Mini Vacations and Life Lessons

It's been a while since my last post, but for good reason.  One of my best friends and I decided to take a small vacation with our kiddos over the Fourth of July holiday.  We packed up the van and headed to Myrtle Beach, SC last Wednesday morning.   I think she and I were both a little apprehensive about the drive, but the kiddos did great.  Our 8.5 hour drive turned into about 12 hours after all the dinner, snack, and bathroom stops, but all is well when you don't have a "schedule" to stick to.  I believe we were about 11.45 hours into our drive and 15 minutes away from our hotel when my second pull over and first ticket occurred. As you can see from the picture, the kids were a little worried.  Too bad Ella's crying didn't get me out of a ticket, but it may have been the reason why Mr. Trooper reduced the speed.  My only pull overs.... two weeks in a row!  Unbelievable!

 

On a more positive note, we let the kiddos jump right into the pools as soon as we arrived.  I think they were just a tad excited about this vacation which made our decision of bringing the kids along an even better move!

So, did I mention that my friend, Sejla, travels a lot for work and racks up lots of points for staying at Hilton hotels??  Well, for that very reason, we were able to stay in a super great hotel that offered her (and her guests) yummy breakfast every morning!  I'm not talking about the usual breakfast buffet you get at some hotels, but an actual sit down breakfast where the waitress takes your order.  You could tell my children were not used to this as Ella kept saying, "This is awesome!  This is the best breakfast I've ever had!" the entire first morning at breakfast.  Ella's usual consisted of eggs, pancakes, and sausage.  Grayson preferred eggs, pancakes, biscuits, donuts, potatoes, and chocolate milk.  I went four days in a row with French toast. 

 





A typical day while we were gone consisted of waking up, heading to breakfast (we liked getting there early to avoid lines and balloons), going to the beach, going to the pools, lunch, heading back out to the pool, possibly getting in a nap, getting ready for dinner, eating dinner, heading back home, getting kids to sleep, playing Candy Crush until we were exhausted... It was great minus the occasional temper tantrum, arguing, wish-washy decisions of going to pool/beach, and other kidlike behaviors.  Sejla and I started our own game of who would get to push the buttons on the elevators first and who would be the leader.  We are still kids at heart. 

 

 





Overall, it was a terrific trip!  So, what are the life lessons I mentioned in the title you ask?  Well, there are a few so I will spell them out for you one by one.

1. Take lots of snacks on road trips with small children.
2. Buy a radar detector if you plan on breaking speed limits.
3. Make sure you have generous friends who are willing to use their perks on you (Thank you Sejla for always being generous!)
4. Try not to compare yourself to other people because you never know their story (Us girls do this way too often!).
5. Make dinner reservations early!
6. Choose friends who you can be yourself around in all circumstances (i.e. when your children are driving you bonkers, when you're PMSing, or even when you've been driving for a long time).
7. Get one of those cool voice activation GPS thingys so you can look cool screaming at it as you drive.
8. And, one last one for Ella, be confident and face your fears (She went anxiety-free!)