Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, time to get away

So our first official family vacation took place this last week.  All in all, it was a great time, though we did get off to a rocky start.  Let's walk through the list of what happened.

1 - Thanks to hurricane/tropical storm/tropical depression Lee, we had a little longer trip on the way out.  Our flight was delayed about an hour, and we only found out about it once we were at the gate. 

2 - When we finally boarded we discovered the plane was full, so we did not get to sit together.  Even though we booked  our seats (a window and an aisle seat) in the same row.  Since the girls were on our laps and each set of three seats only has four oxygen masks, Hadley and I were forced to move up a row. 

3 - We were nearing the end of our flight and the girls were nearing the end of their patience - not to mention their snacks/books/moving the tray up and down. The captain came on the PA and informed us that we were going to have to circle the airport for 25 minutes until we were cleared to land.  Not exactly what we wanted to hear.  Fortunately, five minutes later we were cleared.

4 - After landing, we had to wait for a gate to open up.  Then, since we were in the back of the plane, we had to wait for everyone else to take their sweet time unloading.  Finally, we were free.

5 - We went to the rental car lot and were given our car after a modest wait.  The girls had been travelling for five hours and were ready to be done.  Mama walked with them while I got the vehicle.  We discovered it was too small to hold us and our luggage.  Fortunately, they had larger SUVs so we were able to take one - for a few dollars more.



6 - The rental car seats were crap - utter crap.  The girls may have been safer just sitting in a cardboard box on the hood.  We wanted rear facing ones and they claimed to be such.  They did not, however, have all of the appropriate connectors and straps to install properly.  For the first time ever our girls rode facing forward.  They seemed to love it.  We loved being able to look back at them and see what was going on, but it just isn't as safe for them at their size.

7 - We got to our dinner location about two hours later than I had planned.  Since we were so delayed, we decided to feed the girls in transit some blueberries we brought with us for snacks.  They were starving, apparently, and gobbled them all down.  In the middle of the night, Brynne's stomach decided it didn't want them in there anymore and she expelled them.  At 3 AM I got her up, we cleaned the vomit off her, changed her to a new sleep sack, replaced her bedding (with towels since I didn't pack back-up bedding), and put her back down as she seemed empty.

8 - Less than 30 minuted later she needed new towels.  She was reenacting her Papa's trip from a few weeks ago, so Mama laid in bed with her.  Hadley was not happy about her sister getting more attention than she did, so I took her to sleep with me.  This was the first time either of them had slept a good part of the night with us.  Everyone (except me) slept pretty well.  Once again I was a chicken and feared I would either roll over her or let her roll off the bed, so I remained awake.  Even if that fear wouldn't have been there, she is a very active sleeper, apparently, and if I got close to sleep she would kick me, roll over on me, or put her head right on my windpipe to constrict my breathing.

This may seem bad, but this is all that went wrong.  Five days away from home, and this is all we had to endure.  Our girls did a wonderful job in adapting to whatever was thrown their way.

Now that the bad stuff is out of the way I can move on to all the great things we did.