Survive Family Travel: Reviewing What Worked

We returned from our trip to the gulf coast of Florida a week ago today. I've had a chance to recover the house. Sunburns have faded. Pictures are getting edited. All in all, we're back to our old routines and were even welcomed with a blizzard and negative real-feel temps this week.

We accomplished many of the things on our To-Do wish list, but really the highlight of our trip was spending lots of unstructured time at the beach.

Toddler and me.

12 yo collecting shells with this beach comb.

12 yo with my parents.

Daily things that worked the best:

• Having one event planned each day.

• Planned nap time for everyone.

• Snacks and treats often.

• Rash guards - my new best friend.

The plane trip down, if you recall, was just me with the three kids (12, 8, 3). We brought approximately five pounds of food per kid just for the 4 6 or so hours we traveled. Plus in-flight snacks.

View from our condo.

What worked best on our flight down:

• Checking our one big bag and car seat.

• Gate-checking our umbrella stroller.

• Delta surprised us with individual tvs/movies/games for each of us. #NinjagoMovieFTW

• As if five lbs of food wasn't enough, Delta surprised and delighted us with MORE treats like cookies/KIND bars, and soda. For my kids, who hardly even go out to eat and are almost NEVER allowed soda or juice, this was a huge deal. They were giddy with excitement when I said,"Order whatever will keep you quiet for the rest of the flight." - worked like a charm!

• Fruit Loop necklace craft - super win.

• *Bonus - we had NO turbulence, so toddler could bounce around and be unbuckled as his heart desired.

Check our my next post where I go over what didn't work, and how we fixed it.