Finally Free

Yesterday was emotionally exhausting. Court was kind of uneventful. The basics are that I have sole custody and no longer have to be in contact with my ex or his family at all. He still has to pay child support, though we're pretty sure he won't, so if I don't receive it, then I go through the prosecutor's office here in SC. Aside from that, it's just over and done with and I really couldn't be happier.

The rest of the visit was great. We went to Chicago and I got to have my absolute FAVORITE food...Portillo's hot dogs. And I brought one back for Will to try and he was hooked too. :) We saw my grandparents, though Hayley was afraid of my grandpa...in her defense, he did walk with a cane which is something she's not familiar with. We went to my great uncle's 80th birthday surprise party and he was moved almost to tears that we all made the trip to be there with him to celebrate.

I had a nice visit with my sister and my niece, Kylie. And also spent some time with my cousin Shawna and her two girls, who are close to the same age as my girls. We went to the Pumpkin Patch on Monday, but got rained out before we could go on the hayride to get our pumpkins. So we're going to the patch here tomorrow afternoon and hopefully won't be rained out again. Then we spent Monday evening at my friend Alaina's new house, where Hayley knocked over a CD tower that was holding about 300 cds...they were ALL OVER the floor. I was so embarrassed...but my friend laughed it off and said now she knows what to put away when her nieces and nephews come to visit.

Tuesday, we kind of hung around Will's dad's house watching cartoons and just relaxing. I had a meeting with my attorney and then after that we spend some more time with Shawna and her kids and then I picked up all of the 18 mo-2T clothes from my sister's house to bring back.

We left Indiana directly after my hearing and got back to our house at around 2:30 this morning. It was a rushed trip and we tried to squish in visits with family and friends in every spare second we had. So we are all exhausted! I am proud of myself though because I got a good part of the house cleaned up and our stuff unpacked and about 3/4 of it washed already! GO ME! :-) Tonight its wine, a bubble bath, and some chocolate! Here are some pictures from the weekend...