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"Big Tractor. Whoa."

 A portrait of my Avery, once a week, every week, in 2014

There are some weeks that I can barely pull off a quick snapshot of Avery to use as his weekly portrait and other weeks that I sit and ponder over 3 or 4 photos and I just can't decide. Week 39 was one of these weeks. While Justin was busy at work, Avery, Cullen and I took off on a 8 hour road trip to Wisconsin two weeks ago and spent 8 beautiful days soaking up the sun, the landscape and the many people that we don't get to see nearly enough. 

It was pretty epic. 

I was a bit nervous about how we would all fair being on the road for that long, but I knew the only way to find out would be to try it. I'm happy to say I underestimated what good boys I have; they always surprise me by rising up to a challenge. Avery got a cool new book for the trip and was allowed to have as many snacks and watch as many movies as he wanted. (Avery hasn't really watched many movies, so I pulled out some Disney classics for this trip that he's never seen before- he's been talking about The Fox and the Hound, Beauty and the Beast and Frozen ever since) Cullen got thrown a new toy every 30 minutes or so and napped on and off when he got bored. We only made 3 short stops and had great weather and traffic. Seriously, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. 

The trip home was equally as awesome until we hit Chicago rush-hour traffic which added over an hour to our trip and Cullen was sick of being stuck in his car seat so he cried the rest of the way home. For 2 hours. So. Much. Crying. It was heartbreaking and I've never been so happy to see our exit in my life.  That said, with only 2 stressful hours out of 17 total, I still consider the trip a success. It's given me lots of travel confidence and I'm already planning our next solo adventure :)

The weather during our week in Wisconsin was so perfect, our last taste of summer before we had to pull out the coats and hats and head to the pumpkin patch:

 

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"Yee-Haw!"

My goal over the next few weeks is to get a photo of Avery without his sunglasses on. It's tricky because if we're outside (or even inside sometimes), he's got those glasses on - they've become his signature look, but I miss seeing those beautiful eyes!

(I took so many photos in Wisconsin, I'm working on sifting through them to share soon!)