Last week we travelled to Colorado to be in my dear friend's wedding. The kids and I were all in it, while Aaron ran around doing our bidding for three days. It was awesome. Both the husband at our beck and call thing and the family vacation thing.
We didn't do many family vacations when I was a kid. I remember the occasional camping trip, but rarely did my father ever go with us. We usually all went on trips to visit family, but we never went on vacations together just because.
This year is the first year that the kids have been old enough (and we have been insane enough) to try some pretty extended road trips. We had originally planned to drive to Colorado, but decided to brave family air travel. I'm here, so we obviously survived, even in spite of a two hour delay about two hours into our little adventure.
Bribery works wonders. We bribed BIG for decent behavior and our kids seriously delivered.
They were so good that as we were leaving the plane the flight attendants commented on their great behavior and manners. I laughed and said, "oh, we bribed them like I have never bribed before." The flight attendant smiled and said in his amazing Southern twang, "no honey, you have really good kids" and I almost kissed him right there.
My new best friend is a very flamboyant Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant.
The next day, as we were paying for the Lego/Barbie bribes, Aaron griped that maybe we should have held out a little. I told him to hush up and pay the man, we can still take the toys away if they act up and we still have a wedding to survive. It didn't take long for the toys to end up in toy jail once we got back.
The good behavior lasted until exactly 24 hours after we got home, which is fine with me, because their awesomeness was scaring me. We survived two plane rides, a wedding they were all in, four nights sharing a hotel room, four nights in a house with people who don't have kids (and had just gotten married), several sightseeing stops, a sprained ankle and many, many hours in the car without any major issues (aside from aforementioned sprained ankle).
Thank you, Jesus. It was clearly an act of God, because Princess Barbies and Legos will only go so far.
Glad to hear you had a great trip! If it wasn't raining this week, I'd say we need a park date. But, alas, that probably won't work.
ReplyDeleteYou DO have good kiddos, by the way. :)