The Daniels: North Carolina and West Virginia trip

Earlier this month, my mom and I took Carson and Avery to North Carolina and West Virginia to visit our family. It was such a fun trip and the perfect time to escape the Texas heat for a little while.

We flew into Charlotte, and the kids did awesome on the way there. They both sat in their seats and wore their seat belts the whole time while watching their dvd's and coloring...it really couldn't have gone any better. They were excited about being on an airplane.

We stayed at my cousin Carole's house for two nights in Charlotte. Carson and Avery had so much fun playing with their 2nd cousins.

Avery and Ella

Avery and Caroline

The first night we were there, Carole had a little birthday party for her kids Jackson and Ella. It was so fun seeing all of my cousins and their kids. It's been way too long since we've all been together.

Here is Ben, Jackson, Grace, Caroline, Avery, Ella, Carson and Bailey

Carson, of course, enjoyed doing stunts in Carole's living room with Angela's husband Charles,

And my cousin Rob

My cousin Angela lives right next door to Carole (they're sisters) and she has a little mini farm in her yard. Carson got to pet the chickens,

and feed the goats, he loved it!!

We went over to Rob's one night for dinner. He had a really cool rope swing in his back yard,

They loved it!!

Me and Carole

We had so much fun in Charlotte and were sad to leave.

On our way up to West Virginia, we stopped at my aunt Carolyn's house in Roanoke, VA for dinner. It was so great to see her!! I have so many memories of summer's spent visiting her when I was growing up.

After dinner in Roanoke we headed on to my grandparent's house in White Sulphur Springs, WV. They live up in the mountains (where there is no cell phone service) it is so beautiful and peaceful there! Carson and Avery enjoyed throwing rocks in the creek in front of Nanny and Papa's house

And Carson enjoyed peeing in it (it was just too cute, I decided to take a picture instead of trying to stop him, I just couldn't resist).

Avery loved the well in Nanny and Papa's front yard

Saturday we celebrated Nanny and Papa's 60th wedding anniversary. It was a fun party/family reunion, and it was so great to see family I haven't seen in years.

Nanny and Papa with all 7 of their kids!

Carson and Avery with their cousin Mia

They loved riding on the Gator with Uncle Teddy

Carson got his fill of feeding animals on this trip. Here he is feeding one of my aunt Bernetta's horses.

His reaction after the horse ate out of his hand. I wish I had it on video, it was so cute, he was screaming and laughing.

Sunday we went to visit an old gristmill that was in this beautiful state park about an hour from my grandparents house. We were soaking up the cooler weather, it was 70 degrees at 1:00 in the afternoon there...in August, I didn't know what to do with myself :)

After the gristmill, we headed over to see the New River Gorge Bridge. There were a ton of stairs we had to walk down (then back up) to see the bridge.

Beautiful view

The New River Gorge Bridge (it's the 3rd highest bridge in America...it was really high)

Sweet babies (yes, I did bribe them with M&M's to get this picture :)

We had a fun day exploring some beautiful sites in West Virginia!

One last Gator ride with PaPa before we had to pack up and head to the airport.

Four generations

Carson and Avery with their great-grandparents

We had about a 5 hour drive back to the Charlotte airport on Monday morning. And as it usually works out for us when we fly with the kids, we had all kinds of issues getting home. We got to the airport just fine, but as we were boarding the plane it started pouring down rain. Thunder, lighting and so much rain. I knew as we were boarding that there was no way that we'd be taking off, but they still boarded away. Then we sat, and sat, and sat some more. We sat there at the gate with the airplane door closed for two hours. You want to talk about some restless 2 year olds! Oh, and my DVD player decided to up and die on me, so my backup plan of keeping them occupied with movies went right out the window. We finally took off and Carson and Avery were passed out within minutes, they were exhausted.