Family Vacation!

This post comes from Kure Beach, North Carolina! WooooWHOOOOO we are at the beach! We are staying here with Mike’s parent’s, aunt, and my sister in law are her two kids 4 and 2 years old. Next weekend is a family reunion so we came down a bit early because a beach house was actually cheaper than renting several hotel rooms for three nights.

Now that we are here and starting to settle in I am starting to get excited to be here. The last 48 hours were a little stressful and my anxiety levels were pretty high.

Being the mom and going on vacation is stressful. I was responsible for getting everything packed and ready and I am the mastermind on what stays and what goes. Trying to figure out what you need and don’t need for a week for 2 infants and 2 toddlers is hard. Mike is the muscle and strategically packs, loads, and unloads everything. That was another task… and luckily we were able to load Mike’s parents car with some things.

Also the last week of my life was stressful on a different level because my husband owns a small business and he is more or less a one man band. So he was working around the clock to meet deadlines to even be able to be here this week. And when I say around the clock he was pulling all night-ers like he was cramming for a final exam or term paper.

Then getting here with the kids was stressful, the drive, the arrival, the kids being confused and not having a good nap, sharing a room with cousins who are on different sleep schedules. There was so much crying. My kids do not cry that much. But the last 24 hours my head has been spinning from my kids crying.

 We did manage to have a wonderful two hours this morning at the beach with crying that felt minimal compared to what we were dealing with! They were getting use to the ocean and playing in the sand and in the end it was a lot of fun. We came back to the house feed them lunch and laid them down for a nap at 1pm and they are still sleeping at 4:45. I am letting them sleep because I know part of the all  constant crying in the last day has been due to lack of sleep!

We are settling in and I am so happy to start to have all types of fun at the beach! I write this post to remember that with young children  (or at least mine) the first part of a vacation is stressful but it fades fast and the fun begins!