We just got back from our first family road trip making the trek all the way to Elizabeth City, NC to visit our newest family member- Vivian Ann Murphy -who made her debut on June 30th weighing in at 8 lb 9 oz and was 20 inches long! Both baby and mom are well and hanging at home.
We hit the road on Tuesday morning (July 7th) at 5:30 am with the the kids, Dave and I in one car, and Rod and Mabel in another car. The kids did surprisingly well on the way down, with not too many stops – maybe 5 or so. Ajax ended up riding with Rod for almost 1/2 the trip. We had walkie talkies in each car and Ajax found it fun to give us periodic updates with things he found interesting on the drive. Noomi was pretty entertained with a pack of stickers and spent a good deal of time filling up a blank white book with Dollar Store stickers. We made it to Elizabeth City around 10:30 pm after one full day of driving with minimal melt downs.
On Wednesday, we hung around the house visiting family and snuggling the baby. Uncle Tim filled up a small baby pool and the kids had a blast playing in the water in the backyard. It was crazy hot, hovering in the high 90s/low 100s. We did a tour around Elizabeth City and got ice cream and overall just had fun visiting. Baby Vivian seems to be one of those magical babies that sleep a ton and are generally very content! She was the cutest little baby with a tuft of sandy hair.
On Thursday, we took the kids to the beach – the Outer Banks (or OBX). We made it to the beach around 9:30 am and it was already ridiculously hot (I think the weather topped out at 104). Aunt Lisa came with us and having three adults to keep track of the kids was much appreciated. Ajax and Noomi absolutely loved loved the ocean.
Ajax spent the entire day running in the surf and collecting sea shells (we now have 3 big ziplock bags of shells). A few waves knocked him down, but that didn’t even phase him. He wasn’t bothered by the salt water and only a few times wiped his eyes with a towel. I could barely get Ajax to come out of the water and had to force him to take breaks to drink water and get a new layer of sunscreen.
Noomi spent the first few hours playing in the sand and building castles. She wanted nothing to do with the water and for the longest time refused to even get her feet wet, forcing Lisa and I to hold her. Toward the end of the day, however, she realized she loved the water and then we couldn’t get her out. She held onto our hands and loved standing in the waves. For the past 2 weeks there have been an unprecedented number of shark attacks along the NC coast so no one went out past their knees… except for Mr. Dave. We didn’t see any sharks, but saw a bunch of dolphins and that was pretty cool.
We headed home around 3:30 and got cleaned up and then had a second birthday party for Noomi, as well as a combo party for Grandpa Rod! Noomi got very shy when everyone was singing happy birthday, but was very excited to open her presents.
On Friday we hit the road for home around 10 or 11 am after breakfast and more baby snuggles. It was pretty rough getting through the Newport News, VA area as traffic was very congested. We ended up stopping in Winchester, VA for the night and got a hotel room. We made sure the hotel had a pool and took the kids swimming. Unfortunately, the pool was so chemically that Ajax started coughing and coughing and after 20 minutes I called an end to swimming and we got showered up and went out to dinner. After dinner we let the kids lay in bed and watch cartoons before bed and they thought that was pretty cool. Both kids zonked out and then we were up and on the road by 7 am.
Overall, the drive was pretty smooth and I really can’t complain. Both kids were obviously antsy and things began falling apart when we were about 20 minutes from home, but overall not too bad! I had spent a ton of time on Pinterest preparing to the trip and I’m glad that I did. This was the most organized road trip we’ve ever taken and the car is still cleaner than it was last week.
