Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Getting To The Beach

We're at the beach! For a whole week. Which is amazing. I can promise there will be no shortage of pictures and stories of the week in the near future but I thought I'd break the trip down a little to both save me from having to type a post that's four miles long and you from having to dedicate an entire afternoon just to read it.

Watching the planes take off
Installment number one is about our journey here. Every other year we've come to Ocean Isle, we've gotten up long before the sun to begin our trek. Since we've had kids, that's become even more important since the hope was that they'd sleep for half the drive if we left early enough. But, it's also become a bigger pain in the arse since, you know, bringing kids means you bring everything in your house with you. But this year, we found tickets on Spirit air for $9.99. You read that right - no missing zeroes, no misplaced decimals. And since Meme and Papa were driving the van, we were able to send most of our bags of clothes and floaties and other assorted kid stuff with them. Leaving us with the kids, some toys/snacks for the plane and our two car seats to put in the rental when we got there.

Patrick has been on a plane once before, but he was only three months old so this is really the first one he's actually aware of. This was Madelyn's first trip on a plane as well. Patrick had been looking forward to it all week and told everyone at school that he was going to get to "fly on a plane REAL FAST and WAY UP HIGH like this" and then would make his best plane sound which actually sounds more like a rocket ship going through a dishwasher. 

Looking at all the small roads and cars
Even though a 55 minute plane ride is WAY better than an 8-9 hour car ride (especially with a potty-training 3 year old and a very wiggly 18-month old) the day wasn't without its potential hazards. We had checking in at the airport, going through security (Patrick was NOT happy he had to take his shoes off), waiting to board for an hour, waiting on the runway for a long time and THEN the flight. Then the exact reverse of that process once we landed, followed by a 45 minute car ride to the beach. The kids did amazingly well through every step of the process though. We were also lucky in that Aunt Abbie and Uncle Matt were on our flight too so they helped us juggle the kids and car seats through the airport and didn't seem to mind too much when our kids treated their seats in front of us like punching bags. 

All in all, the first plane ride with two kids was a big success. Their favorite parts were the train in the airport (Patrick would make sure we all knew where the train was stopping next after it was announced over the speaker - "Dad! This is Concourse C. We're about to be at Concourse C. Dad, did you know that this is Concourse C?!") and looking out the windows to see the clouds under us while flying. Here are a few pictures I snapped with my phone...

Madelyn reading the safety guidelines prior to takeoff
Pre-flight snack with Mommy
Saying hi to Matt and Abbie
Coloring/Please sit still time :)

So happy about the plane!
Waiting to get off the plane

Sleepy ride from the airport to the beach. She fell asleep before I could even get the luggage tag off.

We looked over and realized he had wiggled his arms out at some point. No idea how/why that happened.
We're having an awesome time at the beach. The weather has been great and the kids have had SO much fun. We'll be sure to post pictures when we get back. Hope everyone is having a great week so far!

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