Traveling with Kiddos- Florida 2015

As our trip to Florida approached, Ryan started stressing about traveling all day long with a baby.  He likes to think of all the things that can go wrong, and he was wondering why we had decided to take all four kids across the country.  But I must say, traveling with them was CAKE.

Okay, there were some stressful moments.  But that was mostly my stress in trying to plan for every possible thing we would need while I was packing.  For the plane/car, for Disney the very next day, for family pictures we were taking on the beach, and for the rest of the trip at my mom’s.  I was kind of a mess and couldn’t let myself think/worry about anything else for that last week.  But I got it!  I didn’t forget anything.  We did get pictures.  The kids behaved marvelous on the plane and Kaden didn’t cry or whine AT ALL.  In fact, he thought it was a great adventure.

There was all this drama about me getting a new phone before our trip.  I had gotten one a couple weeks earlier and it died within 24 hours, and I couldn’t even get it to power on.  So I returned it, but they couldn’t give me a new one because they had to mail that one back.  It was a big pain.  I told them I needed it before I left town on Monday.  I had almost resolved to have my crappy phone connected to the portable charger throughout the whole trip, when at the last minute the Sprint store came through.  Nice.  One less thing to stress about.

We packed up early Monday morning and headed out on our LONG trip. 

We left at like 8, arrived in Florida at like 10:30, then had to wait around to get a rental car and didn’t make it to the hotel until midnight or so.  14 hours after leaving our house.  AND they didn’t have the room we had reserved, instead it was one bed and a pull out couch.  For six of us…  Luckily Dylan doesn’t mind making a bed on the floor.  And we got a little pack ‘n play for Kaden.  We even had a door to our room to shut us in and the kids fell asleep pretty quickly.  Not surprising since it was like 11pm Idaho time.

Let’s back up, though.  We made it to Salt Lake and grabbed some lunch, then parked at the park ‘n ride.  We had so much stuff between the stroller, two carseats, luggage for each kid, backpack for each kid and me, etc.  But we made it with plenty of time. The stressful thing was that we didn’t have assigned seats.  I’m not sure where we were supposed to choose our seats, but we had three seats together, and then one on row 5 and one on row 26 or something.  So, do we leave the three kids in a row by themselves?  No.  Do we make one of the kids sit alone with two strangers?  Sad.  They were middle seats too.  The flight was so full, the only thing we could do was wait and see if someone sitting in one of the seats would trade us.  We decided someone might be more willing to move up to the front of the plane so we sat at the back and waited.  On the plus side, they had offered to check bags at the gate for free since the plane was so full.  We had planned carry-ons for the kids because checking the bags is more expensive.  But it was hard for all the kids to drag their suitcases, especially Sadie.  So it was really nice to get rid of those.

The first guy I asked was a quiet, quirky guy and he told me he really wanted an aisle seat so he turned me down.  Understandable.  But I’m sitting there with a baby on my lap, you would think he wouldn’t want to sit by me.  I was getting really nervous.  Kylee was going to have to sit by herself in between two strangers.  Finally a lady came back and I asked her about trading and she agreed, but she seemed flustered and had to put her bag in the overhead back there by us because everything else was full.  But she was very nice and took our seat up front.  Kylee came back with me and Kaden and Ryan sat with Sadie and Dylan.

Kaden was so sweet.  He just played and then cuddled and fell asleep on me.

That was the flight from Salt Lake to Phoenix.  The next flight from Phoenix to Orlando was not as full and they were able to get our seats by each other.  Yay!

I was able to pass Kaden off to Ryan when I got tired of him climbing all over me and trying to pull out the barf bag and the magazines.  He fell asleep when I nursed him and it was all really easy again.  We even found some sushi and veggies with hummus at the Phoenix airport that I was really excited about!

The flight was long, but we made it without too much whining from the kiddos.  They were even really good, though a little wound up, while we waited for our rental car.

The only time Kaden decided he was sick of traveling was on day three when we were making the drive from Tampa to Melbourne.  He started screaming!  I sat next to him and hung out with him, and it turned out he had a poopy diaper so maybe that’s why he was so mad.  But after we got that taken care of and I sat there with him, he was much better.  He is such a sweet baby.

Jump to our trip home.  We left Melbourne for Orlando the night before our flight.  The flight was at 7:30, which is 5:30am Idaho time.  We had to wake up at 5am to get there.  We checked into the hotel in Orlando and Ryan went to take the rental van back.  He didn’t really have a way back to the hotel, and instead of paying for a taxi, he decided to walk the four miles back to our hotel.  In the dark.  Down some sketchy roads…

In the meantime I did my best to get the kids to SLEEP!!  They were all riled up. 

I eventually threatened them and then Kaden and I hid in the bathroom so we weren’t disturbing the other kiddos while they fell asleep.  I couldn’t let Kaden crawl on the bathroom floor, but I figured the tub was a little cleaner.  He thought it was another great adventure :)

It was a REALLY early morning.  And it was a REALLY LONG traveling day, especially since our flight from Phoenix to SLC was delayed an hour or more.  The kids were beat.

But still, they were well behaved.  I mean, there was an almost-tantrum by Sadie as we were getting ready to get off one of the flights.  But it wasn’t anything too embarrassing.  In fact, most the people around us were still willing to take her home because she is so cute.  Sometimes I wonder if it’s encouraging her dependent, princess behavior because people are always saying how cute she is.  Or maybe it’s just the age.  Maybe age 5 will be a better year for her.

The drive from Salt Lake to Idaho Falls is always the worst.  By then we are just SO ready to be home.  And it’s still 3.5 hours away.  The kids are champs, though.  We were just so impressed with Kaden.  I think it was this trip that really made Ryan see how Kaden is a really great baby.  He got a little impatient in the car.  Who can blame him?  But overall he was amazing.

We stopped by the dealership as we pulled into town and picked up my new car!  It had been in the shop getting some things fixed when we left so we were excited to grab it.  Then I had to go to the grocery store so we would have some food!  After 15+ hours traveling, and being awake at 3 am Idaho time, I was beat!  But it was worth it.  We had a great trip!