Stepha-Roo and Gwendolyn Too!: 3,200 miles of Christmas, part one

I wanted to finally get started on the Christmas Trip Blog Post Series (an anthology). This story begins with the decision to (again) drive half across the country with a small child in tow. We drive for a variety of reasons- cheaper than flying, we have our own vehicle when we get to the destination, we want to see family and friends in NJ and VA, we want the luxury of not dealing with airports and having to limit our packing because of flying, flexibility on dates in case of inclement weather or ever changing work schedules, and frankly, Kevin and I really like to road trip together... Funny thing- stick us in a closed vehicle for over twenty hours in two days, and we are at our best. We are great road trippers, so we need to raise a great road tripper, so we happily jam little Stephanie in a car seat and haul her off to where ever we see fit (Michigan in the summers, east coast over Christmas). She is turning into an awesome little road tripper, too. We essentially packed no toys (I was assured that there would be more than enough to play with at Grandma's house), one book, a pack of light sticks, and my Nook for emergencies. The Nook was used, but surprisingly not all that heavily. Our first day (3 days later than we originally scheduled) we left a little later than planned (that is SO hard to believe, I know!), but we made it as far as Columbus, OH, where the roads were getting a bit dicey by 10 pm, so we snagged a hotel, and headed out the next morning with promises of snow storms in PA. The snow storms were apparently just in front of us, so everything was plowed and in good condition for our second day. We did have the warm welcome of east coast traffic in Philly, but made it to NJ respectably close to dinner time. We spent 5 days in NJ, and got to do some things we missed out on last year. We had a chance to visit Kevin's friend Seetha and her family (and it had been so long since he had seen her, he hadn't even met her school aged daughters). I've never met her, but I really enjoyed the time we got to spend with her and her husband and her girls. We also got up to Grams (Great-grandma Stephanie) and Aunt Chris's house, where we enjoyed a very nice Grams meal and got to have the Stephanies play together. Grams' house is FULL of interesting and tiny little breakables, so my anxiety level was a bit high, but Stephanie actually left (mostly) everything alone. At Kevin's Mom's house, we spent some time at the library (must be well stocked with books at all times with Stephanie), and Kevin worked a bit around the house. Kevin's Mom cooked lots of delicious meals, and we enjoyed relaxing around the house.