Family Vacation 2015 - Day Dos - Plans change, roll with it

The person who first said "things don't always go as planned" must have had kids. It isn't that things always go bad, they just don't go like you thought they would.
Today the plan was to go to Colonial Williamsburg for the day. Probably check things out there and have lunch and come back to the hotel by nap time in the afternoon. 

We had been to Colonial Williamsburg before and had a good time just walking around. This time though, we wanted to see things we hadn't had a chance to see the first time. So, we arrived at Downtown Williamsburg and found a parking spot in the shade, which is essential if you have a black car and a dark colored car seat for your toddler. We got out the Ergo and stroller and snacks and sunglasses and backpack and diapers and juice and we were all set for an all day learning and history adventure through colonial times. We leisurely strolled down the sidewalk and Rylynn was content breaking her sunglasses in her stroller and Denver was sound asleep, sweating on momma. We ooh'd and ahh'd at the people dressed in old clothes and the horse and carriages and heavily debated touring a church which cost $1 per person, but then decided to save our money, hopefully for ice cream. We made our way to the Governors Palace, trying to stay as much in the shade as possible. When we reached the large abode we saw some people going inside the large brick wall and thought "Oh, that would be fun to go through there" so we followed them. But a Colonial Williamsburg employee stopped us at the entrance and asked for our passes, which we didn't have. "Oh yes. You need a pass for everything in Williamsburg" he explained. So he directed us to the ticket house, and we headed back the exact way we had come, towards the ticket house, but not before we snapped a great picture :) 

Once inside the refreshingly cool, air conditioned house we looked at the ticket prices and thought "I wonder where I can sell my kidney around here". The daily admission for an adult is $40.99, but kids are free! Yay! We thanked the gentleman at the ticket booth for explaining to us that there's nothing fun you can do without buying passes and quietly acted like we were discussing whether to buy the tickets, when in actuality we were just enjoying some A/C before heading back into the heat to go elsewhere. 

Not that $40.99 is an outrageous price, but just not what we were hoping to spend for probably about an hour til the kids got bored, tired or hungry. So, we accelerated our plans and decided to go to the Jamestown settlement as well. Long story short... We drove there... And there's nothing to do without buying $25 passes, but the gift shop was neat. And, actually, the drive was quite enjoyable and relaxing. 

So, by now it's about 11:30 and we had basically done nothing except get the kids in and out of the car for what seemed like a hundred times, but it was time to feed Denver and ourselves. We made our way back towards the hotel and found a nice pull off area in the shade where Melody could nurse Denver and me and Rylynn could go play on a small beach area. Rylynn had a great time playing in the calm water and digging in the sand and watching a dog shake it's wet body right in front of her. It's easy to smile when you see your child having so much fun :) 

But eventually it's time to go. I tried to clean and dry Rylynns soaked and sandy body off with a blanket we had in the trunk, and changed her into dry clothes while she screamed for wanting to stay. That's one thing that's not great; stopping your kids from doing something they are loving. But, we gotta eat. 

Yelp! came to our aid and found us a nice little diner called Five Forks Cafe. The food was good and the staff members were super friendly and couldn't stop complimenting us on our beautiful children :)

Then it was back to the hotel for nap time, and both kids were asleep before we even finished the 15 minute drive. It wasn't at all the morning we had planned, but it was a great morning nonetheless. 

Later on, after naps, we got some pizza and wings from a local Italian place called Sal's and ate in the hotel room. The wings were amazing and Rylynn had a fun time running around the hotel room as we tried to prevent her from getting pizza sauce on stuff. 

After at least 30 minutes after eating, to avoid cramping, we went down to the hotel pool. Indoor hotel pools are normally easy to find, as long as you can smell. We just followed the chlorine odor and we ended up in a loud, hot, eye-burning room with a relatively small body of water, semi-crowded with other very active children seemingly unaware of their surroundings or that anybody else exists on the planet. But, Rylynn loved it and Denever even gave it a try. 

Hoping that it would make Rylynn sleepy, we stayed at the pool for a while. Once we were back in the room, we had some snack and way too much juice and watched TV til bedtime. Denver was already zonked out so it was just the active toddler to try and relax. Obviously we had not stayed at the pool long enough, because she was not even close to tired. Finally after about 45 minutes of struggling, she was asleep, and the day was done. And no ice cream was eaten :( 

My thoughts on the day- Parenting is a roller coaster of emotions. Frustration, joy, impatience, gratitude, etc. You never know when a happy moment is going to immediately change to a moment where you're trying to change a diaper in the public bathroom but someone had to dry their hands and the electric hand dryer is loud and is probably gonna attack and eat everyone so we should probably freak out and scream at the top of our lungs! But at the end of the day, even if your plans got changed or ruined, you look at your sleeping child covered in an Elsa towel used as a blanket, and all you think about is the good stuff. At that moment, you don't care that they cried for 5 minutes because you gave them water instead of orange juice. You think about your day, and how much of a blessing it is to have kids who love you and forgive you for when you mess up. THAT is a nice thing to fall asleep to. 

Family Vacation 2015 - Day 1 - Beginning Our Journey

Everyone loves to go to the beach over summer vacation. We love to escape the heat and humidity of Lancaster PA and travel 3 to 18 hours away for different heat and humidity. The great thing about going to the beach is that the only thing you have to do is... Nothing. You just relax. You can mix things up and read if you want, but even that can be a little stressful for the beach. That's the illusion of the beach anyway. Come, relax, and enjoy life. But some people have kids. And it's not always that simple. We are among the lucky to be blessed with two beautiful, healthy, full-of-life kids, and we are one of the many families attempting a beach vacation this summer. In this installment of Ryan's Ramblings I will be writing the happenings of everyday on our vacation. The good, the bad, and all the joys of parenting in between. 

For a little back story... We have two kids; a 2 year old girl, Rylynn, and a 2 month old boy, Denver. Here they are right before were about to leave...  

The plan is to spend a week at a beach house in St. Augustine, FL with the rest of my family. St. Augustine is not real close to Lancaster, Pa; about 14 hours driving. That seems a little far to expect our two lil'ns to be content. So, we decided to break it up. 

We can check into our beach house in Florida at 4 o'clock on Saturday. So here is the plan we came up with to make the journey tolerable for us all...

Wednesday- Pack up and leave by 6 to arrive at the hotel in Williamsburg, Va by midnight

Thursday- Visit Colonial Williamsburg

Friday- Visit Historic Jamestown in the morning and then travel to Charleston, Sc in the afternoon. 

Saturday- Explore Charleston and leave for Florida to arrive at the house around 4-5pm. 

That's the plan... We'll see how it goes. 

It started off great. While I was at work on Wednesday my amazing wife, Melody, got everything ready to go, while managing to take care of two kids (with some help from a neighbor). So, when I got home from work the car was all packed and she was just about finished nursing our son. I changed quickly, we loaded up in our new-to-us Camry and started on our trip... To Wendy's. We grabbed some quick grub and we were officially on our trek by 6:15 pm. 

Williamsburg is only about 4.5 hours from Lancaster so we were hoping to arrive at our hotel before midnight. As we began to travel we, of course, came to an accident on the highway, which delayed us about a half hour. But both kids did pretty fair through that ordeal. Around 8:30 our son needed to be nursed again, so we pulled off the highway and me and Rylynn watched for airplanes while Melody nursed Denver. Thinking that I would be easier to feed him from a bottle in the car, Melody had procured some milk for him during the drive and started feeding him. He wasn't having that. After struggling with the bottle for a while, poor Melody ended up having to nurse frustrated Denver anyway. That was a lesson learned for us.

About a half hour later we were back on the road... With a new seating chart. Denver could not be pacified after feeding so Melody was forced to be squeezed between two car seats in the back to control the situation while I drove. She was able to get Denver calmed down, over and over again, while the constant "momma! momma! momma!" came from her other side. She handled the situation great and with patience only a mother can possess. Because of Melody's skills, the entire back seat was asleep at about 10:30pm and I was trying hard NOT to join them. 

I try to find ways to stay awake while driving such as blowing ice cold a/c right in my face, listening to talk radio, or not listening to the radio at all and just singing to myself. I thought I was doing pretty good, but at about 11:30 the sound of rumble strips woke Melody. She could see I was struggling and engaged me in conversation, and before we knew it we had reached our destination. After quickly unloading all the luggage and children, we found our room, fed the baby, wrangled the newly energized toddler and went to bed. We had made it the first leg of our journey with little hassle. I thanked God for safety and an amazing family, and quickly drifted off to Lalaland.