Life Lyn Style

Between my sister’s house and the beach house, we stopped to visit my in-laws for a couple of nights.  They live in Dover, DE, so they don’t get to see the kids very often.

Grandma got out some magnetic marbles for Nick and Sally to play with.

In preparation for a week at the beach, Grandma bought the kids each a set of sand toys.  They worked well with water in this test run.

There was also time for reading and snuggling.

And there was time for bubbles and play dough.

Here’s a photo of the kids with Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Derek and his friend Danny.

Here’s one of happy grandparents and grandkids!

Here’s Danny and Derek and one of them with the kids.

We had a nice visit and headed to the beach from here.

Two weeks is a long time to be gone with 2 kids in tow.  I’ll be happy to sleep in my own bed tomorrow, but I’ve had a great time.  Traveling always has many adventures especially with children.

Here’s just a few of our travel related experiences during this trip.  It’s not always rosy, but we make a lot of memories along the way.

Sally got sick in the car on our trip from Ohio to Baltimore.  It’s hard to believe that was 13 days ago.  As a result, I learned how to take the new car seat apart, wash it and put it back together.  For the last 4.5 years, that has always been Stephen’s job, but he was still in Ohio.  I won’t be sad if I never had to do that again.  The next day, I found a car detail shop that would come to my sister’s house and detail the car while it was in the driveway.  It was the easier way to get the odor out of the car.  I’m probably the only one to have the inside of a car detailed the week before a beach trip, but it was necessary.  I think that a good vacuum to remove some sand, and it will still look great.

As a result of the car detail, one or more of the lights were left on in the car.  It was very hot and sunny and we didn’t notice.  My sister went to move the car so she could go to work the next day and it was dead.  We’re talking the car needed to be unlocked manually it was so dead.  So, I called AAA and they came out to jump the car.  Long story straight, they had to borrow some juice from their truck to even test the battery.  So, my newly detailed car received a new battery.

When we left Baltimore to drive to Dover, it was 100 degrees outside.  Our newly charged air conditioning didn’t work very well.  We had a hot and grumpy ride.  We bought frozen drinks as we entered Dover, even though were were only 5 minutes away from our destination.  I joked with my father in law that if their air conditioning went out in the house, we were going to a hotel.  After a few minutes playing in the air conditioning at the house, we were all fine again.

Later that night, Nick got sick.  That resulted in immediate needs for laundry that included my mother in law’s brand new bathroom rug.  A little medicine and he was all better by morning.  It’s a good thing that my mother in law had kids.  She took it all in stride and the rug was good as new after it’s cycle in the wash.

Today, our 4 hour and 20 minute drive from Dover to our half-way-home hotel, took us almost 8 hours.  We stopped for gas on our way out of town.  The first station had system problems and after Stephen waited in line a few minutes, he found out that they couldn’t sell us any gas.  So, we headed to another station.  Not too long after that, we hit some traffic.  In between, we still have air conditioning issues and it’s 90+ degrees outside.  We took a couple of more breaks than normal to keep us hydrated and happy.  It’s much easier to travel with kids if you aren’t in any hurry.  Around Allentown PA, we hit traffic again.  We decided to eat dinner at a service plaza in hopes that the traffic would clear while we stopped.  It did and we were glad.  A bit later, Nick announced that he had to go to the bathroom, just seconds after we passed a rest area.  Luckily, there was a McDonald’s at the next exit, just two miles down the highway.  Stephen was putting the kids back in the car and I was getting a drink.  When I came back outside, this weird guy came over to the car and told us we were in the wrong state.  He walked around to my side of the car and then walked away.  It was very creepy.  I had seem him inside and all I can think is that maybe he was looking for a hookup until he saw that I was with my family.  After 50 or 60 “how much longer to the hotel” pleas from Nick, we finally arrived and got settled.

Life isn’t perfect and vacations won’t be either.  No one was hurt, we had power the whole trip, and we didn’t have any storm damage.  We had a few inconveniences sprinkled among lots of fun and family time.  I can’t wait to share our adventures with you over the next couple of weeks.