Carter's Big Trip

Carter took her first big trip to Colorado for a friend's wedding with Robert and left mom at home. He really wanted her to meet his friends and was actually looking forward to the trip. For me, the prospect of 4 whole days to myself was way more exciting than trying to get up the ambition to go with them, and especially with Number 2 coming, this would be my last big hoorah to clean and get things ready for one more kid in this house. The idea of me traveling to Colorado, 8 hours on the road, with a toddler, in the heat of July didn't really appeal to me at all, as much as I would have loved to have been at the wedding and the chance to see some of my friends still living in Colorado. Not to mention that the timing was really bad for my job since most of the office was in Hawaii for our User's Conference and I was the main person in charge of customer support. (Yep, I volunteered to stay here...Hawaii, 32 weeks preggo, 8 hours of flying and hauling luggage, again didn't have much appeal...) Robert is much much braver than I am to take that little girl all the way down to Colorado in a car. And against all odds, Carter was wonderful for the whole trip, and just had a ball. Vashti, my little cousin, went along to help with Carter and really made the trip fun as Carter loved having her along. Wednesday night we got the car all packed...we ended up borrowing Aunty Linda's car who was gracious enough to lend it out for the cause as it was a Subaru Outback and had more room than my car (not to mention better tires!) We didn't get everything packed until almost 11 pm since Robert didn't even get home until almost 10. The car was packed full! I made darn sure that they had plenty of snacks, beverages, extra clothes, blankets, pillows, toys, books, movies...every space inch was full! They also had a saddle to drop off in Brighton for a show! Robert thought I was crazy packing all that stuff but later called to thank me!

Robert didn't actually get out of the house until 4:30 am (yikes!) on Thursday morning. Carter was so excited about the trip, it was all I could do to get her asleep by midnight, and by 4:30 she woke right back up and happily hoped in the car, gave mom a quick "hurry up and let me go now!" kiss and away they went. Carter and Vashti sorta slept on the way down, although Carter didn't fall back asleep until after they had gotten past Sheridan. Pancakes at McDonalds seems to settle her right in for sleeping.

To all our amazement, Carter had ton of fun on the trip and was really good. No temper tantrums or nothing. Fairly amazing. Robert credited it to me not being around. Sigh. I do have to admit she is better behaved when mom is gone. Sad truth, but every other mother I've ever talked to seems to hear the same thing too!