First Road Trip

Micah and I wanted to go on a little road trip with the babies as we usually do quite a bit of traveling and we haven't been able to go anywhere as a family since the babies were born. In fact, I hadn't gone anywhere since February or March when we last visited Micah's parents since I had to stay close to home during my high risk pregnancy, so we decided it was definitely time to get away.

Micah's parents live in Monte Vista, CO, which is only about 3 hours and 45 minutes from ABQ, so we decided it would be the perfect first destination with the babies. It took quite awhile to gather all of the stuff we needed for our trip and pack, but we recently got a cargo box that attaches to the hitch of our 4Runner so everything fit in our car perfectly. I forgot to take a picture of our packed car, but we brought two pack n plays, Faith's sleeping wedge, three rock n plays, two bouncy seats, a play yard, a double stroller, climbing gear for Micah, tons of clothes for the babies, bottles, formula, and everything else the babies require during a 48 hour period!

We left Friday afternoon so that we could drive in the daylight. We decided to stop halfway through the drive to feed the babies as we wanted to keep them on their feeding schedule to insure we got in all of their bottles during the day. The drive is partly on an interstate and partly on a two lane highway, so there are some nice pull offs on the less busy section of the drive to stop for a feeding. I fed one baby in the front seat while Micah sat on the middle car seat base in the backseat and fed the other two simultaneously. This worked out great and everyone ate well! The only problem with stopping was that the babies got off of their eat, play, sleep schedule as they fell asleep as soon as we started driving again after the feeding, which was fine until they started waking up with about an hour left in the drive. Unfortunately, there wasn't much we could do to console them as they really just wanted to get out of their car seats and play, so there was a lot of crying for about the last hour of the drive.

Micah's parents have a spare bedroom in their house, and they also have a small upstairs with a pull out couch. We opted to sleep upstairs on the pull out so that we could have the babies in the same room with us so that we could hear them during the night. We had only slept one night with everyone in the same room as we quickly decided to move the babies into their own room once Faith got home as there were too many baby noises to keep us awake during the night. Now the babies are much quieter sleepers, though, and we enjoyed our family sleepover both nights!

Micah with Faith, Alexis, and Jack (top to bottom) in the morning after they all woke up. Micah was watching a climbing video and Faith was very excited about it as well!

It was a lot of fun to see Micah's parents again as we hadn't seen them since Labor Day weekend! The babies have changed so much in the last two months, so they enjoyed the smiles and seeing how much more interactive they are now. I also enjoyed our visit as it was the first time I have been able to escape the chores at our house as we are pretty much constantly working on stuff since it is a lot of work to maintain our household while taking care of three babies. Since I didn't have a long list of things to get done and Micah's mom took care of all of our meals and loading the bottles into the dishwasher, the only thing I had to do was make formula (and feed babies, but I had plenty of help for that too!). So for the first time since the babies came home, I actually just sat near them and read while they napped. This was so relaxing and whenever one of the babies would start fussing I would hold them or put them near me and they would fall back asleep. It was so nice to just enjoy being in the presence of the babies for once instead of constantly seeing the work that needed to be done.

Alexis, Faith, and Jack (left to right) playing at Grammy and Grandpa's house

Faith smiling for Grammy

Alexis smiling for Grammy

Jack with Grandpa Howard (not sure why his face was cut off...I didn't take this pic)

On the drive home the babies were sleeping great and with the time change we had an extra hour to work with in our day, so we decided to just push the next feeding until we got home. Although there were about five hours between bottles, the babies did great with this and we only heard a couple of whimpers in the last ten minutes of the drive. 

The trip was definitely a success and we are already planning our next few trips! We are planning on meeting Micah's parents in Ouray, CO at the end of December so that Micah and his dad can go ice climbing and his mom and I can enjoy the hot springs. Our friends might join us as well, which would be a lot of fun, and with the extra hands taking care of the babies it will feel like less work which will help it feel like more of a vacation. In March I am considering doing the Zion Half Marathon, which will be an adventure as we would also hike there with the triplets. In May we are hoping to make it to Michigan to visit family. And we will be back to Michigan in August for my brother's wedding. We are looking forward to our upcoming adventures!