Toddler Travels

We are finally going on our first family vacation! We've been out of town for 3-4 day trips but typically we had other reasons for going like lot's of weddings. This will be our first 1 week, summer fun family vacation and we are stoked! The only goal is to have fun as a family! Jon and I are very giddy and are getting the kids super excited. My parents will also be joining us for a couple of days and hopefully my bestie Megan will be as well. In 3 days we will be headed to San Diego to show the kids the beach, take them to the San Diego Zoo, Seaworld and anything else fun we come across. 

As excited as we are, I am extremely nervous about a 6 hour car ride with two 2 1/2 year olds. I have spent hours and I mean hours scanning mommy blog after mommy blog for ideas. One thing I knew for sure was I would continue my mom's tradition of giving gifts every hour or so in the car, if you remember she did this for the kids last September when we went up North. The hard part is finding activities that young kids can do in the car that will also entertain them for more than 3 minutes. Here are the activities and/or toys I have wrapped and ready to go:

1. Color matching with pom poms: All the pom pom's have magnets on them so they hopefully won't be rolling everywhere!
   
2. Popsicle stick puzzles: These also have magnets on them!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Fishing Game: I can't find the awesome blog that gave me this idea but I'm curious if it'll work. I made fishing poles with yarn, dowel rod's, and magnets. Then I printed images of fish, whales, starfish, sea turtles, etc, cut them out and added magnets to them. I plan to throw these all over the floor of the car and then the kids can "cast" their fishing pole to the bottom of the car and see what they catch! 
4. Window clings: I'm nervous their little arms won't be able to reach the window's so we'll see if this one works.
5. Lap tables from Amazon: Of course I got one in pink and one in blue. I will let you know if they live up to their 5 star reviews! 
   
6. ID Bracelets from Amazon: I was reading a Yahoo news article about a woman that lost her child at Disneyland and at the end she suggested an ID bracelet or a kid's GPS tracker. Since my kids are not old enough to know that my real name is not Mommy or remember a phone number I thought this was a great idea. I choose these bracelets because they cannot be undone with 1 hand so the child cannot take it off. My kids love bracelets so they are going to think it's a neat gift and I can be contacted if we get separated - win win! Another cheaper idea is to write your name and phone number on the tag inside the child's shirt. I decided against that since it's not as easily seen.
   
7. Snacks: Lot's and lot's of snacks but I wrapped up some of the cheeze-its, oreo's, chips ahoy, and teddy graham's that are found at registers for $1.
   
8. Fart noise cups: Kid's love making funny noises especially fart noises - we will either love or hate this one by the end of the trip!
9. Play dough
10. Shape matching: All the shapes have magnets on them!
11. Map to track our progress: I loved this idea. It's hard for little kids to grasp the concept of a 6 hour drive so this gives them a visual. While I was writing this update I thought of a cool idea to add. I'm going to make magnets with their faces on them so I can move it along to show how far we are! I forgot to take a picture of this one.
12. Quiet Books: You remember the creative book I made, right? I'm bringing that one and one my mom made. They've been hidden for awhile so hopefully they seem like new to the kids!
13. Pipe cleaners: Kid's love random things, pipe cleaners are one of those. They can bend them into all sorts for shapes!
14. Crayons
15. Plastic Animals
16. Sticker books

I am hoping that is enough activities along with some sing along time, looking out the windows, if we are lucky - nap time, playing at a park in Yuma, potty breaks, and stocking up at Chile Pepper. 

Wish us luck - 3 days and counting :)

Colorado Camping Craziness

About 2 months ago - I reached out and asked for some advice on Facebook about camping with little ones and got quite a bit of positive feedback:

So we booked our trip! My parents, sister, and brother-in-law also decided to join us and thank goodness they did! I knew it would be work to camp with twins that are crawling but I don't think Jon and I would have ate a single meal if it wasn't for my family.

We left Thursday morning right at nap time so the twins would sleep in the car. In Flagstaff, we picked up lunch and headed to Thorpe park to let the kids crawl around. They got to swing (at the park) for the first time - baby girl LOVED it. She was just giggling her little heart out which made me and "Grandma" giggle too. Since I can't post the cute swing picture, you get the cute doggie picture instead.

About 40 minutes from our end point, the twins started getting fussy. We were right around the 4 corners monument so we thought, why not? It was hot and there was a line but we got to the front, I stepped into Colorado, Jon stepped into Utah, I placed baby boy in New Mexico, and Jon placed baby girl in Arizona. LOVE the photo but again all you get is me.

We arrived at the KOA campsite, created a makeshift baby gate out of coolers and storage containers (our car didn't have enough room for the real gate, it was the only item left behind) and got to work setting up camp with my parents. Lisa and Ryan showed up about an hour later. Babies went to bed right on schedule and we stayed up talking with my family. The next morning I found out that baby boy didn't sleep so well but I must have been exhausted because I didn't hear a thing!

Friday morning baby boy was up early so I took him on a walk/run around the 1 mile lake on the property. GORGEOUS!

The kids got to try scrambled eggs for the first time and made a rather large mess but they had fun. They went down for a nap and we started getting ready for our trip to Mesa Verde. For Mesa Verde, Jon and I had the hiking backpacks and we rode the tram around and hiked through smaller ruins. I really wanted to try some of the larger preserved ruins but with having infants that still take naps and need to play to get energy out, it just wasn't a wise idea. Instead we headed back to camp, the kids napped in the car. Once at camp, we decided to go swimming - best idea yet! The kids had a blast floating around, splashing each other, and "jumping" in from the side. Later in the evening we watched some mediocre fireworks from the campground, but I guess you can't expect much from a small town like Cortez. The babies both went to bed at normal time but baby boy didn't sleep very well this night and ended up on the air mattress with me and Jon around 3am.

Saturday was an early morning. We had train tickets for the Durango to Silverton train tour and our train departed at 8am about 45 minutes from our campsite. When the train leaves the station and all the way through Durango, the conductor blows the whistle non-stop. Watching baby girl's reaction to this was priceless. She would stand up very straight and look around with a half scared half excited look on her face and then look at us for guidance on which emotion she should choose. Baby boy sat on my lap for the first 30 minutes just watching the scenery go by. It was a gorgeous train ride - highly recommend if you've never done this before! Although if you have infants, I also highly recommend a one way train ticket with a one way bus ticket. The all day train ride was a little much for the twins by the end of the day. We spent 7 total hours on the train! Sorry I had to cut the cuties out of the picture.

The twins slept the 45 minutes back to camp but then refused to go down for bedtime. It probably took us an hour to get them to bed and then they both woke up around 11pm screaming. This night was much colder than the other 2 so baby girl ended up in Jon's sleeping bag and baby boy was in mine. I have another cute picture of the kids cuddling with Jon - I want to show you so bad!

Sunday we woke up, Lisa and Ryan made breakfast burritos - the babies got to try potatoes for the first time. Baby boy loved them and couldn't get them in his mouth fast enough! Packing up was in my opinion our biggest downfall. We didn't properly plan packing up with nap time and didn't have the pack-n-plays available for naps so the twins were screaming on a blanket until my mom and sister picked them up and rocked them while the rest of us packed up.

All in all I had a fantastic time and would definitely go again but would definitely NOT go without the following tips:

1. Never ever camp with twins unless you have at least 2 adults to each infant unless you enjoy being sleep deprived and hangry all the time.
2. If you are taking a road trip to camp plan on adding an extra hour for every 3 hours of driving. The kids will need to get out and crawl around if you want to survive the remainder of your driving. We stopped at parks, restaurants, gift shops, and monuments to let them play.
3. Only plan 1 big activity each day as that is all you'll be able to get done anyway.
4. Attempt to keep the same nap schedule and bedtimes as they have at home.
5. Be prepared for cold weather at night. We double layered our kids in PJ's and fleece pajama's and they still woke up cold. We ended up co-sleeping in our sleeping bags (I swore I'd never do this as it scares me)
6. Bring a baby gate! We left ours at home because we didn't have room and were constantly having to run over to the babies because they would crawl off the blanket with toys and start sticking rocks in their mouths!
7. The babies will get messy and it's okay. Improvise with baths. We used small wash bins for sponge baths and then one day I just took them right into the shower with me!
8. Be flexible and have fun with them!