I alluded to it in E's nine month update, but we recently went on a BIG TRIP!

Now this wasn't what I would have considered a big trip, pre-baby. In fact it was a trip I've made many times with various people. My parents go to Florida every year for spring training, and so I've visited them there multiple times. With cousins, with best friends, with Tom... Easy, quick trips.

But in the post baby world, I consider an easy trip to be one in which we can drive and get there without stopping to feed the baby. Ideally under 2 hours. Because let's be honest, sometimes a trip to Target isn't all that easy.

So considering that this trip involved getting on a plane. With a baby. And figuring out how to pack all the things into tiny suitcases... this was officially a BIG TRIP.

That I obsessed over for weeks (okay maybe months) before we went.

Some things were easier than I planned for, some were not. Some things went perfectly, some things we had to improvise, but overall... overall I think it went great! It could be that the middle part was so much fun, and the weather was so warm and sunny that it made me black out all the packing and travel and blowouts in the airport, but it was all worth it.

We're home now, and spending some time recovering. Vacations aren't quite as relaxing as they used to be! So for now E is back to school, we're back to work, and everyone is slowly getting back to a schedule.

Oh and the Maia kitty is super excited to have us home. Almost as excited as E is to see her!

But let me explain my thinking: E needed to do something this summer. The other two are in daycare, but we needed to find a care option for E, and that meant paying money for camps. So my first plan was to find a way to pay for less weeks of camps. This was also around the time that my employer was calling us back into the office at regular intervals, which is not something I enjoy.

So I figured if there was a way to not go into the office, not pay for camp, and also go on vacations I’ve always dreamed of going on with my children, it would be win-win-win! Part of this is the pandemics fault, because we’ve been trapped at home for so long that we’ve been dreaming up quite a list of places we wanted to go.

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More Vacation Fun

While I knew I wanted to go to Santa’s Village this summer, it seemed like a long distance to go for just one day. So we decided to take a couple, and explore some more areas of New Hampshire. One of the first things we did was play mini golf, since it was right across the street from our hotel. It went about as crazy as you’d expect. One kid was really into it, one was very frustrated that they weren’t better, and one loved to pick up every ball they saw and take off running with it.

I could have done with 9 holes instead of 18, but I’m pretty sure we succeeded in making some good memories, which is really all I’m looking for with things like this. Somehow I even managed to make two holes in one without even looking! I’d hit my ball quickly and then grab a child only to have Tom let me know my ball had gone in the cup. I actually did worse when I paid attention to it.

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Santa's Village

I go back and forth about how I want to spend our summers. Relaxing and lazy summers spent outside by the water? Or action packed and seeing all the things? Maybe I’ll alternate - rent a house one year for a slow paced vacation and the next year spend the summer going all over and seeing everything I want to see. Or maybe it’s a result of feeling so locked down the past few years due to the pandemic and getting used to being a family of five.

But as I’ve stated before, I’ve been itching to do more lately. So this summer I planned a few things that’ve I’ve been dreaming about. Number one? Santa’s Village!

I actually wasn’t sure if we’d do Storyland or Santa’s Village - I didn’t really feel strongly one way or another, but eventually I leaned towards Santa’s Village. I felt like our family likes Christmas more than fairy tales, and I heard the park had more shade for hot and sunny days.

We Survived!

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