For our part, we made it into a pretty fun adventure. Jason could only come with us for the first few days of our trip. So I had Tues afternoon until late Sunday night to travel with the girls by myself. I had some help from family, thankfully, but, even still, family can only help so much when they aren't too familiar with our usual routines and such.
Months before the wedding, I was told we would all be camping at the wedding and people could help me out with getting together camping gear for me and the girls. Well, not everyone ended up deciding to camp. But thankfully, my brother Tony and his family had a fancy tent trailer and would be camping in the field near the wedding. I was hoping they might be able to help me out with the prospect of gear and camping.
My general plan was to enjoy the wedding, then be able to put the girls to sleep in the tent in the field nearby and hope they would sleep so that I could sneak back out and enjoy being an adult with family that I never see for the remainder of the night. Perhaps this goal was a bit ambitious, but I was really hoping I wouldn't miss out on all the fun because I was stuck in the tent with an unhappy child.
I was pretty nervous about the whole logistics because:
1) Ava is unpredictable when sleeping away from home
2) camping with the girls often means very little sleep
3) we (all 3 of us) were already really tired going into the event
4) I had no real help (no offense to family intended)
5) I had to fly home with the girls Sunday afternoon and evening, we didn't depart until 3pm and we didn't land in Denver until almost 11pm. That flight itinerary would be difficult at anytime, given that our family usually doesn't present itself well after 4:30pm. So I didn't want to start a long day of flight travel off with being really exhausted already.
6) I had very little ability to buy extra food/supplies/gear etc and was dependent on other people for help/gear/car.
7) I wasn't super organized, so didn't have a monitor or many other things I might normally have when camping near home.
On the drive up to the wedding, Ava fell asleep about 20 minutes before we arrived at the wedding location. Unfortunately, she couldn't stay in the car she was sleeping in because it was needed to go elsewhere to pick someone up. So I was pretty nervous about having my already-tired girls sleep deprived going into the wedding.
It was awesome to see my cousins, aunts and uncles, and all the kids. It was the first time I can ever remember that my grandmother had all 13 of her grandchildren together in one place. Of the 13 of us, 3 are girls. So I feel a special bond with my other 2 girl cousins and care about them a great deal. It was a big deal for me to see Emily walk down the aisle and take the hand of her handsome groom.
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| Rachel and Ava and their 5 cousins |
I missed most of the ceremony because Ava wanted to run around. So I hung out for some of it with another cousin in a similar situation, and then clapped for Emily and Travis at the end.
Ava made things amazing when, after the ceremony, she crawled into the tent trailer and put herself to sleep for a SOLID afternoon nap. Super!!!
We had a great dinner sitting with brother Jeff's family, and the girls did really well all around. I got to listen to speeches and watch the slide show.
I tried to put Ava down by herself in the tent and come back up, but that didn't quite work out. Eventually, though, all my plans came together and both girls were asleep happily in our tent.
I went back to the dance floor and closed the night out with my big brother Tony and had a blast dancing away!
I didn't get a lot of sleep, but that wasn't because of my kids. They did awesome sleeping until a reasonable time in the morning, and then we packed up and headed out.
We did have a ton of driving time in the morning in order to get ourselves from the wedding to Nana's, then out to the airport. So, I was very nervous when I realized how immobile I was asking my kids to be for the whole day. I wish I had planned out the car scenario here differently.
But Nana helped us get checked in and we made it through our first short flight just fine. Seattle is a terrific airport for little kids because of its playground, but we were in a different area far away from that this time. I was pretty proud of myself and my girls for keeping it all together until it was finally time to board the second plane ride. I was really exhausted by this time and so were the kids, but I don't recall too much screaming.
On the plane ride from Seattle to Denver, Rachel fell asleep for most of the way. Ava snuggled up and needed ongoing stories/songs/rocking, and didn't really fall asleep until the last 15 minutes, but there weren't too many tears and we still had fun.
Daddy met us at the airport and brought us home, and I was relieved to see him and our bags and get home to our own house and beds.
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