Road Warriors

I realized a few days ago that I never blogged about the 48 hour trip to Florida that Henry, Viv, my dad and I took in early March. It was Maxwell's spring break and the Warriors were playing in a tournament in Orlando. From Prattville, Orlando is only about 8 hours, which when the standard to drive and see Maxwell is typically 16 hours, 8 seems really easy. So we went. Eight hours there. We were with Maxwell for about 6 hours and then 8 hours home the next day. Crazy? Maybe. Worth it? Absolutely!

We got to the field when the team was already out warming up so we gave Maxwell the little low-key wave but we weren't able to talk to him until after the game. My dad, Henry and Vivian stayed in the car while I got out to meet Maxwell near the bus, and as he started walking toward me I realized that he was crying. I could see his shoulders shaking a bit and he had his head held down, looking at the ground but coming toward me he just said, "Mom". Honestly, I thought he was hurt so once he got to me and hugged me I asked him what was wrong. All he said was, "I just missed y'all so much". He just missed us and couldn't hold it in.

Right in the feels.

One of the moms made everyone stop so that 

she could grab her son's phone and take this picture...

After lunch, we went back to the hotel to hang out for a bit before Henry and Maxwell went to the lax house for a few hours. We weren't in the hotel but for 20 minutes before Maxwell, Henry and Vivian had themselves holed up in one of the bedrooms. They laughed and yelled and wrestled and took pictures -- just the three of them. The whole time they were in there together, my dad and I just sat in the living room and laughed about how funny they were. How all three of them probably needed to soak up that time together more than they needed anything else.

The next day, once we were already home, we got a pretty interesting story from Henry, although probably not the whole story as he would never  sell anyone out. Apparently, early that morning Maxwell sent Henry a text that started with, "so this is terrifying". Once Hen was filled in he went to google to research how to get through TSA if you lost your ID. Who would've thought that the little brother, Pablo (as the entire Warrior lax team now refers to Henry), could be the "fixer"?? Needless to say, all lacrosse players were on the flight home and safely delivered to Willpo. 

This is the first snap we got from Maxwell once he got back to school...

it's hard to believe that in four days he'll be done with his first year of college!