Visit to North Carolina- Meeting Some of Dan's Family for the First Time

Dan, Ethan, and I drove to North Carolina leaving at about 4am this morning. The wee hours of the morning departure worked out really well for our trip to Oklahoma City, so we decided to try it again. It didn't work out quite as well this time, as Ethan amazingly stayed awake the first hour and a half of our drive, so his sleep schedule was off quite a bit that day. Fortunately he was mainly "zoning out" during that time, so he wasn't cranky. We made it to Dan's aunt and uncle's house in about 11 hours with about a 45 minute delay due to a truck that caught on fire on the interstate. This was a very special trip because Ethan was able to meet his great grandparents and Dan's aunts, uncles, and cousins on his dad's side for the first time and to celebrate his great grandma's 90th birthday with Dan's family. It was so much fun to see Ethan and Great Grandpa A. interact and enjoy one another. Great Grandpa gave Ethan 2 silver dollar coins (which he termed his "big money" :), and Ethan had a blast playing with them and clanking them together. I was also able to take a 4 generation picture of the men in Dan's family which was really neat. His family has a 4 generation picture taken when Dan was about 2 years old, and we copied the placement of each of the generations in the picture that we took.

Great Grandpa A. holding Ethan

Several tries at the 4 generation picture (Ethan was being a squirmbug)Ethan carrying around his big money