Roadtrip

Well . . . last weekend we actually got brave and decided to go on a short weekend getaway since we hadn't gone anywhere with the kids all summer. Due to finances, we stayed in state, and we only planned to stay one night in a hotel. I thought, how hard can that be? It's just one night. We should be able to pack light and get everything in one bag.

Wrong.

The van was loaded down by the time Stuart had put in all the stacks of bags that I had filled. Two bags for snacks. One bag of diapers/wipes/baby food stuff. One suitcase for our clothes. One pool bag for the hotel pool which included sunscreen, floaties, 4 bathing suits, and goggles. A cooler to keep drinks cool in the car. A bumbo chair for Arden. A stroller for Arden. A cradle swing for Arden (very huge, but she is still addicted to it). It looked like we were moving instead of going away for one night!

The trip was about a two hour drive, and no, we don't have a DVD player in our van. So, we must have heard, "Are we almost there yet?" about 45 times on the way. We realized that driving with a baby is harder than we remembered because we had to stop to change her poopy diapers and feed her. We also have a baby who (for some reason beyond us) doesn't like to sleep in a moving vehicle! We made it almost an hour, then we already could smell some toxic fumes coming from the back of the van. Her first poopy diaper. We then realized we had brought no empty plastic bags to dispose of them in! Ugh!

Since it was around 100 degrees that day, we were drinking a lot of our cooled drinks which soon made the boys have to take potty breaks too. When we finally arrived at our destination, it was lunch time and much later than we expected. Arden had not slept at all in the car, and she had been awake for 5 1/2 hours straight at this point already, so she was getting a bit cranky.

We checked into the brand new hotel (big mistake thinking that "brand new" would be great!) which took Stuart almost 25 minutes. He later told us that the front desk attendant didn't know how to check him in and that the hotel had just opened a few days earlier.

We finally released the kids from the van into the steamy hot parking lot and began the trek up to the second floor with about 20 bags, Bumbo chair, laptop computer bag, cradle swing, etc. We got Arden down for a nap, but not before we had to change another poppy diaper with still no way to wrap it up in a plastic bag, so it would not continue to stink up the entire room. We decided to sit down in the cool, nicely decorated suite and let the boys watch some tv. We turned on the nice flat screen tv that was larger than my loveseat at home, and there was just static! We then tried the smaller tv in the bedroom -- just static! We called the front desk to find out that they were having some cable tv problems that were being worked on. Ugh!

The next idea was the pool. The boys were restless at this point and had resorted to doing hip-hop dance moves in front of the full length mirror on the wall which was resulting in lots of thuds and stomping on the floor (remember, we're trying to get Arden to sleep). I remember the nice looking outdoor pool, and I walk downstairs to check it out. Unfortunately, the gate to the pool area was padlocked closed, so I inquired about it at the front desk. Like the cable tv, this "brand new" hotel didn't have the pool up and running quite yet, as the chemicals hadn't been checked. So, no swimming. This hotel was beginning to bug me!

We let the boys watch a Veggie Tales DVD on our laptop computer while we sat quietly in the dark living room to give Arden a chance to get a nap. Finally, we embarked on our adventure to explore the city and then get some dinner.

Several poopy diapers later and after an uncomfortable time feeding Arden her bottle on the boppy pillow in the third row of our van, we got back to our hotel. It was getting late, so we decided to put Arden down for the night. The boys were looking forward to catching part of the Hannah Montana concert on Disney Channel, now that the cable appeared to be working again. We called the front desk to remind them that they hadn't delivered the portable crib we'd reserved before our arrival, so we could get Arden to sleep.

They didn't have one. No cribs. According to the front desk, they had not been assembled yet.

It was now approaching 9 p.m. We were all hot, frustrated, and tired. Stuart proceeded to tell the hotel that we were checking out and would not pay for the night since they had no cable tv, no working pool, and now no crib. Arden couldn't sleep on the floor, as she rolls all over the place now.

Luckily, there were very accomodating and got us a nice suite at the Hampton Inn across the road. They even refunded our money for the night, and they paid for the Hampton Inn, so we had no hotel bill at all. However, we had to repack all our items, reload the van, and then unload again at a new hotel at 9 p.m!

The second hotel was great. I took the boys swimming at the indoor pool at 9:30 p.m. while Stuart got Arden to sleep in the crib. There were no more poopy diapers.

We finally fell asleep, exhausted, around midnight.

By the next morning, Hudson had wet the bed, we had run out of clean clothes, and Arden had been up about every hour during the night getting her leg stuck between the slats of the hotel port-a-crib (it had no bumper pad).

It was an exhausting roadtrip, but overall, it was still fun. We took on a challenge and survived. I don't know if we'll do it again anytime soon, but we feel that we accomplished creating some funny memories, and the kids loved every minute of it!