Weekend Getaway :: Oklahoma

This weekend, we took Eli and Maddie on their first road trip! We wanted to try out a somewhat close-to-home trip, sort of as a practice run before we attempt the trek to San Antonio. Mike's brother's in-laws have a cabin in Oklahoma, and they were sweet enough to let us use it for our experiment.

We loaded up and headed out on Friday after Eli and Maddie woke up from their morning nap. We decided to grab a quick lunch on the way out of town, so we made a stop at Rudy's for some BBQ. 

First family road trip!

Eli was SUPER excited about Rudy's. And really wanted the BBQ sauce.

The drive was only a couple of hours, and babies did great! We weren't sure how they would do in the car, but they napped on and off and were generally pretty happy. We had timed it just right to arrive in time for them to eat again and go down for an afternoon nap. Which allowed Mike and I some time to read and relax.

Happy to be at the cabin with full bellies :)

Probably the only "down" time we had the whole weekend

We knew it was supposed to rain overnight, but we had NO idea that we were going to get crazy storms. It was unreal. The lightening alone was something that neither one of us had experienced. Mike said it was like all the lightening he had every seen in his entire life was condensed into a few hours. There was more lightening than not; it was almost like a strobe light was on. We were also really worried about tornadoes. But that's where the lightening came in handy, because it allowed us to watch the trees and how bad the wind was. We had spotty cell phone service, so we were able to get a few texts out on my phone, but couldn't get our phones to update the weather. I got a bag packed with the basic essentials for babies, in case we had to grab them and head to the basement for shelter. I wasn't feeling great, so that didn't help things either.

Needless to say...it was a rough night, and we didn't sleep much. Mike and I were trying our best to monitor the storms, and we are so thankful to Ben and Bryan for staying up and keeping us updated. And babies? Slept through it all. Seriously. Not a peep the whole night! We are so thankful that they slept well, but we were so tired that we decided we would make it a one night trip and head home in the morning.

But when the sun came up, we were met with a surprise. The river behind the cabin had flooded, and the water level had risen really high. It was so crazy how fast the water had risen. The night before, Bryan had told us that if there was any water running over a concrete bridge that we passed over to get to the cabin {our only way in/out}, we shouldn't try to cross. Mike went to check on it and came back with the sad news that we were not going anywhere that day.

So we spent the morning on the porch just watching the water rush by. Thankfully we weren't due any more rain or crazy weather, so we just had to wait for the waters to recede.

The dock {out by that second tree} was completely submerged.

Watching the water carry a bunch of tree logs and debris by...

Front porch sittin'

Later in the day, we decided to take a walk out to the bridge to see if the water was receding at all. It was a good distraction for babies, and it helped us gauge how long we might be staying at the cabin. It was definitely receding, but it was going to be awhile.

That light patch at the top is the other side of the road

Loving our family walk...not loving that we are stuck.

Eli's face when we told him we would have to stay another night haha {and sister's hand trying to comfort him}

There definitely could have been worse places to be stuck. We had power and our babies were still as happy as ever. So we just went about our day, spending a lot of time checking the water levels. After babies ate, we would make the walk down to the river to sit and watch the water go by.

Super tired, but making the best of things!

The water actually receded fairly quickly, considering how much it was and that we were being told to expect to stay until Monday. The sun came out in the afternoon, so we were all happy and hopeful we would get to head home Sunday.

Back down to a normal level and speed, but we discovered that part of the dock had washed away

Saturday night was uneventful weather-wise, but babies woke up a couple of times for random reasons {go figure}. It was certainly an adventure of a weekend, and we were so glad that babies did so well outside of their normal routine. But Mike and I talked about how it was just hard to be somewhere other than home with little ones. It was all the hard parts of having two babies, only magnified because they were out of their routine. They were fine, but mama and daddy were exhausted. I definitely understand now when my mama friends would tell me that they are called family trips, not family vacations...because there's still so much work :)

So our experiment was successful, just with a little bit of an adventurous twist. And now we have our first family road trip memories in the books! :)