baby's second road trip

Daphne is 8 months today! But before I catch up on her, I need to post about our trip to Bend and Elias's transition to Kindergarten! First, our trip to Bend, Oregon, to visit my Dad, Grandma, and two aunts. Overall, despite a bumpy start, it was a great trip - especially after a challenging couple of weeks with Elias mostly at home with me and Daphne (he cut his hair - hence the buzz cut in the following pics - dumped an entire bottle of bubbles out on our carpet, etc.). After our less successful road trip to Graeagle for the 4th of July holiday weekend - a road trip several hours shorter than the journey to Bend - we thought we'd try breaking up the drive there by getting the first three hours or so out of the way in the evening and stay in a hotel in Redding. Not quite halfway but it did put a decent dent in the overall trip.

Unfortunately that first night of sleep was rough, to say the least. We left right around Daphne's bedtime, with her all fed and bathed and ready for bed. Despite falling asleep while nursing she woke up when we all got in the car and stayed awake for almost an hour. And she fought sleep by crying for several minutes before she finally crashed again. She slept the rest of the way there but woke up during the several minutes it took us to get all our stuff up three flights of stairs (broken elevator...of course) and didn't settle back down until close to midnight. Her sleep was restless and she was up for the day pretty early. I can't remember exactly when but she got nowhere near the amount of sleep she usually gets. Fortunately she slept much of the drive from Redding to Bed.

Elias, on the other hand, might have slept in had it not been for the fact that we were all in one room. He was super excited for our road trip, especially the part about getting in our jammies and driving at night. He stayed up the entire first leg of the trip, not surprisingly for this kid. And he slept well once the excitement of the hotel room finally wore off, but again, Daphne woke everyone up. I think we got a little over 6 hours of sleep - not enough for us, let alone a 5 year old! And no, he did not sleep in the car. Are you kidding me?

Anyway, other than that it was a really fun and almost relaxing trip, for me at least. It was so nice to have multiple adults to help not so much with the baby but with keeping Elias entertained! So much attention when he's been used to having to share the attention of often just one of us with Daphne. He really seemed to bond with Grandpa Dale this trip and was genuinely sad upon returning home. I think it's the first time I've seen him cry that wasn't the result of a tantrum or playground injury.

In short, each day involved one outing after Daphne's morning nap and then one of us would go back out with him after lunch, during her afternoon nap. That worked well since getting out between naps is enough for her but not enough for him. After her afternoon nap we'd go out again for a shorter outing and then dinner out most nights, which was pretty enjoyable again because the kids were outnumbered by the adults. So nice. So not something we have - ever - on a regular basis!

Here are some highlights:

Okay, so there were a few meltdowns.

Oh, and we ate donuts. Lots of donuts.