If you are reading this, it means that we survived. We made it. The weekend that we were simultaneously looking forward to and dreading has come and gone. We are back in Florida in our own home with two (tired) little kiddos. A few months ago we received the save the date for one of my cousin's weddings. We set out with my parents to figure out a way to make the trip back to Mississippi for a long weekend with both kids so that everyone there could meet them and we could celebrate with my cousin and family.
While we started our trip on Friday morning, the planning needed to get to that point was started months ago. We booked a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom and living area suite so that we could share with my parents allowing us two extra people to help with the kids should we need it. We started a packing list at least a month ago. I knew that traveling with one child was a lot different than what we used to do when it was just the two of us... traveling with two (one a toddler and one just over 4 months) was even more of an undertaking. The drive to Mississippi is 10+ hours too so we had to be 100% ready and prepared. While we could go to stores there to buy things we forgot, we knew we wouldn't have a lot of extra time and we couldn't just come home early or anything if need be. We ran through quite a few ideas regarding how to get there before settling on driving our own cars in a caravan style to Mississippi.
On Friday morning we set out at 6am in route to Lake City, Florida. It is about 2 hours north of us and is our usual stop when going to Atlanta so we knew stopping there for breakfast would be our best bet. We like to get as much driving as possible done before breakfast. It seems to help break up the day better when we have a day of traveling. As we were leaving the house we mentioned to Kenzie that we would be driving through a tunnel underwater in Mobile later in the day. Cue the 500 questions about when we would get to the tunnel underwater, whether we would see fish, if there were boats... you get the idea. She eventually stopped asking about the tunnel, thank goodness. That would have been a really long trip.
We met my parents at Chick Fil A, had breakfast, gassed up and were off. Every stop took us about 15-30 minutes longer than it probably would have if it were just the two of us. Kenzie needs to potty, Will needs to nurse and get changed, and we need to do whatever we would usually need to do like potty ourselves. =) Kenzie was super excited to see Nana and Papa at Chick Fil A.
We did really well on the next portion of the drive and drove straight through to lunch. We had Waffle House for lunch and this is the portion of the trip that started Kenzie's apparent lack of need for food. I think she ended up surviving the weekend on nothing more than fruit, cheerios, and periodic pieces of chicken. After lunch we switched around who was in what car. We moved Kenzie to my parents' car and I drove their car for a while with Momma riding shotgun while Joe rode with Steven and Will. Will (thankfully) napped the majority of the drive and Kenzie even took a short nap after lunch.
When she woke up we were almost to Mobile so we took the opportunity to stop at the Alabama line, use the bathroom, feed Will, give Will an impromptu bath because he blew out of a diaper (definitely the most fun part of the trip... *note sarcasm), take a few pics, and switch drivers in my parents' car. I didn't want to drive through Mobile. We take a cut-through and I would rather ride than drive through there. The next portion of our drive included Kenzie's tunnel. She thought it was awesome and immediately asked if we could do it again when we exited. Then... Momma and I ended up almost missing an exit, taking it too fast, and losing Steven and Joe. Oops! As it turns out, our exit was wrong and they ended up taking the right one. They just went ahead and were about 15 miles ahead of us until we met up eventually in Mississippi for another stop for potty breaks and nursing Will. After the tunnel we put on a DVD for Kenzie. She watched Frozen for the next couple of hours and was happy as could be. We were super proud of her for doing so well and she only needed one DVD to make the entire day.
We switched Joe and myself back to our normal cars and left Kenzie with Nana and Papa at that point. We crossed the Mississippi state line and made it to Hattiesburg for dinner. We were making far worse time than we hoped, but with stopping so often and dealing with two kids, it was the best we could do. We had O'Charley's for dinner and then hit the road again. We made it to our hotel at about 8pm. At that point we had been going for 15 hours (we switched time zones so we lived the 10am hour twice).
Steven, Kenzie, Will, and I went up to our room first and realized that somehow we were given a one bedroom suite with two beds instead of the 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom we booked. I am going to save everyone the story of how that happened but just suffice it to say we won't use hotels.com again although it ended up being the hotel's flub in reality. After about an hour or so of arguing with hotels.com and the hotel, we ended up getting a one bedroom suite with a connecting one bedroom room. It was exactly what we wanted and what we thought we were getting initially but the hotel and hotels.com weren't clear with each other.
Neither kid went to bed before 10pm. They did absolutely phenomenol though! I am so proud of how they both handled the long day and drive. We all went to bed as quickly as possible knowing Saturday would be another big day.
I will recap our actual days in Mississippi in my next post. Stay tuned! =)
While we started our trip on Friday morning, the planning needed to get to that point was started months ago. We booked a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom and living area suite so that we could share with my parents allowing us two extra people to help with the kids should we need it. We started a packing list at least a month ago. I knew that traveling with one child was a lot different than what we used to do when it was just the two of us... traveling with two (one a toddler and one just over 4 months) was even more of an undertaking. The drive to Mississippi is 10+ hours too so we had to be 100% ready and prepared. While we could go to stores there to buy things we forgot, we knew we wouldn't have a lot of extra time and we couldn't just come home early or anything if need be. We ran through quite a few ideas regarding how to get there before settling on driving our own cars in a caravan style to Mississippi.
On Friday morning we set out at 6am in route to Lake City, Florida. It is about 2 hours north of us and is our usual stop when going to Atlanta so we knew stopping there for breakfast would be our best bet. We like to get as much driving as possible done before breakfast. It seems to help break up the day better when we have a day of traveling. As we were leaving the house we mentioned to Kenzie that we would be driving through a tunnel underwater in Mobile later in the day. Cue the 500 questions about when we would get to the tunnel underwater, whether we would see fish, if there were boats... you get the idea. She eventually stopped asking about the tunnel, thank goodness. That would have been a really long trip.
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| Nope. It's too cold for this. |
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| I have no idea what this face is... other than she is cold and still sleepy. |
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| Will was bundled too |
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| Chilly was our navigator |
When she woke up we were almost to Mobile so we took the opportunity to stop at the Alabama line, use the bathroom, feed Will, give Will an impromptu bath because he blew out of a diaper (definitely the most fun part of the trip... *note sarcasm), take a few pics, and switch drivers in my parents' car. I didn't want to drive through Mobile. We take a cut-through and I would rather ride than drive through there. The next portion of our drive included Kenzie's tunnel. She thought it was awesome and immediately asked if we could do it again when we exited. Then... Momma and I ended up almost missing an exit, taking it too fast, and losing Steven and Joe. Oops! As it turns out, our exit was wrong and they ended up taking the right one. They just went ahead and were about 15 miles ahead of us until we met up eventually in Mississippi for another stop for potty breaks and nursing Will. After the tunnel we put on a DVD for Kenzie. She watched Frozen for the next couple of hours and was happy as could be. We were super proud of her for doing so well and she only needed one DVD to make the entire day.
We switched Joe and myself back to our normal cars and left Kenzie with Nana and Papa at that point. We crossed the Mississippi state line and made it to Hattiesburg for dinner. We were making far worse time than we hoped, but with stopping so often and dealing with two kids, it was the best we could do. We had O'Charley's for dinner and then hit the road again. We made it to our hotel at about 8pm. At that point we had been going for 15 hours (we switched time zones so we lived the 10am hour twice).
Steven, Kenzie, Will, and I went up to our room first and realized that somehow we were given a one bedroom suite with two beds instead of the 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom we booked. I am going to save everyone the story of how that happened but just suffice it to say we won't use hotels.com again although it ended up being the hotel's flub in reality. After about an hour or so of arguing with hotels.com and the hotel, we ended up getting a one bedroom suite with a connecting one bedroom room. It was exactly what we wanted and what we thought we were getting initially but the hotel and hotels.com weren't clear with each other.
Neither kid went to bed before 10pm. They did absolutely phenomenol though! I am so proud of how they both handled the long day and drive. We all went to bed as quickly as possible knowing Saturday would be another big day.
I will recap our actual days in Mississippi in my next post. Stay tuned! =)
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