Gulf Shores 2013..Travel

I didn't come back from our Gulf Shores trip with lots of fun activities to keep your 8/9 month old baby occupied on a 10 hour road trip.  Instead, I come back with the advice to drive at night while they are sleeping...we learned this lesson well on the way down and applied it on the way back home flawlessly.

On our trip down, we thought we were being smart by leaving around midnight so Carter would already be asleep.  Well, good thought, but unfortunately he woke up by 4 AM.  So we were under 4 hours into an (at least...especially with an awake baby) 10 hour car ride.  I went ahead and gave him his morning bottle then, thinking it may lull him back to sleep.  No such luck immediately, but he did eventually fall asleep after a bit.  He kept waking up being freaked out by being in the car, so it was a very interrupted sleep.  

Unfortunately for me, this was supposed to be my time to sleep so I could drive us the second half of the trip.  I tried to fall asleep as soon as we left, but my mind and body were still in overdrive from staying up packing all of us up to go.  Plus, I was excited about Carter's first beach trip AND it was raining like crazy (and continued to for pretty much the entire drive!) so I was a bit tense.  By the time I finally was able to snooze off, Carter was waking up!  I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep!  

I finally decided around 6 that Carter was not going to go back to sleep and he was fussing at us, so we stopped at a Shoney's for some breakfast.  Little man even joined in on some of the pancakes and fruit!  He was thrilled to get out of his car seat and stretch his little legs for awhile, as were we.  When it was time to get back in the car, he gave a good fight to keep from being buckled back in.  

Now it was my turn to drive while Brent tried to get some sleep.  However, little mister wasn't having that!  He made Brent climb in the back with him and try to entertain him.  He did doze off a couple of times, but not for long.  Most of that time he fussed.  We stopped a few times to let him out of his seat for a bit and to be sure he didn't need a diaper change, but we realized it was simply that he wanted out of his seat for good!  We even tried letting him watch a movie on my Kindle, but he was not even having that!

FINALLY asleep after fighting it for so long!

We finally made it into Foley, Alabama around 11AM, but we couldn't check in until 3PM.  So we shopped for awhile at the outlet mall there and ate some lunch.  We were so beyond ready to get checked in and start the relaxing part of our vacation!

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So on the trip home, we knew we had to do things differently.  We technically had our condo until Saturday morning, but we went ahead and left Friday evening at 7:30.  We ate supper around 6:30 in Foley and fed Carter then, too.  When we loaded up in the car, Carter stayed awake about 30 minutes in his seat and then he was down for the count all the way to Nashville (only a little over 2 hours from home).  Even then, Brent gave him his bottle and they both went right back to sleep while I drove the rest of the way home.  We got home around 5AM and Carter woke up when I got him out of his car seat.  I changed his diaper and we all laid down for awhile longer in our bed.  This obviously worked out way, WAY better and is how we will do things with a small baby from now on! You live and you learn!

Thrilled to be back home!!  Sophie is just a blur :)