We took a vacation a few weeks ago. It was the first vacation Zach and I have taken in over 4 years. The last one was a cruise when I was 4 months pregnant with Xander. This was also our very first family vacation. So where did we go? Cape Hatteras, NC. We rented a house on the beach with another family who has children the same age (quite literally, 1 month older than Xander and 4 days older than Parker). It takes roughly 15 hours to drive there. We left on a Thursday night and drove to Washington DC. We arrived at 3:30 am. Boy were we tired! But, it was worth it. The kids slept most of the way, although Xander shocked us by staying awake until 10:15 pm! He passed out just before we reached the George Washington Bridge in NYC. On Friday we went to the National Zoo and to the Natural History Museum and the Air and Space museum. It was pretty awesome because all of the Smithsonian museums and the Zoo have free admission, so we saw as much as we wanted to, and then moved onto the next spot without feeling grumpy about how much money we had spent on admission. We slept a second night in DC and then got up on Saturday and drove the rest of the way to NC.
Once there, the 8 of us settled into the house. The view was beautiful, and being able to walk out the door and onto the beach was awesome. The mosquitoes were a little too friendly for my taste, but they mostly left us alone when we were in the sun. We spent several days just hanging out in the sand and sun. The weather was beautiful. The kids had so much fun running in and out of the waves. And in the evenings, we sat on the couch and sucked up the free wireless (which was wonderful for those of us without home internet access) and often spent a little time in the hot tub before bed. After 5 fun-filled days on the beach, we packed up again and headed out.
The ride back North was much more stressful. We left at 11am, and by 3pm the kids had had enough of the car. They were tired, and cranky, and sick of being cooped up. We had to stop more often, and the frequent stops were stressing Zach out. By 9pm we had arrived in New Jersey. We stayed at another Marriott. The first one was quite nice. And while this room was slightly larger, the beds were hard as a stone slab. It was a very uncomfortable night of restless sleep for the 4 of us.
On Saturday morning we got up and drove into New York City. We stopped at Liberty Park and found a pretty awesome playground. The boys had a blast running around and it was nearly deserted which was nice for us. The wind was pretty unbelievable there, and after about 1/2 an hour we were all ready to retire to the protection of the car. Then we drove into the city. Xander enjoyed looking at the tall buildings for a little while. Parker fell asleep.
We parked near Central Park, and walked through it. I think Xander would have loved a horse-drawn carriage ride, but we didn’t really want to spend $50 on that sort of novelty. They both had lots of fun at the playground in Central Park, which was great. Then we walked to FAO Schwartz. And they of course fell in love with the giant toy store. My favorite part was how much fun the employees were having. It’s all staged of course, but in nearly every corner, there was an employee playing/demoing some new, fun toy. They had hackey sacks and tossing games; skateboards and digital music displays and even a story hour. Parker found a giant meerkat stuffed animal and fell in love. It was (of course) $60 and much more than we wanted to spend on a stuffed animal. Then Xander discovered it, and also fell in love. We pried both boys away and wandered back through the store, trying to find a small souvenir, something more reasonably priced. As we were walking out Zach told me that he had fallen in love with the giant meerkat as well, and really, how many times are you a little kid in FAO Schwartz? I agreed. Both boys were tired and hungry and starting to melt down, so we decided I would start walking towards the pizza place we were planning on for lunch (how can you go to NYC for the day and not have pizza for lunch?) while Zach got them their toy store souvenir and poked his head into the Apple Store next door.
As we walked to the restaurant I reminded Xander that he would have to share the toy with Parker and that the two of them would need to take turns, be good brothers, blah, blah, blah. Zach caught up with us, and placed a large bag on the stroller, telling Xander that he had to wait until we got to the car to open it. Surprisingly, Xander didn’t argue this point. We ate some fabulous NYC pizza, although the restaurant we ended up at didn’t seem very kid friendly. The hostess sort of sneered at our stroller, and the waitress took nearly a million years to even come for our drink order. It’s the one time that cranky kids in a restaurant are useful – if you let them make a little noise, someone eventually pays attention to you!
Then we found our car. It took a long time for the attendants to bring it up, and we were hot and tired, and ready to get home, so it probably felt even longer. We finally got both boys buckled in, and then Zach opened up the bag and brought out not one but two giant meerkats. The boys’ reactions were priceless and they were so beyond happy. They laughed and giggled the whole way out of the city.
A few hours later, Zach mentioned that we needed to find an alternate route around Keene, since the pumpkin festival was going on that day. We had been planning on stopping in Lempster to pick up Oscar from Zach’s parent’s house, and Keene is the most direct route. I suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t find an alternate route, but instead should see if we could get a reasonable parking spot. This is the last year that the current company is hosting the pumpkin festival. Unless someone takes it over, it’s the last one. I didn’t want our children to miss out on a Keene pumpkin festival, so we decided to swing by. We got there at 8:30 pm. We were lucky enough to park at the post office in Keene and did a brief tour of the thousands of pumpkins all lit up. Then we were back in the car by 9pm and in Lempster by 9:30. We slept in Lempster that night, and finally returned to our house the following morning.
It was a long but fun-filled vacation. Parker got a bit roughed up by North Carolina (I’ll do a follow up post on that) and didn’t sleep well at all, which meant that Zach and I slept next to each other for a total of 1.5 nights during the 10 day vacation, but other than odd sleeping arrangements it was a blast! The boys seemed to have a great time, and Zach and I had lots of fun doing new things and showing them around a few new parts of the country.
People who looked at this item also looked at…
This was Parker’s first big trip anywhere. In fact, I’m not sure he had ever left the state before this trip. He did pretty well, and his mood was mostly fabulous. However, North Carolina was rough on Parker. Parker’s skin has always been a little extra sensitive to things like bug bites. He tends to swell up fast, and the swelling lasts for days. In the summer time we keep him on a daily allergy medication (which we’ve stopped, since most of the bugs are gone at home). Of course, what happened moments after we arrived in NC? A mosquito bit Parker on the eye lid. And naturally his eye swelled shut almost immediately. The poor kid ran around looking out of one eye for 3 days before the swelling subsided. Along with the normal bumps and bruises he also managed to get an impressive sliver in the bottom of his foot. It’s really not fun holding down your screaming child while your spouse pulls out a sliver. We both felt so badly for the little guy. Despite all of his physical injuries, Parker seemed to have an excellent time playing with his friends and family. He loved smashing sand castles on the beach, although after the 4th day of beach time he was ready for a new adventure, I think that for a year-and-a-half-old he did fabulously well on our first family vacation.
We tend to be a pretty busy family. It is rare for us to have a weekend with absolutely no plans. Summer time tends to increase the number of activities we have any given week or weekend. This summer is proving to be especially crazy. I think I’m going to have to start adding “event planner” to my business cards soon.
Zach and I are going to Las Vegas this week. We’re leaving on Thursday, and coming back the following Thursday. Zach is attending a conference out there, and I’m tagging along. We planned this about a year ago, and purchased the tickets well before Xander was born. It’s a good thing we got the tickets back then, or I think I would have backed out of the whole trip by now.