The trip to Ohio is always hard, for these main reasons:
1. We have to pack so much stuff.
2. It's a long drive.
3. We have to manage Alice in a different setting.
4. Alice doesn't eat very well when we travel due to different food and distractions.
5. The kids (and therefore parents) don't sleep as well at night, especially with all of us in one room.
Nevertheless, twice a year we slog north to visit the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Alice may be high-maintenance the whole time, but she has a lot of new experiences that are quite valuable. Plus, there is the added benefit that she can try some things we normally wouldn't have her do (like eat candy or sit on the counter eating chips) and she won't expect that to become part of the normal pattern at home. Alice always seems to come back a new person, having been stretched by being in a new environment and around different people for a week.
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| Alice loves Christmas trees and ornaments. |
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| Simon enjoyed looking at things in a new house. |
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| Alice unwrapping her yellow rake |
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| Alice gets a little help from Simon in opening a present. |
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| Simon enjoying Christmas morning on grandma's lap |
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| Alice passed out the presents and helped open all of them |
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| Handsome men! |
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| Alice stirs her instant oatmeal with her new whisk |
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| Alice tries out every one of grandma's pens |
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| Alice enjoying her current favorite activity: reading books |
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| Simon enjoying a snooze on Don |
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| Packing up for the next house! |
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| Alice enjoys a bike ride around the neighborhood |
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| Grandma and Grandpa help Alice ride up the hill |
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| Alice eats some twizzlers for the first time. She really liked them. |
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| Aunt Liz makes Simon laugh |
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| Alice liked sitting in the little chair for bedtime stories |
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| Youngest and Oldest cousin |
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| Alice doing art with Kaelyn |
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| The children are our future |
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| Simon smiles at Braeden |
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| Uncle Tener and Aunt Liz read to Alice |
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| Alice and Kaelyn doing art |
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| Taesen and Simon |
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| Alice is the teacher's pet |
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| Bedtime stories with the cousins |
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| Happy about having pizza for breakfast |
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| Kaelyn did a great job playing with Simon |
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| Back home, Alice helped unpack the presents and hand-me-downs. Here she has on one sparkly pink shoe from Kaelyn and one yellow sneaker from Braeden. I'm probably reading too much into the shoes, but I think this really represents Alice. She likes girly things and boy things, and she wants everything at once. |
Now that she is so much more verbal, we can get a better sense of what impacted her the most during the trip. Here are the highlights:
She talked a lot about Mater (a character from Cars that she loves) being in Kaelyn and Braeden's basement.
She talked a lot about basements in general, since two of the houses we stayed in had basements where fun things happened.
She demanded to do art (having had much fun doing art with Kaelyn).
She felt entitled to use our pens from the pen container on the counter since she was able to do that at grandma Cam's house.
She talked a lot about going canoeing with grandpa Shogren.
She was thrilled to see the ornaments grandma Cam gave us on our tree at home.
She wants to sit on my lap in the van (because we did that in a parking lot at a rest stop on the drive).
All in all, the trip was a lot of work, but so much fun. It was just too bad that Alice was sick the first part and Simon was sick the second part.
