Leaving for the beach

Last night, we waited for Ryan to get home from work, packed up the car & headed to Grammy's (my mom's) beach house on Long Island.

We've been talking to Lucas about the beach & vacation over the past week or so. In the last few days, whenever we get in the car, he says "beach", as if that was our destination. I tried to explain to him he'd have to wait a little longer until we went to the beach.

Packing went fairly well. Maria was co-operative and took a nice long nap so I could get things accomplished throughout the day. Ryan's parents were nice enough to pick-up Lucas from daycare. That gave me some extra time to get everything ready. They brought him over right before we were ready to leave. So the car gets packed (Hooray- everything fit!), we went through our check list and headed on the road around 8:30pm.

Here is me telling Lucas we're finally headed for the beach. I'm not sure what the "no, no, no" is all about, but he's two years old. So there is no rhyme or reason, really.

The overall trip was probably a grade of a B+. The trip before we got out of Maryland: C-. Coulda been worse, coulda been better.

First of all, we had to stop for gas & grab some subs at Wawa. Our first mis-step was taking the 895 tunnel and not checking Google traffic before we left. There were definitely other ways we could have gone & when we hit traffic going through the tunnel, we were wishing we had chosen an alternate route. The kids were relatively quiet (Maria was sleeping & Lucas was occupied with books & toys). I even got a chance to talk to my friend, Mel, in California, on the phone for a bit. However, the 45 minute delay we had to get through the tunnel, definitely cut into our good behavior time. Right after we got north of Baltimore, Lucas decided he was totally finished being in his carseat and Maria woke up wailing. For our sanity's sake, we stopped at the nearest rest stop, took a bathroom/diaper break, as well as let Lucas get down and run around. So when I talked to my brother at 11pm, we hadn't even gotten out of Maryland yet. However, following the rest stop, we put on "Finding Nemo" (Thank you DVD player!) for Lucas & I gave Maria a bottle, and we had peace and quiet. We made it the rest of the way without a stop, getting us to the parking lot around 1:30-1:45am. Lucas slept until right before our exit and we were able to turn back on "Nemo" to calm him down until we got to the parking lot. Maria stayed asleep in her carseat until this morning and we didn't have too much trouble getting Lucas to go back to sleep once we arrived at the beach house. The weather today is supposed to be amazing and we can't wait to hit the beach. Relaxation here we come! At least as much relaxation as you can get with a toddler and an infant.....