Wicked Stupid Or Wicked Smaht??

Long post disclaimer: don't read if you don't want to. its long. 

I was given many a sideways glance when I told people that we were packing up our two babies and taking them on a thirteen hour road trip. I was told I was crazy, good luck and asked if I was looking for some kind of punishment for something? I, on the other hand, wasn't even a little bit worried. Maizey has been on countless road-trips, sometimes with both Brian and I, once with my mom and a few just her and I. Corbin has made the six hour drive to Pemberton to visit his grandparents numerous times, starting at just a few weeks old, and he always does fine. Plus, he can be entertained, quieted and calmed with the mention, promise and delivery of anything food related. So, last Saturday at 4:23a.m Ang and I loaded her truck with suitcases (her two to my one), play pens, sleeping bags, pillows, toys, coolers of food, road trip music and cameras to begin the thirteen hours of driving. To say the least, it was a piece of freaking cake (mmm... cake). Our babies are pretty much professional road trippers now. They know that crying is to be kept to a minimum until within 10-ish km's of proposed stop. They know that crying does not get them taken out of their seats. They know that crying only makes the music be turned up louder. So in turn, they did VERY little crying... so little in fact, that I even hopped in the back to see what was going on, only to find Maizey quietly playing with the tag on Mildred. They were unbelievable. We made three stops on the way there, once for a bathroom break, once for fuel and once for coffee. There were no unscheduled stops. Period. We saw tons of wildlife, including a Grizzly Bear and  a Wolf besides countless deer and elk, some baby sheep and a dead moose. We made it in thirteen hours exactly, almost to the minute (we can thank Ang and her heavy foot for that, since she didn't let me drive even ONCE!!!) so it was actually eleven hours of driving, two hours of stops.

It was SO great to see Andrea and her little family. Its been eight months since we last saw Andrea, Natalie and Cade (they were here in Revy visiting when Maizey was born) and its been almost three years since we saw Ryan. We got in some serious catching up time. Its hard to plan too many activities when you have three kids that need afternoon naps, so we tried to get out every morning and do something, then the afternoons were spend visiting and letting kids sleep. We did a lot of sitting around, laughing really loudly about old times, playing our old theme songs on repeat (Six Pack Summer, When The Sun Goes Down, Here For The Party, etc), drinking beer, staying up late (well later than normal... its all relative) comparing parenting techniques, tips, advice, and really just loving having the A-team back together. It was super relaxed which was exactly what we all wanted and SO much fun!

Maizey was sick when we left and didn't actually end up getting any better, so after a particularly bad night of only about half an hour of sleep, I took her in to the walk-in clinic. The doctor said it was a lung infection and prescribed some antibiotics. (see next post for details on follow up...) After struggling through the night, we had decided that maybe it was time to cut the trip a day short and start heading home. It was sad to be cutting an already short trip even shorter, but its hard having a sick little one when you are away from home and we thought it would be best to get home and help her get better.... The trip home was not so breezy. Maybe that's what happens when you leave at 11:15a.m rather than 4. And when you only plan on driving five hours, but at the five hour mark change your mind and try to muscle through the other six. And when you have gotten about 3 hours-ish sleep between the both of you. Maybe that's what happens. The whole way it was... well its only 5:00, we can make it to Jasper... well its only 250 more km's to Lake Louise... if we can make it to Lake Louise we might as well go all the way to Golden... well its dumb to stop in Golden, we might as well just go all the way home. That's when things got bad. It was dark, both kids didn't want to sleep, there was a semi going 20km's/hr and passing on a double solid (Ang) incident at the same time as there was a screaming (Maizey) incident at the same time as there was a puking (Corbin) incident. Then there was a screaming at the same time as the "I lost our dog" phone call. There was a tuna sub game (played by Corbin) while *someone* tried not to throw up at the sight of it. There were some good times on the way home, but right now, the bad ones are much funnier to think about. They are what made our trip home *memorable*!!!
Just a side note - We decided that Ang and I are pretty much perfect road trip partners. We like the same driving snacks and music. We both like to sing. We like to make fun of Karen *the GPS*. The last 18 km's are painful, we know this and relish in it... errr, I mean go cuckoo and laugh A LOT. Starbucks stops ARE important, as is busting a nut on the middle of the icefields parkway to chance a second glimpse at the wolf.  (both things our husbands would find not important and/or not do). And pretty much, how many other people can you spend 26 hours in the car with in one week and still want to hang out the next morning at 10:00 (which is what we did)?? 

Our trip to the North was, besides the walk-in clinic issue and the mis-haps on the drive home, a great success. We will totally do it again, maybe in the summer months so there is less chance of snow while we are there, but for sure we will do it again. For now, we wait until Canada Day long weekend to see our favorite little Doherty family again!

Ang and I getting read to go.

(many many more pictures to come but they are on three different cameras, so we need to get them all together first!)