On December 14th, the Routhier family packed up the Honda Odyssey minivan at 4:30am to get on the road early for their 1000+ mile journey up the Eastern seaboard. Their first stop was the Kelly household in Tega Cay, SC, which takes 6.5 hours according to mapquest, but takes 10 hours if you have a 16 month old. Liam loved meeting 5 year old Emilia and 3 year old Liam, and had so much fun playing with them that he didn't want to go to bed. He refused to sleep and at 2am, Dave and I gave up on the idea of sleep ourselves and got into the minivan to continue our drive. We drove through the night showing up in Washington DC about 7 hours earlier than expected. Our friends, Chris and Erin Deschane, were awesome and didn't mind us surprising them by showing up early. Liam caught up on sleep in DC, while we got to spend some quality time with Chris and Erin. On December 16th, we fought DC metro traffic as well as snowy slushy weather, and finally arrived in West Chester, PA around 2pm.
In West Chester, Liam got to visit with lots of family: Yia yia and Papou Sheruda, as well as big Papou visiting from Athens, Greece, Uncle Chris, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt April, cousin Dimitri who is 3, Aunt Angie, Uncle Todd and cousins Alexa (8) and Katerina (5). Alexa and Katerina totally spoiled him, letting him play with whatever he wanted at their house and covering him with hugs and kisses. Dimitri showed him all the big boy games, and Liam just adored playing with a big boy. Dave and I learned to be thankful our house doesn't have stairs as we chased him up and down stairs at every house we visited. Every night we returned to our hotel room and hid in the bathroom for hours as Liam would not fall asleep if we were in the same room as him. Dave and I also got to visit some of our friends in the local area: Steve & Leticia Clareen, the Reilly household (where Liam just hero-worshipped 4 year old Sean), and the Burgess household (where I think Liam fell in love with 3 year old Brielle--he has a thing for blondes).
On the 22nd, we packed up the minivan again and headed further north to outside of Scranton, PA. They had just gotten 10 inches of snow and was about 9 degrees when we arrived with 40 mile per hour winds. Talk about a shock to the system after being in Alabama! As soon as we arrived in Scranton, Liam came down with the worst cold virus of his life, and he spent the next 4-5 days crying about 6 hours a day. This made for an exhausted Mommy and Daddy. We stayed at Grammy and Poppy Sheruda's house, and he enjoyed all the attention they gave him. We also visited with Grandma Edwards and Aunt Cindy where he was spoiled with some presents. On Christmas Eve, we went to the children's mass, then Liam was beat and he went to bed early. Dave and I had a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner with Grammmy, Poppy, Uncle Mike, Aunt Bev, and my 4 cousins: Michael (22), Matthew (19), Jessica (17), and Daniel (15).
On Christmas morning, poor Liam woke up early very sick and feverish. He wasn't interested in much other than crying, and it took alot of effort to pack the minivan and Liam back up to head back to West Chester. We celebrated Christmas at Yia yia and Papou's house with the whole family, and Liam was spoiled with a ton of presents. Liam, however, wasn't feeling well enough to do much other than cry, and didn't notice the presents. He did like the bows on the presents and found an apple in Mommy's diaper bag which he liked.
On December 27th, we packed the minivan up at 2am and left PA. We arrived in Advance, NC at Pepe and Susan Jordan's house around 1pm. Liam enjoyed some playtime outside in the mild Southern weather, and went to bed early, allowing us to enjoy dinner with Pepe and Susan. One of Pepe's friends, Brian Goodell, was also in town, and he joined us for dinner. It was great to meet him and hear about his experiences in 1976 Olympics - where he won two gold medals in swimming! We left Pepe's house before 3am on the 28th and by this time, we were all exhausted. We pulled into our driveway around 11am on the 28th and are still settling back into normal life.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to see everyone during the trip, and I am sorry that we could stop at Jeremy and Maryanne's Houghton's house in VA or Jessika Rovell's place in DC. While we were in PA, we were unable to see everyone and I hope to catch up with the Stacey's, the Nolan's, John Hosey and Jen Batchelor, Craig Dimitri, and other friends and family the next time we are in town. We also were not able to get as many pictures as we wanted as Liam did not cooperate with allowing many people to hold him, always preferring to be in Mommy's arms. The pictures also show how much time he spent crying on this trip. Thankfully, he is back to his happy self now that we are home.
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