Rambling Ronni: Two Week Roadtrip, Let’s Do This Again

We’re going home tomorrow. I don’t know where the past two weeks have gone. While the rest of the world was recovering from Christmas and settling into the new year — we were traveling around the country. Visiting people. Hanging out. Talking. Being a family. 

Tomorrow is January 7. When we get home, our Christmas tree will still be up. I think our outdoor lights may still be on. Christmas gifts still strewn about the living room floor. I think we did the dishes before we left. I remember trying to clear out the fridge of food. But I’m not really sure what may greet us on our return. 

There was Christmas Day. Then we packed up the car, then we left the next morning. There’s been 12 nights in all. 7 nights in 6 different hotels. 5 nights in 4 different homes. 

I didn’t take enough pictures.
I originally planned to take pictures with all the awesome people we planned to hang out with on this trip…but I ended up hardly taking any. The point of this trip had been to BE with people – and I ended up largely forgetting to document WHO we’d been with. 

But I won’t forget. Thank you to everyone who hung out with us, met up with us, hosted us, conversed with us, and made this trip worth it for us. 

I don’t even know how to piece together all my reflections yet. I’m nervous about jumping back into the routine of things this week. Routine. What’s that? 

2017 was an ok year. I had a third kid. A kid I love to death and is so adorable and I’m so glad is in our lives. But the rest of the year was just kind of ‘eh’. Health issues, waiting to get my life back in order, turning back the dial on my passions and having patience. I’m glad for the new start of 2018. 

I hope we do this again. I hope more family travel, more transient lifestyle, is in our future. I dug it. Our kids adapted. Bedtimes were inconsistent. Naps were as-is. My baby mostly prefers to only fall asleep on me now…and then back to sleep by nursing. I was never like that with any other kid; I was such a sleep scheduler. Oh well. I’ll have to re-adjust everything back to some semblance of normal again once we’re home tomorrow. Oh well.

I wouldn’t call the trip relaxing, per se. It was busy. Full. Non-stop. Lots of people to see. Lots of places to stay. Not much we had to do. Things weren’t always smooth. The baby had poop blowouts, and his first yeast rash, and cut 2 teeth…and began crawling! The 3yr old and 6yr old fought, and whined, and played with friends/cousins, and rolled with the punches. 

They’re sleeping now. We’re in our last hotel room. We’ll be hone tomorrow. 

I’ll need to piece together everything. I’ll need to write more. But we still have hours of driving tomorrow. And then unpacking. And then back to the real world. 

But right now, I’m happy. 

Let’s do this again.