Another Summer in SLO, Part 1 {Road Trip to SLO}

Well, we are four days into our adventure and I'm already starting to blog about it!  I think that's an improvement over how I did last year.

We decided to split our trip out into two days.  It's a long trip even doing that, and we wanted to be able to be rested and ready for our first SLO Farmers Market of the summer.  So we headed out as early as we could on Wednesday morning.  We had our hotel booked already in Carpinteria {which is about an hour and 45 minutes south of San Luis Obispo, but north of the hot mess that is Los Angeles traffic}, and were hoping to get in there by around 6:30 or so.  We left town around 10:30 and our GPS told us it should take around 7 hours.  Well, what GPS didn't calculate was that we were driving with two girls, one of which is right at the early stages of wearing big girl panties!  Still, I figured we would only need to add on an hour for food/potty/gas stops.  We were making great time, and Sydney was doing awesome letting us know when she needed to potty, but man, that LA traffic was brutal.  It tacked on an extra hour and a half to our drive.  Sydney stayed dry the whole time, and we made it to our hotel a little before 8.  We let the girls run around a bit and play in the tub before putting them to bed.  Hotel rooms are always tricky because Sydney is really too big for a pack & play now, but not quite ready to sleep with Olivia.  So, she snuggled up with me in one bed while David got beat up by a wiggling Olivia all night.

➹ I am usually the designated driver while David works, watches shows, entertains the girls, and EATS! ➹

We had breakfast in the hotel and then headed out for the last leg of our journey.  I'm really so proud of how the girls did in the car for the whole trip.  It's not easy being strapped into a car seat for almost 10 hours on one day and then getting right back in the car the next day without understanding just how long the next part will be.  Of course, they had their shows to watch, but they also did other things like sticker books and lacing activities, and lots of snacks to keep them entertained.  And, Sydney stayed dry the entire time.  She always told us when she needed to go potty and we pulled over as soon as we could to let her go.  I'm so so proud of how well she did!

➸➸ Two sort of random things to note.  Sydney was so excited to go to California, even though she didn't really know what California was.  When we stopped at the McDonald's in Quartzsite to go to the bathroom, she started pointing to everything saying, "Is that California?  Is that California?"  Anyway, while we were in the bathroom washing our hands, I noticed a teenage girl in there with an interesting outfit {striped pants, plaid top}.   When we stopped awhile later at a random rest stop for the girls to go to the bathroom, that same girl was in the bathroom with her friends when we were washing our hands!  So, it's good to know that my toddler girls have the same bladder size as a group of teenage girls!