Trip Report (Long)

Oh where o' where do we begin. When someone said, traveling with infants isn't easy, boy were they not kidding. To give the girls some credit, they did awesome in the airport and on the planes. We had everything prepared, packed, and ready to go for any type of situation. We had extra clothes for a blow out or spit up, extra clothes for mommy and daddy in case we needed them. We packed extra paci's, toys, diapers, and blankets.

Here is Riley on the plane:

and Addison and Daddy having fun:

On the ride there it turns out we didn't need all of our extras and the one thing I didn't pack extra , we actually needed and that was my milk. I don't know what I was thinking only bringing three 6 ounce bottles of cold milk and 1 8 ounce bottle of fresh expressed breast milk. I could have brought more milk easily and I didn't. In order to keep the girls happy on the plane, we fed them extra milk and we went through most of my milk on the way to Spokane. So I spent the whole trip trying to stay ahead of the girls on my pumping to make sure we didn't have to give them formula. I did break down and buy some formula, just in case but boy was I stressed about not having enough milk. In the end, it all worked out but I was stressed and so were my breasts from the extra pumping to increase my supply over the trip.

We arrived in Spokane, got our rental car and got the girls strapped in and ready to go. We made it to a burger place (Zips) before the first melt down. Riley didn't want to be in her car seat any more and she made that real clear very fast. We got her calmed down and then checked into the hotel. I'm so glad we got a hotel with a refrigerator and a microwave to store and heat up the milk for the girls. We then went to Dave's house to have him meet the girls and spend some time with him talking about Laurie. Dave's grandpa skills were brought to action very quick since the girls required constant holding and attention the entire trip. At least it gave Dave something to do rather than sitting and thinking about Laurie. It was very hard to see Dave so sad and I know he was glad we made it up and spent time with him so he didn't have to be alone. After a couple of hours, we left Dave's house and made plans for breakfast the next morning.

We took the girls back to the hotel and then the screaming began. We tried to keep them on the same schedule as home and give them their bath around 6:30, dress them for bed, and put them down at 7:00. Well, that was not in the cards. The girls were not having anything to do with going to bed. I'm sure they missed their swings that rock them to bed each night so Jesse and I had to become human swings and rock the girls over and over to get them to sleep. So 3 hours later, we finally had them asleep. Despite the crying fest, they still slept 8 hours without waking and we were all able to get some shut eye.

The next morning we got up to meet Dave for breakfast. Jesse saw this old diner called Molly's that had a sign of a dog that looked like a rat or raccoon drawn by a little kid and Jesse just had to eat breakfast there. Here is a picture of the awful sign:

Breakfast was very good and very filling. The girls were great in the restaurant. We then drove around town for a while to show Jesse around the city and met up with my friends Kayla and Michelle. We made plans for Sunday night to have dinner with Kayla and Michelle's mom for Michelle's birthday.

Here is a picture of Riley ready to head out:

Later that day was Laurie's services. The memorial was the way Laurie would have wanted it to be. We were celebrating her life rather than having a sad service in her honor. There were a good 100 people there to celebrate and remember Laurie's life. They put together a slide show of pictures and a beautiful poem that was very touching. Dave's family was able to meet the girls and Jesse and we enjoyed some company and good food. Dave and I had a good cry when it was time to leave. The girls were over stimulated at that point and it was time for a bath and bed. This night was even worse than the second. I had Addison while Jesse dealt with Riley and we turns rocking, swinging, feeding and calming the girls down until they finally fell asleep.

At this point we also realized it had been several days since the girls had a bowel movement and we could tell that their tummy's were bothering them. I called Brea and she suggested we try 1 ounce of apple juice with 1 ounce of water to help move things along. We gave the girls their bottles before bed and Addison took to the remedy quickly and had a nice diaper waiting for us the next morning. Riley worked a little slower and her episode will be described later on.....

Sunday we decided to take Jesse over to Coeur d' Alene Idaho to check out the lake and the city. It is only a 40 minute drive over the Washington border into Coeur d' Alene so we packed up the girls and headed out. Dave's sister Shari and her husband Ron were on their way back to Spokane after camping out in Idaho so we decided to meet up for lunch and visit so they could meet the girls. It was nice to catch up with Shari and Ronny and see how their kids were doing. Soon it became clear that the girls were ready to get going so we got back in the car and I had to pump before we could head back home. The girls were not too fond of sitting in their car seats while I pumped so Jesse got them out into the stroller and drove them around in the nice cool air. We finally got them settled down enough to head back to town.

Sunday night Jesse decided to hang out with Dave and borrow an xBox 360 so he could play in his league and I drove over to Kayla and Michelle's mom's house for Michelle's birthday dinner. We had a good time catching up and visiting with Michelle's girls who are 6 and 4. We passed my girls around so we could all have a free moment to eat.

Here is a picture of Kayla holding Addison:

And Michelle is holding Riley in this picture:

Once dinner was over, we had to head back to Dave's house and wait for Daddy to finish his games. I decided to give the girls a bath at Dave's house since it was already 1 hour past their bed time. The girls had a blast playing in the bath tub while grandpa Dave and I washed them up. Dave took pictures so I will have to wait for him to send those to me. After Daddy was done, we took the girls back to the hotel. Dave and I had a tearful goodbye with hugs and kisses and then we left. Once we got to the hotel we had another melt down night where the girls were over tired and over stimulated. They were not happy and Addison was so upset she couldn't eat and I just had to rock her to sleep. It broke my heart to have them so upset but we finally got them sleeping so and Jesse and I went to bed so we could get up early and pack and head out.

The next morning went pretty smooth as Jesse and I packed up. The girls were in a pretty good mood and we got the hotel and bags packed and headed out. Jesse saw a restaurant he wanted to eat at called Dicks.

I think he just wanted to eat there because of the name but the restaurant is a good hamburger place. By the time we got there, the lines were too long and we needed to try another place so we could get the rental car returned on time so we ate at Zips again.

At the airport we were given the option to upgrade to first class and we jumped at the chance to do it for so cheap. Our seats wouldn't be together but we would have lots of help from the flight attendants and the extra room would serve us well. Jesse lucked out and sat next to an older woman who was delighted to help Jesse hold and take care of Riley. I sat a row back with Addison who was happy to sleep in mommy's arms. The first class flight attendant was a God send and warmed up the girls bottles for us and held the girls when we needed to use the rest room. She even took Addison down the isle to show all the elderly women how cute our daughter was.

About 30 minutes before we landed I started to think that it would be a good idea if Jesse changed Riley's diaper because we didn't do that before we took off. Oops....too late, Riley decided the apple juice was ready to work and proceeded to fill her pants in the worst blow out we have seen to date. It took Jesse, the flight attendant and the nice lady next to Jesse along with 15 wipes to get Riley clean. Some how the extra outfits I packed for the flight got put in one of our suitcases instead of in the diaper bag so Riley had to finish the flight in her diaper and a blanket. Woosh....was that an ordeal.

All in all the trip was exciting and challenging and it was hard to make the girls feel comfortable at times. We learned what works and what doesn't so when we take our trip back to Wisconsin in December, we know what we want to change and the girls will be older so that will hopefully allow us to have more fun. We didn't take as many pictures as we would have liked because we were so busy but at least we caught a few. Thanks for listening if you made it this far.