Our First Road Trip

You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself; Well...How did I get here?

If you had told me five years ago that right now, I would have a husband, twin babies, a dog and a minivan, I probably would have laughed in your face. So this weekend, as we were driving all of the above to Raleigh for a wedding, I kept asking myself that question..."How did I get here?".

The trip to Raleigh was not as easy as we'd hoped. We got up, fed the babies and packed the van and left the house only a half hour behind schedule. We were doing well until, about 20 minutes down the road, I realized that I forgot the bag with the babies' clothes and bibs in it. After turning around, grabbing the bag and cleaning up when Bella got sick, an hour later we were on the road...an hour and a half after we started. At this point, we knew we'd have to drive quickly (but safely) to make it to the wedding.

About 45 minutes later, we got caught in traffic. A school bus had gotten into an accident with a couple of other cars. It looked like everyone was fine, but that held us up another 20 minutes or so. Also, just north of Charlotte, we got caught in race traffic, so that held us up a little as well. And of course, the rain didn't help all of the skillful drivers on the road.

We stopped at a rest stop to feed the babies. I had scheduled about a half-hour for that feeding, but Kyran did not want to take his bottle, so the stop ended up taking an hour. By this point, we knew we were going to miss the actual wedding and were hoping to make it in time for the reception.

Six and a half hours after we left the house the first time, we arrived at Aunt Tammy's place to drop Bella off. Bella stayed there, and we stayed at Dr. Cristina's house with Karyssa and Kyran. By the time we got there, we had just enough time to feed the babies and get dressed before heading to the hotel for the reception, where we had a wonderful time. The bride and groom, Jeremiah and Miriam, are self-proclaimed "stalkers" of our blog, so when Jeremiah introduced us to his new wife, she exclaimed, "The Parents!". What a neat feeling, and what a wonderful couple!

Meanwhile, Kyran and Karyssa did a good job for their sitters, but did get fussy around bedtime. When we got back, we swaddled them and put them to bed for an hour while we visited. Then it was time to feed them, and we got to bed ourselves a little after midnight. Six o'clock came early, and we fed them, packed the car, and headed over to Tammy's to get Bella.

The trip back was pretty uneventful, and aside from Kyran not wanting to eat again, it was really a quick trip. We got home, fed them and all fell asleep together for two hours!

I think it will be a while before we attempt to take another trip with the little ones, but it is nice to know that we can do it if we need to.