Life is Wonderful: vacation

Ever since my friend Tara came to visit and showed Sophie pictures of the beach she has wanted to go there. Joe and I decided that we should make her wish come true and go to the beach for spring break. It did not take much convincing as we both love the beach. We searched online and decided to go to the Outer Banks. Neither of us have ever been there and I have always wanted to go. We found a condo right on the beach that was very decently priced since it was still the the off-season.

Going on vacation with young children is always interesting. Each vacation has its own issues and you never know what is going to happen. Our issues for this vacation was the distance (12 hours!) and both kids ended up getting sick! Ack! Still, we had a lot of fun and were happy having alone time together.

We had a 12 hour drive ahead of us so we decided that the best thing to do would be to drive through the night. Sophie has never been that great in the car so we wanted to make sure that they were asleep for a good portion of the time so we wouldn't have to deal with a lot of crabbiness. We packed the car in the evening while the girls slept. I was getting some last minute things done later at night when I heard Josie on the monitor. She was whimpering and making some noises so I decided to investigate. I didn't even make it up the third stair when I smelled vomit. She had been sick for a while but we thought that she was getting better. When I got up to her room the smell was overpowering. I flipped on the light and she was laying in a puddle of chunky white puke. She must of been rolling around in it. I never heard her actually vomit on the monitor, just whimpering so I was pretty shocked with the sight in front of me. I called for Joe and he grabbed her and gave her a bath while I cleaned her bed and anything else that was doused in puke. I brought her downstairs so that she could sleep on the couch and I could watch her. She didn't get sick anymore and we decided to go ahead and go on our vacation. I'm still not sure if that was the best parenting move. We loaded the girls into the car and started out on our journey to North Carolina. We stopped after a few hours to make sure that the girls got some food. Josie had only been drinking water and Pedialyte for a few days and not really eating anything so I was excited when she ate some oatmeal for breakfast. When we got back into the car girls fell asleep again. They were so good in the car. We had a DVD for them to watch when they got bored and they were excited whenever we got out to stretch or get food or gas. In the 12 hours the only time they really got cranky was at the very and when we were just 20 minutes away from our place. We were so fortunate that Josie didn't get sick in the car and wasn't feverish. We know she wasn't feeling well though so that was probably why she slept so much. I am so proud of both of those girls.

When we finally got to the condo we unloaded the car and put the pack and play so Josie could take a nap. Sophie and I went to find the indoor pool so that she could do some swimming. The pool was too cold but the hot tub felt like a nice warm bath so we spent a lot of time in there. We were all pretty tired for our travels, so when we ordered some take out and stayed in the condo. We all went to bed pretty early that night.

Before we went to be we gave Josie some milk, thinking that since she had been fever free should be fine. She was so hungry due to not eating, so she gulped the whole bottle down pretty quickly. Wouldn't you know it she ended up puking in her pack and play. It wasn't as bad as the puke she did before we left home but it was still pretty gross. (Sophie, who shared a room with her, slept through the whole ordeal. Thank goodness!) She and I ended up on the couch that night. She slept on my chest for half of the time and then scooted down and slept next to my legs. (She did the same thing the next night, but slept in her bed the rest of the time.)

We did a lot of snuggling on vacation.

One of the things that I really wanted for this vacation was a place on the beach. Having two young kids with small attention spans, I didn't want to have to walk a long time or drive to the beach. I knew it would probably be cold, too, since it was April, so we probably wouldn't stay out too long. On our second day of vacation, we put on some warm clothes and made our way to the condo's beach entrance. The girls enjoyed playing in the sand but weren't very happy with the wind. We stayed for about 15 minutes before Sophie declared that it was time to leave.

We went to the North Carolina aquarium in Roanoke. I think that our aquarium back home was a lot better, but I really did like a lot of the exhibits. My favorite thing was the shark ray pool (always a favorite of mine. I just love those little guys!). You could reach in and touch them which was pretty neat. Sophie was trying to touch them but they kept scooting away from her hand. She couldn't reach in far enough to get to them. Sophie's favorite thing was the sea turtle rehabilitation center. In it, you take a plastic sea turtle and examine it. The computer simulator would tell you what is wrong with the sea turtle. Then you take it to be cleaned and fixed up. Another computer simulator tells you what you should do to help it out. Then you take it to a little rehab center, which was just a rotating tank, and then you can release it back into the wild. So she absolutely loved it and we ended up having to go back to it a second time so she could do it again. If that girl doesn't end up going into the medical field one day I will be shocked. She absolutely loves anything that is involved with medicine. She also liked the area outside where you could go and try to find fossils and rocks. Josie was not very impressed with the aquarium at all. I am sure that she still felt cruddy though. She sat in her stroller quietly the whole time.

We went to visit the Bodie lighthouse. It was closed due to the off-season so we couldn't go up inside of it. It was still beautiful to see.

I was super excited about being close to Roanoke. I love American history and really wanted to see what the settlement area looked like. I was so disappointed. There wasn't much there and since it was the off season they weren't doing the reenactment play that is supposed to be wonderful. We left pretty quickly after getting there. We also went to the Wright Brothers Museum. It was pretty neat to see where the first flights took place. It was a really windy day though and Sophie wasn't feeling well so we didn't stay that long. We wanted to go back again to fly a kite, but then Sophie didn't feel well the rest of the vacation so we decided not to.

I hate that the girls were both sick over vacation. I'm glad that they weren't sick at the same time, but I wish they didn't have to go through this. Still I am proud that they were troopers. (And I am thankful that there were so many urgent care centers in the area, just in case we needed them.)

Joe and I said that we would both love to go back to the Outer Banks in the future. We will probably wait until the girls are little bit older. All those hours away from home is just a little too much stress right now. I'm still so glad that we went. It was absolutely beautiful! The best thing though was being together as a family. It was so nice to get away from work for a little while and just spend time with the four of us. I love moments like that.

Josie's first time with a Popsicle. She wasn't in love with how cold it was, but she kept going back for more. Popsicles are pretty hard to resist!

Poor little Josie felt so cruddy during the first half of the vacation. She slept best on the couch.

Oatmeal and Pedialyte - breakfast of champions

View from our balcony

We watched Frozen every night.

Poor Sophie was so sick on the last two days of our trip.

When found out that I was pregnant with Josie I figured that we wouldn't go on vacation anytime soon. I knew that it would be hard going anywhere with a very young baby, not to mention all of the stuff we would have to bring with us to care for her. Once Joe started his new job taking a family vacation became even less of an option. In a way that was a relief to me since I was pretty much scared to take a vacation with two young kids. I was doing fine with that decision until a couple weeks ago. I really just wanted to get out of town and enjoy my summer break with my girls. My sister and her family were going to Coldwater again this year (we've gone up there with them and my mom the past two years) and she had asked before if we wanted to go. I wanted to but I knew I couldn't make a drive on my own with both kids (Joe would not be available to go due to his new job). My mom wasn't interested at first. On July 4th when we were at my moms house celebrating the holiday, Debra was talking about them leaving for vacation the next day. I got sad and really longed to go with them. My mom had a change of heart and said that she would go with us for a few days. Whooo hoooo!

Let me just say that riding in the car with two young kids is not fun at all. Josie was good for the most part. She usually falls right asleep as soon as she gets in the car and will stay asleep for a while. Of course our drive was a 4 1/2 to 5 hour ride (with one stop on the way) so she didn't stay asleep the whole time. When she would wake up she would play for little while, babbling happily before getting really cranky. It definitely had me flustered. Sophie had me even more flustered. She took a small nap when we started the ride but when she woke up she did not want to be in the car. She has always been a bad traveler so this didn't surprise me much. Still it is difficult when you have a kid constantly whining and saying that she wants to get out while thrashing around. ACK! I'm sure that my mom wondered why she volunteered to go with us multiple times. When we finally made it to the cottage in Coldwater we were all ready to get out of the car. I'm not sure who was more excited.

The cottage where we stayed.

We basically only stayed for two days. We arrived Sunday evening, stayed all day Monday, and left on Tuesday afternoon. That is a pretty short amount of time for that long of a drive. The weather was pretty gross mess the time that we were there. There were rainstorms on the way to and from the lake and it was overcast most of the time that we were there. The mosquitoes were awful, too! It was all worth it though to see Sophie having such a great time with her cousin and for us all to be together as a family. I especially loved being able to share Coldwater Lake with Josie (Sophie has been the past two years). It was always my favorite place when I was little and for both my girls to be able to experience it means the world to me. Monday night as I was putting Sophie to sleep I told her that I love her. She replied, "Thank you for taking me on cation." My heart melted.