February, Part 5: Trip to California, Day 1

As I mentioned in the last post, Johnny had a field trip the morning of the day that we left for our trip to California (Thursday, February 26th). I had been very vague to the boys about when, exactly, we would be leaving for our trip. They simply knew that it would be after Johnny's birthday. So, I sent an unsuspecting Peter off to school and went with Johnny to his field trip without them realizing that there was anything different about the day.

After Johnny's field trip, and his bath to wash off all of the sand he had accumulated at the museum, we picked up Peter from school. I got them lunch and then we had a pretty normal afternoon.

I had already packed all of our bags and put them in the van last night so that they wouldn't be any the wiser. However, around 5 p.m., the boys turned on me. They were so wild and stir crazy. They were impatient...and they were fighting constantly with each other. They couldn't really sense that anything was different...but they needed something to be different. So, I finally told them that we would be leaving on a plane in a few hours to head to California for our trip. They flipped out! They were so happy, so excited, and for a time, at least, they stopped fighting with each other.

Jeremiah finally got home and we packed up the final things and drove to the airport parking place, took a tram to the airport, went through the boarding process, and got on the plane. Now, Peter had flown on a plane when we went to Washington D.C. when he was only 18 months old, but of course he didn't remember that. So, this was quite the adventure for both boys to fly on a plane. They both had window seats and after taxiing for what seemed like forever (seriously, it took forever for the plane to get into position to take off), we finally took off and the boys excitedly chattered back and forth about how cool it was.

The rest of the night was a little rough. Baby Daniel was partially to blame. I got airsick this time around. I didn't throw up...but I felt awful. It was made a little harder because I couldn't just sit there and take care of myself, I had to tend to Johnny's needs (which were numerous). I am so grateful it was only an hour and twenty minute flight. Had it been longer, I would have been a complete wreck.

I was very grateful when the plane landed, but everyone was cranky after we got off the plane. The boys were already ready to be in bed at the hotel...but we had nearly an hour's drive ahead of us...and we still had to get our luggage and our rental car first. Jeremiah had ordered the rental car beforehand...and they gave us a Prius. I was going to be the driver for this trip, but I had never driven an electric car before. So, there was a learning curve there and it took a few minutes for me to figure it out (mostly that you have to start the car in a really different way than a gas car). As I mentioned before, we were all pretty cranky by this point and everyone was snapping at everyone else.

Finally, we were off. We made the drive safely and got to our hotel around 11 p.m. The boys slept for a lot of the drive to the hotel and they luckily went right back to bed after a brief exploration of our hotel room.

Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of our first day of the trip! I'll have to see if Jeremiah did and if so, I will add them.

On to day 2...