Big Travel Day

Recently, we had a big travel day as a whole family. It was the first time we were flying with all three kids. I had no idea how it would go and there was a huge range of outcomes and things that could go wrong. Thankfully it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

The day started out innocently enough. We woke up and had waffles for breakfast. Packed the car and off we went. Nobody screamed or cried on the way to the airport and we made it through security with no issues. I think my 6 year old daughter E and my 4 year old son C are familiar enough with the procedure now that they don’t fight us when we need to put things into the security screener like they have done in the past. Those were some big tantrums back in the day, but nowadays, it’s mostly fine.

When we got on the plane, I was most worried about my baby boy L. He had never flown on a plane before and I had no idea how he would react. I had our two older kids while my wife and her parents managed L. Surprisingly, he was relatively mild on the plane and he got through it all like a champ. He didn’t scream or cry much at all, which I was very surprised about.

I had to pick up the rental car and left everyone to deal with bags and kids. Once I got back, things were also fine (surprisingly!). What took the longest was loading all the car seats and figuring the seatbelt harness for E, but eventually we got it all situated and off we went. It was crazy driving a car full of 7 people around and I definitely drove in the right lane most of the time to avoid switching lanes. Once we got to our destination, we unloaded the car and got everyone fed. Even though the kids were great, it was a very tiring travel day and everyone ended up passing out early (except me since I had to go care for my parents). Glad we had a low drama trip and I would definitely welcome more of these.