...sure isn't easy, but so rewarding all the same! Between the "stop touching me"s, and the "get your feet out of my butt!"s, there are those moments where I see them doodling together and laughing at their creations, and the precious moments where they are entertaining the wee ones. Car trips are memory makers for sure!
The real fun begins once we get OUT of the van, however. The hotels(painstakingly chosen to accommodate our massive crew) are full of excitement as the kids are allowed to jump on the beds(shh, don't tell!), have the best pools and the food isn't bad, either! We were fortunate enough to have found a real gem this time. Stoney Creek Inn served us VERY well. The room was HUGE, had bunk beds, plenty of space, and rustic log cabin looks. The kids loved it. They came to the rescue when the dvd player wouldn't work on the tv, so they wheeled in a huge tv on a cart for us to use instead! At 11pm, even! My only complaint was that we couldn't have stayed another night do to it being booked for a golf tourney. That certainly couldn't have been helped.
You may think, 'what is there to do in Iowa?', but we had a great time! There was the Channel Cat water taxi that we rode on the Mighty Mississippi, the River Bandits minor league baseball game, the John Deere Museum(okay, that is technically in Ill.) and some good eats for sure! I managed to take well over a hundred pictures in one weekend in Iowa, so there must be enough to do, right!? Just getting away from the normal day-to-day of home is all we needed, but got so much more! Spending the whole weekend with my family with no one going off to play with a friend, or begging to go do something fun. It was ALL fun!
The Wee Ones are good travelers and only really fussed at us in the car a little bit. Packing for a weekend with all those people was no small feat, but I didn't expect it would be! Getting it in the van is a whole 'nother story! The pack-n-play for the baby as well as the stroller take up most of the space, so the luggage has to be collapsible and forgiving. The packer must have good spacial-relations abilities as well to make it all fit. I had a good teacher with that, but I am still never going to be as good at it as he is! Now for the next trip out of town for TWICE that long....well, that will be a little more extensive and I may have to rely on the master-packer himself to get it all loaded in the van!
You never know how the little people will adjust to sleeping in a big room with a lot of other bodies, but they did surprisingly well. The first, night we had all the room in the world to spread out, but night #2 offered much more cramped accommodations. Somehow, I managed to find a closet the pack-n-play fit in for the baby that worked wonderfully. It was near the a/c which was great for the white noise it provided BUT shielded her from the cold blast. She would have been a popsicle had it not been for that closet! We gotta do what we gotta do sometimes!
Now to deal with the aftermath with the UNpacking and the laundry that goes with it! Off I go.....
I may have one less than you but I totally know what you mean!! When we travel, we have to tell them we have one less kid or they will try to charge us for two rooms. We try to stay in hotels that have family suites but as you know those are so much more. I feel like when we go anywhere it is like a small army exiting the van. This last week we had grandparents out and we drove together in the van. I felt like we had a clown car, people just kept coming out of it. lol I love have all the kids that I do so much!! but I totally understand how you feel.
ReplyDeleteyes, we are just like a clown car. every seat is filled so hardly the room for luggage. our next trip will be longer so the regular stroller will be a no-go. Umbrella one will have to do. Too bad the friends we are visiting don't have theirs anymore, their youngest is 5. That could have been nice. Maybe they've made friends with someone with a stroller?
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