We took it all with us, didn't relax a whit, continued in our efforts to get kids to eat vegetables and meat and sleep at the right times and spent many long hours in the car, but the other stuff, the true "change of pace," did us all good.
You never know ahead of time how a trip will go, and that it will all be worth it (and by all, I mean the tremendous amount of prep, the drive, the late nights and early mornings and the week's worth of recovery), so even leaving the regular supply of diapers, healthfully stocked refrigerator and clean clothes in the first place takes a good deal of courage--no matter how much you decide to pack. Which was a lot.
Fortunately for my nerves, we were venturing to the known--a well-stocked, comfy house with a baby already living in it, and not far from a Target, so we knew we'd survive. As it turned out, the Target came in handy.
We left on a hot, humid 90-degree Friday morning. I'd eyed the weather forecast and decided that even though we would be trekking north, there's no way that the low 70s predicted could could actually be chilly. Chilly was not, in fact, in my vocabulary at the time. I contented myself with tossing in sweatshirts and tennis shoes for everybody, along with all the adorable, and even matching, summer outfits.
We'd moved Elise's carseat to the back, so that she and Kalina could talk to each other easily and share toys. Naomi could watch both of them.
What I pictured: Kalina reading sweetly to Elise for hours on end, while making funny faces every so often at Naomi as we sped happily toward a fun, family vacation.
What really happened: Kalina became super-absorbed in the various vacation activities and barely noticed her sisters; Elise quickly took up sucking her thumb, a habit she'd dropped in the daytime; and Naomi napped. Then, Elise asked every three seconds for snacks and Naomi fidgeted and fussed a lot. Then Naomi all-out wailed and we stopped for a while at a rest stop, found a cool caterpillar and had a tickle fight with cattails.
If nothing else, I reasoned, at least we had a cool caterpillar and a cattail tickle fight at a rest stop.
The stop cheered everyone up, and then I could justify yet another snack, and so we pulled into our friends' house in relative peace. We weren't yet at our destination, but we were able to play for a good while with the kids we were visiting and all their neat toys. Naomi could not stop smiling about the double-joy of being out of the car and exploring a new place. She played with not much more than air for an hour or so.
A catnap for Naomi later and we were at our "bed and breakfast," a friend's house with a new baby, a sweet dog and plenty of room to spread out. The big girls must have believed me when I said it was time for bed, and seemed to settle right off. Naomi did alright, too.
The temperature had taken a 30-degree nosedive during our journey so I found myself sorting through summer clothes in dismay, and heading to Target with my friend to stock the kids for the rest of the trip. Cold hands do not make for warm hearts, after all, and we needed warm hearts!
And now, the pictures will do the rest of the talking. See all those warm hearts? Warm arms, warm legs, warm hearts and warm smiles.
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| Who doesn't want their picture taken in a giant egg at the zoo? |
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| Watching the wallabies. The girls were not nearly as impressed as I was about the fact that we could walk around in their cage. In their cage, girls!!! Soak it in. |
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| The closest we got to a picture with Grandma and Grandpa. If you look carefully, you can see Naomi in back of her big sisters. |
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| Naomi desperately wanted to touch every animal in the petting zoo. Desperately. Missed-nap, strange place, poor sleep desperately. |
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| What did you like best about the apple orchard with Uncle David and Aunt Debbie? The caramel apples! And donuts! Not the giant slide or bouncy thing or corn pool, apparently. But those were great, too. |
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| Then: pump water and we might survive the winter. Now: Pump water, and the duck swims. |
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| Then: with all this corn, we and our animals night survive the winter. Now: Geronimo! |
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| The kids braved the tractor-train ride. Also, the giant slide in the distance. The green thing is not the slide--it's where you walk up. It starts about halfway up the slide. We are all brave, and Mommy was the only one who screamed on the way down. |
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| Naomi and her new best friend! Yes, they're dressed alike. And so are the big girls. We love twinning! |
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| Princess "Sofia" at her "princess birthday party" with Grandma and Grandpa. The princess ordered perfect weather, and for everyone to call her by her princess name. |
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| The princesses in their castle (Kalina got to be Cinderella!) |
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| The princesses consult with the queen herself! |
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| A ride fit for a king! |
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