On our way

We are on our way to Des Moines for our (now) annual birthday/Living History Farms run trip. This has got to be one of my favorite weekends of the year! The boys love to swim at the indoor waterpark and Mike gets to run in a dirty off-trail race with his friend. And, as an added bonus we usually tell Nick this is part of his birthday celebration.

I was getting a little nervous this year about how we would fit everything in the car. I don’t see how people go on long trips in their cars with multiple kids. We are only going to be gone until Sunday and the car was jam packed. We left right after school on Friday so the kids were all pretty tired and napped for a good chunk of the trip down. It was great!

See how packed the car is?

Nick looked so big in the backseat (not size big, but old big). He is growing up so fast and it’s making me a little weepy.

We also upgraded our hotel room this year. We love this hotel, but the room we stayed in last year was barely big enough for the four of us. I knew with the added pack and play it would be tough squeezing us all in so we opted for a suite. It was pricey, but well worth it! I don’t think I can ever go back to a traditional hotel room again! This is what the “bedroom” looked like before our kids hit. I will spare you the after picture.

And sweet Benny spent quite a bit of time on the floor on a blanket. I had to upgrade to a bigger blanket once we unpacked a little.

And here is the front room. It was very helpful in the middle of the night when Mike needed to sleep with Ben because Zander was crying about his elbow hurting. It was also great when Zander woke up before dawn so that Nick could keep sleeping.

The only downfall to this day: Mike forgot to pack his swim trunks (after bragging about how fast he could pack) which meant that I had to take Zander down the big boy slide. It was great fun but I thought my heart was going to explode on every trip down. I am not a water person (still have to plug my nose when I go under) and it took all I had to not plug my nose and hold him above. It ended up being fine, and lots of fun, but still makes me nervous just thinking about it. Thankfully Mike found a pair of trunks at the mall that night so he could swim with the boys on Saturday and Sunday.