Vacation Week Day 1- Road Trippin'

As I've mentioned, we recently (well, in January...but I hadn't had a chance to document yet...) road tripped to Florida! We spent a few days in Disney World with Justin's parents for Adeline's first trip and then to the beach for a few days also!

I'm spending the next week sharing our fun vacation experience and throwing in tips each day about the topic at hand (road tripping, each Disney park we visited and the beach).  Each day will be a different topic since there's just too much fun to post in one post! :)

We road tripped the first evening and broke up our trip by staying with my aunt that lives about 4 hours away.  We did this so we were able to leave an evening after work but still get on the road.  We are always so grateful to my aunt for letting us stay overnight on our road trips!

Tip:  If you're stopping on your road trip overnight, pack an overnight bag separate from your big suitcase with just what you need for that night and next morning!

The second day, we traveled all day.  Adeline was 14 months when we traveled, so we had just moved her to her "big girl" seat which was an adjustment. We did try to make sure she got use to it a little before our trip.  However, it still was an adjustment.  She does like her cup holders where she can have a snack and a drink at all times.  One big perk was my aunt was headed to Florida to be with some friends, so she actually rode with us to meet them and then they had plans to bring her back.  This was so helpful because we had an extra body to entertain Adeline and rotated the back seat duties throughout the trip!

Tip:  Have a bag of snacks and even a cooler if possible that you can easily access.  Also, have a bag of toys easily accessible.  I found that I had to switch out toys, books, etc. with her about every 10 minutes or so to keep her entertained. An iPhone and/or iPad also works great. ;)

We tended to stop every 3-4 hours.  Adeline slept a lot of it but was also awake a lot...especially a lot more than when we traveled with her the last time at 7 months. ;)

Tip:  Time your stops with feedings and meals if possible.  We often would stop when Adeline needed to nurse so everyone could go stretch their legs while I fed her in the car.  This also worked when she was a newbie when we traveled.  And the pro of traveling south is it just kept getting warmer, so I changed her in the car at every stop instead of using the public restrooms.

We stopped at Chick-Fil-A for lunch and spared a little time to let her run around....this was imperative since she was already walking like a champ at this point and expected to be on her feet as much as possible!

We made it to our hotel in Orlando (outside of Disney) around dinnertime.  We didn't book our travel evening at Disney because we weren't sure we would make it since traveling with a 14 month old can be predictable.  We did go ahead and make reservations at a hotel as close to Disney as possible so we would have no travel time to get to the park the next morning since we had plans to use it as one of our park days.  This worked out great!

My aunt's friends met us at our hotel to pick up my aunt, we visited with them for a little bit, and made it out of the hotel after checking in and unpacking a bit just in time to go to Downtown Disney for dinner and some shopping that night.  But that's another post.... ;)

We did our trip home the same way as far as stops...it was a little more dicey since it was just our little fam of three and no extra hands, but we still managed.  We broke it up to be about 12 hours one day and then 4 hours the next day.  Most of the trip home included the non-drive hanging in the back with Adeline! :)

Coming tomorrow...Downtown Disney!