daddy daughter road trip

On our last day in Utah, we had plans to go to the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake, but it closed early, so instead, we went to Liberty Park, which had received a major upgrade since the time Jake and I were living in Salt Lake. We drove past Jake’s dilapidated old bungalow house he lived in during college when we met, not far from the park. Memories! Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike met us at Liberty for some playtime.

Meredith had the time of her life on the swings. Her soft little tufts of hair are totally irresistible– it’s the softest penguin fuzz ever!

Best. Day. Ever.

Swing us!

After Liberty Park, we visited our friends, Alex and Hillary, in SLC. Their little girl, Ann, was a great sport sharing her toys with all the girls. She took Meredith’s poking and prodding like a champ!

Practicing chop stick skills.

We had a whirlwind week of fun in Utah and the girls were sad to leave Grammy’s… until they found out Grammy and Grandpa were coming with us part of the way on the return trip! Jake’s nephew was getting married in Vegas, and we had arranged for my parents to caravan down with us to watch the girls while we were at the wedding festivities. Not only did they come with us, my mom offered to take the twins in their car on the six hour drive to Vegas so that we would just have to worry about getting ourselves and Meredith there on time! Talk about gluttons for punishment… grandparents of the year!

We loaded the twins and gracious grandparents up with snacks, coloring books and movies in the minivan and wished them well! Meredith slept most of the way to Vegas and it was a very peaceful road trip on our end… it almost hearkened back to our pre-kids days!

Grammy found an awesome park in St. George, which was perfect for getting some energy out, and when they arrived in Vegas, they took the twins to see the Popovich Comedy Pet Theater Show (dog and cats dressed up and doing tricks) downtown. Other than that, we didn’t hear much about their car ride… I’m assuming Grammy and Grandpa blocked it out of their memory!

Can’t believe we’ve never stopped at this St. George park before– looked awesome!

Meanwhile in Vegas… Meredith was on her way to get ready for the reception.

When we arrived at the hotel, we realized Jake had accidentally packed my bag in the minivan, which my parents were driving. Not having anything to change into after being in the car for six hours, unshowered, I decided it would be best if he went to the luncheon while I hung back with Meredith until the minivan arrived. She was bored with the hotel room in about five seconds, so we walked around the grounds and went to the pool while waiting for Jake.

Jake’s nephews and niece on the Calaway side: Mason, Keitra, Alex, his bride, Bree, Reagan and Ben.

After a long day, the twins were pretty cranky when we met up at the hotel, so we fed them quickly and left them (screaming from being overtired and confused) with my parents. We took Meredith to the reception with us and she mostly slept/was passed around and admired by all the family.

Jake with four of his brothers, Jarom, Tyler and Ben.

Some of the Whitehead siblings and siblings-in-law: Tyler, Gigi, Jarom and Jen.

Jake’s sister, Juliette, thought it was nice to hold just one baby for a change (she has two sets of twin boys, who are now in kinder and elementary!)

The next day, everyone woke up refreshed and ready to play. Jake’s family stayed at the same hotel, and we had breakfast with some of his family, as well as the girls and my parents. Then, we headed to the pool to burn some energy before going home.

The twins hung out with Grandma Celeste by the koi pond.

Meredith loves silly Uncle Kip! They have the same expression!

Jake (conveniently) forgot to pack swim gear, so it was my turn to be in the pool with the twins for a change! It was a nice day, but the wind made being in the pool freezing.

Snack time with Grammy.

One of the pool servers apparently took pity on us and made it her mission to bring us extra lemonades, beach balls and suggested we go use one of the cabanas for free.

Thanks, Grammy and Grandpa for all your help! I’m sure the girls would have rather turned around and gone back to Utah with Grammy and Grandpa, but we hugged goodbye and went our separate ways. After exhausting themselves at the pool, we had the most peaceful drive back to California in history. We didn’t have to make any stops, and all of the girls slept for three and a half out of the four hours. Record shattering!

We ate out and let the girls run around the park by our house before getting home and collapsing from the journey. While waiting in the car for Jake to run in and grab some food before the park, we entertained Meredith with silly sounds. Meredith didn’t know what to think of us pronouncing Sammy’s name with a snake-like long “S” sound… she was simultaneously entertained and spooked!

Other than that, it was a cry-free trip home!

Lots of love,

A few weeks ago, Meredith took her very first plane ride! In piecing together how we were all going to get ourselves to Utah for our fall trip, we decided Meredith and I would fly since Meredith is at the stage where nothing really entertains her in the car and there was no way we were all going to survive 10+ hours in the car with a screaming baby.

I’m not a huge fan of the car myself, so it seemed like a short hop, skip and jump over to Utah on a plane wouldn’t be that bad. Since Jake is more of a “it’s about the journey, not the destination” kind of guy, he happily agreed to get the twins to Utah via minivan and was excited about their first Daddy-Daughter Road Trip.

Meredith and I got a one day head start before Jake and the twins and were a bit apprehensive when we waved goodbye at the Long Beach Airport. Even though I packed light, it was not the easiest of tasks getting through the airport with bags and the baby, but fortunately, there were many Good Samaritans along the way. From the nice TSA agent (oxymoron?) who ushered me into the express security where there was no line, or the super nice family who held Meredith for me after security while TSA was doing an “extra check” on my bottle bag and pump, so many friendly people helped us along our way, redeeming my view of humanity. I vowed to pay it forward next time I was in an airport and saw a harried mom with kids.

Our flight was a bit delayed, so I paced back and forth in the waiting area, with Meredith in her carrier, trying not to waste all her snacks and toys so that we’d have them for the actual plane ride.

By the time we got on the plane, I was exhausted from carrying Meredith and our luggage. Fortunately, the nice couple across from me put my carry-ons in the overhead bins and helped hold Meredith while I got situated. The couple sitting next to me could read my mind as I plopped, exhausted, in the seat, mentally preparing for the next two hours with a wiggly baby and before I could even preemptively apologize for any baby noise on the plane ride, the guy exclaimed with a smile, “Don’t worry about us, no matter how she does on the flight! We have grandkids and love babies!”

I had said a little prayer before leaving that day that we would encounter helpful people on our flight, and my requests were definitely fulfilled. Thank goodness the Long Beach to Salt Lake route is typically full of kids and family friendly travelers, making our trip all the more bearable.

Although it was a relatively short flight, it was definitely the longest hour and forty-five minutes of my life! I felt like Mary Poppins, reaching into my diaper bag and revealing a new toy every five minutes, hoping the new one would occupy her for more than a second before she threw it on the ground in boredom. I bought a few new toys that Meredith hadn’t seen yet, and those tended to keep her busy for a little more time than her old ones (and by more time, I mean 30 more seconds).

Meredith’s favorite activities were pulling the tray table up and down, banging toys on the tray table, flailing her arms and arching her back over the arm rests in attempts to escape my grip, trying to grab the book/headphones/jewelry from the lady next to me, and throwing every single toy onto the nasty airplane carpet. If you’d like to experience how slow time was going by at this point, just pull up a chair facing a boring wall in a narrow hallway and try holding a baby for two hours. EXHAUSTING.

Meredith also took great pleasure in flailing herself over the arm rest into the aisle and giggling at all the passengers behind us, especially the boy diagonal from us who was eating a gooey, delicious-looking cinnamon roll. Meredith would stop at nothing to grab it!

At one point, (about 30 minutes in) we had already gone through most of our toys, and I decided it was time to get out the snacks. As soon as I pulled the bag of Chex out from the diaper bag, Meredith, with lightning-quick reflexes, snatched it and promptly flung the entire bag up and down, sending Chex flying all over ourselves, fellow passengers, the aisle, EVERYWHERE.

It was raining Chex on the plane until I was able to reclaim the bag from Meredith’s grip. There were a few giggles and annoyed glances from everyone, but luckily, no nasty comments. A few people took pity on me and brushed the crunchy cereal out of the aisle when they saw me pathetically leaning over my seat, baby in my left arm and desperately trying to remove Chex off the floor with my right.

For the duration of the flight, any time passengers or the flight attendants walked up the aisle, all we could hear was, “CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.” Meredith smirked in satisfaction.

Our other baby mischief moment came when the male flight attendant stopped in our row to offer snacks, which he was holding in a basket with one hand. This was all too much temptation for Meredith who, at just the right moment, flailed her arms upward at the unsuspecting flight attendant (who I’m guessing from his glare did not have kids), making contact with the basket, and sending bags of cookies and crackers flying onto the heads of passengers in front of us. Meredith found the sights and sounds of the airborne crinkly bags incredibly entertaining and giggled in delight.

The couple next to me leaned over and exclaimed without a hint of irony, “She’s doing great!” God bless them!

Besides those incidents, the flight was drama-free, albeit cramped, tiring and hot. I fed Meredith upon take off and landing to help her ears adjust and she seemed fine. The flight was during her nap time and I had purposely kept her up that afternoon, hoping she would nap in my arms, but my dreams of a snoozing baby never materialized. Apparently a nice bottle, blanket over her eyes, a nice cuddle in my lap and the droning/motion of the plane was not sleep-inducing and she was wide-eyed and wiggly the entire ride. “WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP???” I begged/lamented as my arm muscles gradually deteriorated into limp noodles.

Meredith didn’t cry a lot, although every time she dropped a toy, snack or got bored (so basically every ten seconds), she would let out a little wail. When I prevented her from escaping my arms, she became furious and squawked in frustration, but fortunately, didn’t cry for sustained periods of time. Needless to say, we were both relieved when the plane landed. Freedom!

Out of the plane, I was so exhausted and famished that I even placed Meredith directly on the baby changing table in the bathroom without bothering to put down any clean paper first (cringe!) Thoroughly bedraggled and limping down the hallway to baggage claim with the baby and bags in tow, we were greeted by an angel surrounded by a halo of light– Grammy! We were so happy to see her and, relieved, plopped down in the car with her and Grandpa. Meredith promptly fell asleep on the ride back to their house and, while she awoke briefly when putting her down to bed in her crib, she slept through the night, dreams of flying Chex and tray tables floating in her little head.

The next day, Meredith was so excited to explore her new surroundings.

Yay for Grammy’s house!

This is what happens when Californians come to Utah and it’s 65 degrees outside.

It was relaxing hanging out with just Meredith and wondering how the twins and Jake were faring in the car.

Meredith loved the fresh green grass and blue skies.

Only child for a day!

Meanwhile, Jake was very motivated to get to Utah ASAP since we had tickets to a Utah football game that evening, and hence, packed up the car and twins at 2 a.m. and took off. I was amazed at how good of time they made. It usually takes us 12-14 hours with all the stops, but it took him under 10. By himself. With the twins. I was beyond impressed.

He attributed their efficient travel time to NOT having me in the car and said they had a great time without me! I guess I should be offended, but wasn’t, considering I don’t much enjoy car rides with them either! Apparently, the fact that I have the girls actually get dressed, brush their teeth, stop at clean rest stops for potty breaks and spend time preparing semi-healthy snacks and meals to eat along the way adds in approximately four hours to our travel time!

Without me there, Jake threw the girls in the car in their pajamas (when I asked if he had brushed their teeth, combed their hair, or had them change into actual clothes, he just laughed), literally stopped on the side of the road whenever they had to go potty and instead of stopping, threw snacks back at them to catch when they were hungry.

I usually get so annoyed by the close quarters and bickering that long car rides seem to induce, but Jake said it was pleasant playing I-Spy, ABCs-spotting on billboards, watching a movie, and chatting about everything under the sun. Jake and the girls are all very curious, talkative and a little ADD, so they were perfect travel companions for each other! I herby pronounce Jake the King of the Road Trip… I have to say, he did an amazing job!

Eating at “Old Macdonald’s” (still in their pjs!) was the highlight of their trip and the girls were so excited to tell me about it when they arrived at Grammy’s! The only picture Jake took of their road trip:

Back at Grammy’s, Uncle Mike and Ali came down from Wyoming to say hello.

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike also visited from SLC and we enjoyed the beautiful fall weather out in the backyard.

The twins gleefully occupied themselves on the glider and running around the backyard the rest of the day after their “long journey,” as they refer to it!

Jake’s efficient time management on the road paid off and we left the (over-tired/screaming) kids with Grammy and the rest of the family that evening to go up to Salt Lake for a trip down memory lane. We enjoyed pizza at The Pie, the quintessential local college hangout we used to frequent (they didn’t have “gluten free” options ten years ago!) and walked around campus before heading to the game. The Utes prevailed again Arizona and it was fun seeing how the campus and stadium had changed. While most things had been upgraded, one thing was still the same– fun times and loud fans!

Great date night at Rice Eccles!