This is more of a two-week review because I’ve been pretty absent during because of the holiday. (We were lucky enough to be able to visit my family the entire week of Thanksgiving so I put my laptop away for a few days.) The week before we left, the boys had croup so sleep was in short supply for all of us and I was pretty concerned that they would have to fly cross-country sick. Thankfully the coughing finally seemed to subside the day before we left, making travel a lot more pleasant for them. 

Jonah was sick first, and it was really sweet to see Micah try to take care of him and make him feel better. Of course, that’s probably part of why Micah got sick, but I didn’t want to discourage how sweet he was being.

Thanks to a running group I belong to on FB we found an awesome paved trail that’s not too far from our house, so we had to test it out before we left. They got a little crabby towards the end, but we managed almost 4 miles so I was happy. I knew we would be running a Turkey Trot with my family, so I wanted to make sure I got in a 5k distance at least once before we left.

As much as I love the walking we do near home, it was really nice to be somewhere that felt so far from civilization. In reality there were houses all along the trail, but there were enough trees that it was easy to forget I was in the middle of town. Definitely heading back to this trail often!

After spending nearly all of Monday packing, I loaded up the stroller and headed to the airport. Getting through security was a total nightmare but I think we managed pretty well. I was carrying a ton of stuff and had some liquid exceptions (mostly meds because the boys had been sick so recently), so we were pulled aside for all of our baby food, milk, and liquid meds to be tested by TSA.

While everything was being tested we weren’t allowed to take anything out of the x-ray bins, so we took up more than half the conveyor belt and I’m pretty sure everyone behind us was less than thrilled. Sadly, Jonah woke up while they were testing everything (I was hoping he was down for the night), but I managed to get everything back on the stroller and push through to our gate. On a side note — I couldn’t have made it without my mommy hook. It was strong enough to hold the car seat, my purse, hook to Micah’s backpack, and on occasion one of the larger backpacks. Best $6 I’ve ever spent!!

Jonah fell asleep again right before we got on the plane so I put him in the Ergo so we could both sleep. He let me sleep for about an hour, but woke up crying every few minutes for the rest of the flight. Micah really enjoyed the takeoff (“BLAST-OFF MOMMY!!”) and fell asleep right afterwards, but woke up and completely freaked out during landing. Poor kid wound up throwing up and going back to sleep 😦 Thankfully there were no other issues, and we met up with my Mom at baggage claim.

I’ll probably do a post about the trip, because there’s just too much to list here. Suffice it to say that it was amazing to see my family again after so long, and the boys had a fantastic time. They met almost all of my siblings’ kids (my niece had to work and couldn’t make the trip), and I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen them have so much fun with older kids.

Also, depending on the day there were as many as 9 dogs there at a time, and the boys LOVED playing with all of them. I was a little worried about Micah’s allergies, but he didn’t have any trouble at all! This is one of my favorite puppy pics — my sister’s puppy just laid there keeping an eye on Jonah while he was falling asleep, it was so adorable! I’m pretty sure if they were given a choice they would have left me behind and taken all the dogs home instead! 😛

The trip back was an easier flight for the boys. I’m not going to say NY pizza has magical qualities and kept the kids in a good mood, but I like to think it played a role somehow lol. Airport NY pizza is still better than anything they’ve ever had in Arizona…

The boys are so little I was able to lay them both across the seat together and they totally fit without a problem, so I had a bit more space on the way back. It wasn’t perfect, but for travelling alone with two toddlers I think it was pretty flipping good.

It feels weird to be home now of course, because I’m both relieved to have the boys back on a regular schedule in their own house, and sad that it’ll be (at least) months before we see the family in person again. I just have to hope that our school will take off (shameless plug!! For those in AZ, have I mentioned that we’re opening a martial arts school this month?) and more frequent travel can become a reality. 🙂

Did you do anything fun for the holidays?

Have you ever traveled with super young kids? Any fun stories?