We left for vacation this past Friday. It was probably one of the most miserable trips we’ve ever had as far as driving and traffic were concerned. We hit traffic from our house to well past Richmond and our 4 1/2 hour drive turned into an agonizing trip that lasted for about 6 1/2 hours.
Harper and Landon did wonderful on the trip. They watched movies or played games on the iPad or iPod and were generally pretty happy the whole way. Dakota, on the other hand, was miserable. She cried and cried for much of the drive. I got so tired of her crying that I resorted to taking her out of her car seat for periods of time just to get some peace. She was happy out of her seat but I felt terrible taking her out and risking her life as we flew down the highway. I’d let her out for a little bit to calm down then end up putting her back in her seat where she’d almost immediately start crying again. It was awful and everyone’s nerves were on end.
After what seemed an eternity we finally arrived at the hotel. The kids were so excited to be out of the car! This was the two littlest one’s first time in a hotel so it was a whole new adventure for them. Harper discovered the mirrored closet and it was instantly a game for him and Dakota to go in and out…they spent a solid 20 minutes playing in there while we unloaded the van and got our stuff situated.
Our room overlooked the hotel pool and we decided we’d take the kids out to swim a bit before dinner. We were only out there for about 20 minutes when Landon and I heard thunder; it ended up being a crazy, wicked storm.
We were glad that we’d gotten out there as soon as we had but we sure could have used a little longer. Once we got back in our room we thought it we’d better figure out what we were going to have for dinner. Tony and I thought room service sounded like the best idea since it meant staying in the room where the kids could play. We were a bit surprised when we ordered 4 sandwiches and the bill was over $60, but I felt like it was still better than trying to sit in a restaurant with 3 cranky kids!
Tony took the two little ones out in the hallway to run/crawl around while Landon and I waited for dinner to get there. We were watching something or another on my phone and that somehow turned into taking pictures…
After dinner and the storm, we considered going back outside to play in the pool but ultimately decided it was best to just hang out inside and rest. It sure was beautiful out there though.
I was dreading the task of putting Dakota to bed since it was so out of the norm for her, but it went as well as it possibly could. She had her bath and bottle and immediately fell asleep. She even slept through the night without any problem and Tony and I couldn’t have been happier! The boys shared a pull out couch and that too went well.
As much as we were all dreading the next day of driving, I’m so glad we decided to do only half way the first day. It was fun to give the kids a bit of an “experience” on the way down, even if it was only to stay in a hotel and order room service!
*I should mention that Zoe and Brandon didn’t leave on Friday with us because they both had to work. The two of them got up bright and early on Saturday morning to make the drive down.
No comments:
Post a Comment