North to Alaska!
Not quite.
The majority of my extended family lives in New England- NH to be specific. We spent 5 years living there including G’s earliest. Since we headed South, we’d only traveled back once. With M’s work going off-the-charts crazy and my work giving us a lovely week’s vacation, I grabbed the kids and my mom as backup and we headed North the day after Christmas.
Prior to leaving, we kept talking about the trip to prepare G as he doesn’t adjust well to new situations and everything comes with multiple warnings (even upcoming meals get 5-minute warnings around here.) “We’re going north!” “We’re going to see great grandma & grandpa!” “There will be lots of snow to play in!” And so on.
We get in the car, start driving and say “Are you excited? Where are we going?”
The response? “Alaska!”
Erm, not quite, thank God. That’s a lot of hours in a car.
Santa, smart guy that he is, brought the kids a new portable DVD player for the car and we loaded up movies for the trip. Overall the trip North was fine until Connecticut where 84 was closed due to a fatal accident. Luckily a shopping mall was close by, so we turned the little balls of energy loose there. An hour later we were back on the now-open road and pulled into NH a mere 13 hours after we left. Note: this trip should take 9-10 hours.
The first hour was spent trying to calm the little boy screaming “I want to go home, I NOT ready for this!" Good times, good times. I think he only woke one of the two sleeping people in the house at that hour.
The visits with family during the week were lovely as was the sled riding. The kids’ behavior was not so lovely. I’m not sure I’ll be travelling with them again anytime soon. Or ever.
Note to self: cancel Disney reservations for later this year. New situations + hotel room + giant costumed scary creatures = living hell to be sure.
Trip Summary
The Good
- Time with family
- Snowman building, sled riding, snow angels.
- Seafood. Duh.
- Being in town for my cousin’s best birthday gift ever- the birth of his second son. Holding a 2-hour old baby is always a wonderful thing. Welcome, baby Z!
The Bad
- Car rides. Loooooong car rides.
- Taking a kid with Aspie tendencies anywhere new. Far too much havoc is wreaked everywhere we go
- The cold. Damn, that snow is cold. Florida is looking better and better to me.
- Missing of the husband. He’s so darn good at the kid wrangling thing.
- Did I mention the car rides?
