A very long trip

I don't think people realize, but oftentimes a family vacation is not much of a vacation to a stay-at-home-mom. Aside from the precious hour that I had out with Irene, I was doing pretty much what I always do, only in hotels or airplanes or cars.

Anyway, a lot of things happened, but here are some choice lessons I learned on this trip:

• When you purposely plan a "bedtime" flight, it screws up your plans immensely when that flight leaves at 12:45 am.
• 5:00 am California time is too late to go to bed.
• Two babies, one toddler, and two moms in a rental minivan with ambitious plans is just a lose-lose situation, any way you see it.
• 20 minutes is a long time to spend trying to figure out how to take the key out of the ignition of the rental minivan.
• Two-year olds on 6 hours of sleep can be cranky and rude.
• It is wishful thinking to hope that the terrible twos can end at 2 years and 3 months.
• Uncles don't like to be barfed on.
• Playing in the water in Carmel at sunset in late October with no pants on is a bad idea.
• Sometimes it's OK to take the screaming baby out of the carseat when he is preventing all other children from sleeping.
• Always carry extra tissues when 5 out of the 7 people traveling together are snotty.
• A roadtrip with two babies and a toddler is very ambitious indeed.
• Babies who can't sit up don't always cooperate with photo ops.

Don't get me wrong. We had a fun time. It was great seeing old friends and experiencing nature and getting out of Houston. HOWEVER, I understand why a lot of people don't plan trips with multiple small children. Exhausting.

Pics in the many photo ops to follow soon.