There was so much prep work for this trip. So much. It had been two years since we’d really gone on a trip like this, plus this was our first trip as a family of five, and had so many unknowns, so I think we went a bit overboard. Our motto was better to be prepared than surprised, but I think it worked.

Aside from packing suitcases, flights and having a place to stay, there were other details. Leading up to the trip we rented baby gear and coordinated it getting dropped off at the rental house. We put in Amazon and Target orders of snacks and toys and diapers and anything we could possibly think of needing while we were there. There were things like masks to think about and any other Covid related extras to plan for. We rented a car, asked someone to check on the cats, and figured out the car seats.

Oh the car seats.

If you don’t have young children, you may be surprised to learn that people install car seats on the planes now. Guidance and standards change so often, enough that what was the norm when I was a child is different from what was the norm when my niece and nephew were children, and is different from what we do today. (And I fully acknowledge that it will likely be different by the time the next generation comes along) With today’s best advice, kids stay rear facing until they’re 4ish and are in some sort of car seat or booster seat until they’re 12. So planning on which seats to bring and how to carry them and install them and everything that went along with that also took a lot of time and energy.

But it paid off. The children knew how to behave on the plane, because they know how to behave in a car. That plus we also did a lot of airplane prep. We watched many videos of airports and security lines and the inside of planes so that they had an inkling of what things would look and sound like. Neither E or G were ever scared or overwhelmed while we waited in lines, went through metal detectors or walked onto the plane, so I’m hoping that was at least in part to all the prep we did.

The best decision we made, though, was to bring an extra adult. The last time we flew we had one child and two adults and I remember that trip and flight being HARD. This time around we added two children and one adult and everything was so much easier.

F was probably the happiest flyer, amazingly. She took a few naps but mostly just was so glad to be there. She sang and jumped and had so much fun. The older two were in their car seats, headphones on, watching their very own TV and were very happy about that. One of them was a very chill flyer, who barely noticed take off and landing, and the other was a very nervous flyer who kept begging us to land the plane and claimed he never wanted to get on a plane in the first place. We all survived though.

While in Florida, we mostly spent time on walking paths and farmers markets and playgrounds enjoying the warm weather. We spent time with family, ate good meals and hopefully made memories. We watched movies, read books and played with trucks.

Who knows what our kids will remember about this trip, but here are a few random thought and memories I have:

• Going into the cockpit is apparently more exciting for the adults than the children. You take two children who are very overwhelmed and have a lot to look at and sort through, and send them into a tiny room with a lot of buttons. On our return flight E said to me “I don’t want to sit in the driver’s seat this time.” We weren’t offered anyway, so that was fine, but it did strike me as funny.

• It gets light a lot later in this part of Florida. I tend to think of Florida as straight down from Massachusetts, but it’s actually quite far west. So that means when children wake up early on vacation, it’s completely dark outside. And then when daylight savings happened, it made it way worse.

• My children are still who they are, even on vacation. If they find a broom, they’ll pick it up and start sweeping a room. They love cleaning windows and collecting rocks and pointing out construction vehicles.

• F had the hardest adjustment on vacation. She’s really never left our house, never slept somewhere new, and hasn’t even been outside really. I think she was overwhelmed a lot this vacation. She didn’t cry and was still pretty easy going, but she did have a sour face anything something new or different happened. I think the whole trip was a lot for her mind to process.

• My kids are still not beach kids.

• The number of adults available, plus nights after the kids were asleep gave me the opportunity to actually read two books while on the trip. I was telling Tom that it felt different from how reading on vacation used to be - back then I’d read because I wanted to and stop when I felt like it. Now I panic read when I had a free moment knowing that it would be interrupted at any moment. I’m still glad to have the chance to read though.

• We saw turtles and bald eagles and geckos and manatees and beehives.

• In what will surprise no one with children, I felt like the days were really long and as my kids asked for their eighth meal of the day, that I couldn’t believe it was only X time, or our Xth day there. Yet I look back and it went so fast.

And finally, I asked both E and G what their favorite part of the trip was. When I asked early on, they mentioned the van ride to the airport, so I was hoping something else came to the top of the list. After thinking for a bit, E answered first. “New food, new TV and sleeping with people!” As an explanation, he did try new food - key lime pie, rainbow “superhero” ice cream, and probably lots of other snacks I’m forgetting. We also connected a DVD player to the TV a few days in and had an urgent Target order to get us some entertainment for downtime (since there were no naps and a rainy/cold day to deal with). Horton Hears a Who was a definite favorite there. And yes, me my sister, E and G all shared one room, and that was all E has ever wanted in his life. My sister said that he held her hand or linked arms with her all night long.

I was worried that G would give the same answers, because he often copies whatever E says. But he had his own mostly different list: “Outside, Eating and coming home!” Also fair - we did explore a lot outside which made him happy, there was always a ton of food he loved and had never had before (like BBQ ribs) but when the week came to an end, and especially on the plane ride back, he was begging to be home and have his bed back.

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