Part of our reason for staying in the States so long is for Chris to do a bit of work at some different universities, the primary one being Notre Dame.  He’s already been here and to Purdue in the 2 1/2 weeks we’ve been in the USA.

South Bend is about 2.5 hours north of where my parents live, and about 1.5 hours south of where my grandparents and a few other relatives live in the Holland/Hudsonville areas of Michigan.  In light of that, we decided that it would be good to try to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and combine a trip to Notre Dame with a visit to family in Michigan.

Thankfully, Joe spent a good chunk of his time in the car like this:

Asleep under a blanket

We found that the overall trip went more smoothly if I was able to be in the back with Joe.  When he was hungry, I gave him a bottle of breastmilk and we made periodic stops for nappy changes.  I missed sitting up front, but this way meant that we didn’t have to pull over very often.

Joe did great.  There were a few not-so-fun moments, but these were happily brief and Joe swiftly returned to his normal, sweet self.  A few of the funny photos from our car ride:

Even babies get tired of having a camera in their face!

Joe loves his new monkey pillow!

Monkey kisses!

Not quite New Zealand… (Zeeland, MI)

My grandmother was thrilled to meet her latest great grandson.  Unfortunately, the lighting was wonky and my camera is a bit old, resulting in some funny color tones.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I’m just not that great at taking photos!  I played around with them afterward and decided they looked best in a sepia tone:

Case loved meeting Joe, too.  And for those of you who are wondering, “Case” is short for Cornelius.  It’s a Dutch thing.

Here’s one of my Uncle Mark, Gramma, Joe (on the floor) and Chris.  You can’t see her, but my Aunt Lori was seated directly to my left:

Eventually, it was time to go.  Joe normally naps from 1:30 – 3pm, but because of our visit he hadn’t been able to sleep.  He conked out within 10 minutes of the car ride.  Loved it!

We got to South Bend and checked into our hotel.  It’s probably one of the nicest ones that I’ve stayed at in awhile, and Joe loved rolling around on the bed.  I’m sure he enjoyed stretching his limbs after being cooped up in a car seat.  Chris was out the door within the hour and missed out on our fun photo shoot:

I love my sweet little guy.