Quicksilver

It may be hard to believe, but our family is on the road again! Every now and then, Josh and I plan trips that most people think are, well, ridiculous. This weekend's trip would be one of those. A while back, we found out that the U.S. National Soccer team would be playing the Brazilian National Soccer team at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. Being the crazy soccer fans we are, we called up our close friends in Chicago who are also big soccer fans and made plans to come out and support our team.

The trip out was pretty good, though we kept getting threatened with delays. First they said we would be delayed an hour, then 30 minutes, then they boarded us. When we got on the plane, it turns out we were actually suppose to be delayed an hour and a half from our original departure time and that air traffic control had been telling us the wrong times! Our pilot seemed pretty steamed as he was relaying all this to us in the cabin and finally came on and said he had basically shamed traffic control into letting us take off. Once we were up in the air, Maya played with her princess sticker book and colored in her new Trunki passport. We got Trixie quite a while ago, before the good people at Trunki had developed the passport that comes with the new ones, and they were nice enough to send us one to use for our travels. Maya loves it! She had a great time coloring in all the pages and asking about all the pictures...that is, until she drew a great big green line on the back of my nice white shirt with crayon! They had to be put away after that one.

While we were flying, we were also treated to a beautiful lighting show. We were far enough away from it that it didn't cause too much turbulence but it was still fun to watch. I think making something like that, that can easily be kind of scary for a kid, into something fun and exciting is a good way to handle it. Then, rather than seeing it as something to fear, they look at it almost as a game. Much like with the waves in La Jolla, we had a great time trying to guess when the next bit of lightning would flash in the clouds and how big it would be. It really was a beautiful sight and a fun way to pass the time.

You Have to Start Somewhere

People often ask me when I got so hooked on traveling, especially when they see that I'm still going all over with a child in tow. It really started with my honeymoon seven years ago. Until my wedding, I had never really been out of the country. Oh, I had gone to the Bahamas, but it was a pretty canned experience and it didn't feel very different from any other beach in the U.S. When we got married, however, Josh and I shocked everyone we knew by choosing to honeymoon in Luxor and Cairo, Egypt. Looking back on it, it was probably a crazy thing to do as neither of us had ever been out of the country on our own, we couldn't read or speak Arabic, and we pretty much had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. It still reigns as my favorite trip.

Going to Egypt taught me that experiencing the unknown, and even embracing it, isn't always a bad thing. I think it's the fear of the unknown that keeps a lot of parents from believing that traveling with children is possible. What if they don't do well on the plane or in the car? What if it's really different when we get there? What if we can't find a place to eat with food they like? And, as if all the questions and apprehensions parents may have just on their own weren't enough, there's also no shortage of websites and news articles sharing stories of how horrible it is being around small children while on travel. My advice: don't believe everything you read and hear and don't give up if your first experience is a bad one. True, it's not always sunshine and roses. We've had really good experiences and really bad experiences in our many travels, but traveling, be it to great grandmas or Great Britain, can become a truly rewarding part of your life if you allow yourself to just let go and experience it as it happens. In reality, traveling with a child is much like eating vegetables when you're a kid. Yes it's different and everyone has their horror stories, but, really, you won't know if you (or your child) will like it until you try it. Who knows, maybe you'll be the kid who loves brussel sprouts.

Baseline

We are still in the process of getting back to normal life here in our house. Recovering from the jet lag of coming back from California is difficult as we all seem to have a harder time dealing with west to east time changes. I've had a hard time waking up so I can go to work. I love my job, but even that can't keep my body from complaining in the morning. It also doesn't help that Maya hasn't been sleeping very well the past couple nights, a typical aftermath of vacationing. One problem that we have found with traveling is that Maya gets use to sleeping in bed with us because we usually have one large bed in our hotel room that is big enough for all three of us. With all the extra room, Maya loves take the opportunity to sleep in between us the entire vacation rather than sleeping on a roll away bed or her blow up bed. I think it is because it makes her feel safe and secure in a strange place.

The drawback of this is that when we come home she still wants to sleep with us. Now, I don't mind the occasional "There is a big storm and I'm scared" sleeping in bed with us, but, to be honest, she beats us up at night and we prefer for her to sleep in her own bed. There is nothing worse than getting hit in the head with a little foot in the middle of the night because your child has decided that sleeping horizontally across the bed is the most comfortable position. She doesn't know she's doing it, but we sure do!

It usually takes about 3 to 5 days for all of us to get back to normal in terms of sleep depending on how long we have been gone and how different the time was. Sometimes Maya is out of sorts for longer (especially when it comes to wanting to sleep with us) but we just do our best to stick to our normal routines and make her go to bed and wake up when she is suppose to. Getting back to feeling like working after a long vacation...now that is another thing all together!

Flying Solo

I'm so very tired at the moment, but who needs sleep when you can post a blog about not getting any sleep?! Our day started at the bright and early hour of 4 a.m. Maya and I both woke up, albeit slowly, and got dressed. At around 4:20 we headed downstairs to the hotel lobby to catch the shuttle to the hotel. Maya was actually quite chipper and it helped to wake me up. We both gave Josh a big hug and Maya told Josh that she was going to be a grown up for me in the airport. With one last wave to Josh as we pulled away, we were suddenly on our way home.

Maya did in fact act like a grown up at the airport and behaved wonderfully the whole time. She waited patiently by my side as I got us checked in and then she did what she could to help get through security. She listened to what I asked of her and was happy and cheerful the whole time. The walk from security to our gate was actually quite long but that was ok because Maya got to ride on Trixie the whole way. She really does love zooming through the airport terminals (she especially likes it when it's me pulling because I walk fast). We made it to our gate and Maya promptly began telling the people across from us all about how she rode on Pirates of the Carribean and how it said "Dead men tell no talessssss!" Once we got on the plane, Maya sat in her seat and happily looked out the window until we took off. After we were in the air, she played with her new Tinkerbell toy for a little bit and then, thankfully, slept the ENTIRE way back home. Josh was so glad to hear that she had been such a big girl for me on our first flight alone together. We're looking forward to having Josh home on Tuesday but for now Maya and I are just laying around the house recovering from our long day.

Thanks to all of you who have followed along on our trip! I do hope you've enjoyed reading my first foray into travel blogging. Be sure to continue checking back because the fun here doesn't end when our trip does. I'm hoping to do weekly updates (or even more often than that) with more information about traveling with your kids in general and maybe even some helpful survival tips for all you parents out there heading off into the world with your little ones.

I'm going to head off for a nap now.

Final Hours

Well, Maya and I have reached the end of our vacation. In just a few hours, we will wake up in California for the last time and will take a shuttle to LAX to catch a 6 am flight back to Washington, DC. We've had a wonderful time, though, and I really feel like we got to do pretty much everything you can possibly do while visiting here.

We spent our last day driving around Hollywood and Beverly Hills. First we drove down Rodeo Drive just to gawk at all the ridiculously expensive stores. It was a much smaller area than I was expecting so I was a little disappointed. I'm sure the shops would have been fun to walk around in but, with wares that probably cost as much as the computer I'm writing on, I decided it would be best not to visit them with a three year old in tow. Next, we decided to try to find Griffith Park where the famous Hollywood sign is. We got a little lost trying to find it and then when we finally found it we couldn't even go there because of the threat of wildfires. Eventually, we drove around until we found a good spot to snap some photos and got to see some of the ENORMOUS houses on the way. I think Maya was still quite a bit tired from yesterday because she slept through pretty much all of our time in the car today (though, admittedly, I took a cat nap as well).

After that, we visited Grumman's Chinese Theater and walked along the Walk of Fame some. We even happened upon Walt Disney's star, which I thought was very fitting after yesterday. I got to have my picture taken next to the foot and hand prints of the cast of Harry Potter (Oh no, I've outed myself as a Potter fan!) and saw the prints of many other Hollywood legends. I was a little put off by some of the weird people hanging about the theater, so I made sure to hold Maya tight. There were quite a few unsavory looking types milling about and that coupled with the many, many people there really kind of freaked both Josh and me out. We took our pictures and then made our way back to the car pretty quickly.

Sadly, because we are leaving so early, we had to say our goodbyes to Robin. It was great getting to see him though and we are already looking forward to our next trip with him at New Years. Josh is staying behind for two more days so he can see the Anaheim Angels play so hopefully all will go well in the airport in the morning as it will just be me and Maya. I can only hope that she will just sleep on the plane but, knowing my luck, she'll want me to read stories and play dolls with her. I'm getting tired already.