Journey from CT to NC (Memorial Day Weekend!)

The Monday before Memorial Day we, along with my sister Kristen and her family, headed to NYC to begin our journey to North Carolina where we would spend the next weekend with our brother, Jackson and his wife. New York City was rainy all day while we were there. It was certainly the hardest day logistically, so we were very glad that Marshall and Adam were with us. However we parted ways with them as they headed back to work and we continued our excursion with the kids. It was a glorious trip filled with craziness, awesomeness, challenges, and meaningful memories. Check out all our photos here. But before you peruse all the pics, I thought it would be fun to list some of the crazy challenges that we faced. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Right off the bat as we stepped out of the car for the first time, we all got soaking wet in the downpour of rain in NYC. (...Aaaaand, we're off!)
2. Peter unintentionally licked a NYC trash can while trying to spit out his gum.
3. A few children fell into giant puddles - I guess it didn't matter too much as it was pouring rain at the time, but still.
4. The children inevitably found ways (mostly by tripping and falling) of touching the subway floors, ...and then their faces. They were thrilled to ride the underground train and even see a rat!
5. Peter accidentally peed on Kristen's hand.
6. We discovered poo on the wheel of our stroller at the end of the NYC day only after it got onto Peter's special blanket.
7.  We found a tick on Eliza after in the hotel room after our first day of travel. She was terrified (so were we, at the thought of having to pull it out on our own), but was very brave and later admitted that it didn't even hurt.
8. We waited in long lines. That might not sound like much, but remember that we had 5 small children. No small task!
9. There were many a poopy diaper that required changing at the most inconvenient time and places. \
10. There were temper tantrums from whiny tired kids in public places.
11. We dealt with boogers from snotty nosed children (who we love and adore, but who can be disgusting).
12. There were unexpected traffic detours resulting in wrong turns, or getting lost, and there were also traffic jams to slow us down. Again, keep in mind the 5 young and sometimes impatient children with small, unpredictable bladders in the back seats. Yikes.
13. There were security guard reprimands in museums about our children. Embarrassing.
14. In one art museum, we stepped into a small theater to watch something. I sat in the back with Sonoma. A lady in front of me turned around and rudely gestured for me to get out (because of Sonoma - who was being well-behaved, by the way).
15. There were food spills on articles of clothing that just got to stay that way for the rest of the day. Sometimes we were pretty haggard-looking.
16. We were incrediblly sleep-deprived. We finished each day late and we were exhausted, but it was all worth it.
17. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but in Washington DC (where parking is ridiculous, and everything is farther apart than I remembered) Ruby needed to pee so badly once that I had to allow her to pee in the gutter on a residential street. Sorry!

Note that all of that stuff happened before we got to North Carolina! After we got there things were mostly smooth sailing (minus the tick that I got, and the tick that Peter got... and incidentally Adam found another tick on him last night. We have lived here for less that 3 months, and in that time we have unintentionally fed and subsequently killed 5 ticks. Sheesh). One thing we learned - trying to cram NYC, Philly, and DC into 4 days with 5 kids is insanity.

After the insanity, we truly had high hopes for our Memorial Day weekend on Bald Head Island with Jackson, Celeste, Kristen, Marshall, and my cousin, Dan. All of our hopeful expectations were met. In fact, everything was better than we could have hoped for. We feel so incredibly lucky to live the life that we do. We know that we certainly don't deserve all of the fun we have and the luxuries that we get to enjoy. We try to and hope to pay it forward whenever possible.

 Day 1: NYC. All wet and ready to wait in line for the museum!

Day 2: Philly at the Liberty Bell (decidedly smaller than they expected)

Day 3: Washington DC at the National Gallery of Art (Girl with a Watering Can, a painting that my dad made us memorize when we were young. Look dad, I remembered!)

Day 4: a picnic on the White House lawn while reading Barack Obama's "Of Thee I Sing" children's book.

Ruby on the beach of Bald Head Island in North Carolina.