My husband Josh and I decided around Christmas time last year that we were feeling adventurous and that it was time for a family vacation. The boys were walking, they were sleeping well, eating well, and for the most part are pretty well behaved two year olds. We racked our brains on where would be the best place to go. We knew we wanted to go during April school vacation, being that we are both teachers and it would really be too cold to go anywhere in February. We also knew we were not ready to fly with two newly two year olds (the boys birthday is in April right around school vacation time). We just weren't ready for that challenge. So that left us with the area surrounding our home state of Maine. So we thought maybe Boston... nah can do that in little day trips, which we have done numerous times with them... New York, lots of things to do... but not very kid friendly in our opinion... Washington D.C.... a bit of a stretch as far as the drive, but the museums we wanted to see were free, the weather would be warm and there were lots of things for the kids if they got burnt out on museuming! Perfect! I, being the planner in the family, immediately started to think of what we were going to need. Diapers, lots of diapers, wipes, two single strollers, pack and plays, snacks, sippy cups.... whew! My head was spinning... I made a list and started packing (yep in December folks!)
I started that early because I knew there were some things we were going to bring with us that just wouldn't really be used until the trip... and lets put packing in quotes, because really it was just gathering supplies and making lists.
Here is what we brought for our weeklong trip with two two year olds:
two single strollers
two pack and plays
1 box of wipes from BJs
1 box of diapers from BJs (yes we were a cloth diapering family... but I wasn't going to do that 11 hours from home!)
7 pairs of shorts/pants each (we were there for 5 days)
24 pairs of jammies
7 shirts each
2 pairs of shoes each
24 pairs of socks
2 hats
4 sweatshirts
3 boxes of grammy sammys
15 squeezable yogurt smoothies
4 sippy cups
2 bags of goldfish
3 bags of animal crackers
magna doodles, crayons, paper, 3 new toys each and stickers!
all of mine and my husbands clothes and shoes
a GIGANTIC bag of gummy bears and also one of pretzel M&Ms
and I am super happy to say that everything fit into the back of my Saturn VUE and I could see out the back window!!
Our best idea was that we leave at 11 at night and drive through the night so that the boys would be sleeping and we would arrive in DC around breakfast time the next day, hit the ground running and be ready to go! Well, the boys slept for most of the night, but I was not able to sleep during my sleeping shift so I was a little tired, managed to make it through the day and crashed at 6PM with the boys!
Our trip was phenomenal! The boys behaved fantastically, we got to see everything we wanted, and we had the chance to spend an entire week, just the 4 of us. I honestly have no complaints from the trip... the hotel was fantastic, we walked every where but the zoo... and we ate at some amazing restaurants!
We have already started to talk about where we are going to go this April break... some ideas we are throwing around:
South Carolina
Boston... yeah again
Quebec
any ideas anyone?
If you want info on SC let me know :) Reading this post gives me hope for flying solo with Caroline in 2 weeks to SC!
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