got settled in St. Louis, we spent the day reconnecting with Nana & PawPaw.  Kalissa helped him water his plants and set up the sprinklers in the yard.  During the 6 days that we were in town, the girls went to see the play, The Wiz, with Nana & PawPaw, we hung out downtown and played in all the water features, visited lots of family, ate at Sweetie Pies, and just had a great time with our family.  Candy and I even learned a bunch of line dances with Nana and her bestie, Mrs. Waters.

Kalissa could not get enough of running around the back yard with her cousins.  Made me kinda sad that she doesn't have that at home.  And she was FASCINATED by PawPaw Whitaker (her Great Grandfather).  She was eating dinner next to him and I had to go tell her to stop staring at him!  I know it's because she's never been around such an elderly person to her memory and even though he didn't seem bothered by it, it was down right rude!  Sadly, Big PawPaw (Nana's father) passed away a few weeks before our trip.  Kalissa would always pick him out in our pictures and say, "That's Big PawPaw!"  But she'll always have the photos of them together from our last visit when she was 2.

We had a wonderful time visiting with Daddy's family.  Everyone is always so welcoming and warm.  And seeing the generations together is beautiful.  The weather held up for the most part and only lightly rained one day.  We couldn't have asked for a better visit...except to extend it!

Of course traveling with Kali is like traveling with a celebrity.  On our return trip, she caught the fancy of a TSA worker and after exchanging a words a few times he found us at the end of the long security check point and said, "follow me" right to the front of the line!  He told the check point TSA officer that Kali was his grandbaby and to treat us right.  Front of the line privileges....can't beat that!  *lol*

Next up....East coast!