Sweet Home Alabama

Joe and I made it home from our Labor Day road trip to Alabama yesterday. We had a wonderful time. It was so great seeing his family and spending time with the kids. My nieces are all getting so big and so smart! It stinks that we don't get to see them more regularly but it's always nice when we can spend some time together. We are already planning a family vacation to Key West in December and another trip to Alabama for Christmas.

The drive to Alabama is LONG. We left at 3:30am on Saturday morning and it took us a full 12.5 hours to get there. We had our dogs with us and tried to stop every 2-3 hours so they could get out and stretch their legs and use the bathroom. They are such little troopers. They both pretty much just slept in the back seat the whole time. I was so proud of them.

One of my biggest complaints about the drive up there is the lack of rest stops. Florida is so great about having rest stops at a reasonable distance. And most rest stops have dog walking areas. Not Georgia and Alabama. Most of the drive is not on highways. It's on back country roads that wind in and out of towns. There are not many good places to stop. We tried to find clean looking gas stations that had at least a small patch of grass so we could all use the bathroom.

Joe and I managed to do really well on our diets this weekend too. We packed a cooler with waters and low-carb wraps and some lunch meat and made picnic lunches so we didn't have to stop for fast food. We did have a few non-diet items while we were in Alabama but nothing that derailed the diet. We both actually managed to lose a couple of pounds over the weekend. It was hard to be on a road trip and not stop for junk/fast food. It's almost like breaking tradition. We may have been really bored too. Both of us started craving greasy junk food during the drive up and back. But, we resisted. I even managed to squeak in a run while we were up there.

Joe's mom has a house on 22 acres and my dogs really enjoyed running around in her back yard. I was afraid Roxy wasn't going to want to come home. We took a tennis ball with us and spent lots of time in the back yard playing fetch. Roxy even made friends with the horses that live on the property. Daisy did not. She stood about 10 feet away and growled. It was so nice and peaceful at Joe's mom's house though. She has a pair of hummingbirds that would come up to the porch to drink out of the flowers all day long. It was pretty cool to see them. They were too fast for pictures though.

Anyway, it's back to work and back to routine now. We're all pretty exhausted today but hopefully will get caught up in time for the weekend. I hope you all had a great Labor Day!!

P.S. There are vacation pictures in the family album.