First off, let me ease everyone's mind, we are all fine. Things have been kind of nuts, in a good way for a change, around here. The cookie cake was wonderful. Here is a shot of a piece of it. I can't advise you strongly enough to make it a few days ahead, it makes a HUGE difference.
The Smith Family Players have been on the road, so the posting has been extremely light. Turns out traveling with two children under four can be time-consuming AND stressful! I do not recommend it.
This was our first trip with Baby C. She has actually proven to be a pretty good traveler, that is if you aren't really attached to the concept of a decent night's sleep. She and her brother are morning people, loud morning people.
I am not exactly sure what I did wrong in my last life, but I (not a morning person) have been thrust into a family of morning people. My "birth family" are all morning people and my husband is a morning person, and, heaven help me, my children are both morning people.
I, on the other hand, am an insomniac night owl. They torture me endlessly and I guzzle coffee. Such is life.
I can remember traveling with my parents and my brother on family vacations. Spending countless hours wedged into the back seat of a Pontiac Firebird (my father has a Jim Rockford complex to this day), getting more and more carsick. Luckily, I discovered Dramamine and was able to sleep through most of the later travels. That however, made sleeping at night difficult at best. My night owl tendencies did not make me popular with my family of morning people.
The next morning, I would be groggy and in a foul mood while the rest of my family was bouncing around, showering, going to breakfast and just generally being obnoxious. And so it went, until I could stop traveling with these people.
For years I traveled on my own. I kept a much more leisurely pace and was happy with it. I completely kicked my motion sickness issues and actually enjoyed travel. I would arrive early and end up waiting for my flights. I could get through security without creating a huge bottleneck at the metal detector. It was wonderful.
Now, I am married and have two children. Travel is much more difficult and daunting when you have small children.
I am THAT woman. That one with with the crazy hair, sweating profusely, using 850 bins to get all her belongings through the stupid scanner at the TSA check at the airport. Yup, that woman is now me. I see the rolling eyes. I feel the anguish of the people that are stuck behind us. Turns out you have to have your shoes scanned even if you are only 14 months old!
Yes, that was us being paged in LAX to report to the gate. Yes, we were exactly that late for our flight. We were the last people to board our flight (no small feat with a car seat, about 215,978,321 bags and two pissed off kids). We went through that airport at a dead run and barely made it.
By the way, Virgin America is fantastic. Love love love them. The food is awesome, love the whole, order-your-food-and-have-it-delivered-to-your-seat-concept. My ONLY complaint is the flight attendants on our return flight (the two women, actually one may have been a man in a skirt, there is no way to be 100% sure without embarrassing everyone) were total beyatches. You know who you are. You know, the one that called me "Sweetie" and told me that I could not change my son's diaper in my seat, despite the fact that there was a line 8 people deep for the stupid bathroom.
Otherwise, your little airline has my full support.
Here are a few shots of where we were headed.
It is a magical land called Waverly, New York. My aunt and uncle have a farm there and we all gathered for a family reunion.
I have not been back for over 9 years, so this was a pretty big deal. The last time I visited, I was single and childless. My goodness, so many changes in so little time!
But more about that later!