Frisco

Frisco in a nutshell:

Context: Our friend Michele used to go to Frisco annually with her relatives years past and invited trigang to come along and experience the Frisco BBQ. Our group consisted of us with the 2 kids, M with her son, another family with a 7 month old and 3 other adults. It was quite a learning experience for us since we had never traveled with both kids before.

Thu: Travel day.
We had a ton of luggage and got stuck in a long checkin line for southwest not realizing I could get the baby’s ticket at curbside checkin (Lesson 1). Also learned that SJC doesn’t have a family security line so we should have really gotten there sooner. (Lesson 2). After dealing with a crying baby in the stroller, I brought him out and then he was wriggly and hard to hold while standing in line but it was super hard getting him in the carrier while trying to keep moving in the security line. After I was able to squish him in, he finally calmed down - I really should have put him in the carrier before we got into the various lines (Lesson 3). Due to the long lines, we got to the gate only 15 mins before the departure time and failed to grab any breakfast at the airport (Lesson 4 - Make sure everyone is fed).

We settled into our seats and Hannah was quite excited by all the novelty and immediately started playing with the tray table. But as the plane started moving, we made her put the tray up and her backpack below the seat in front of her which resulted in much crying/screaming. We also told her she couldn’t use her leap pad during takeoff not realizing FAA rules do allow electronic gadgets to remain on now during takeoff/landing. Gah. We knew it would be a bad flight when 20 minutes in she said she was “all done” with the airplane and then proceeded to squirm/stand up/knock over stuff and generally cause havoc. I also miscalculated and didn’t have enough cheerios for both kids and made her share which resulted in another screaming meltdown (probably due to Lesson 4). On the plus side, I heard a ton of crying/screaming from other aisles and just felt so sorry for all the passengers. I think 9am flights must be full of families… The baby was crying on and off but eventually passed out on my lap thank goodness but of course 10 minutes after he did so, Hannah announced she had to go potty so I had to hand the baby to Charles which resulted in him waking up and start crying… sigh.

After the flight, it was smooth sailing to rental car pickup but we had borrowed a travel carseat from C’s coworker and H hated it. She kept saying she didn’t like this car and wanted Mommy’s car instead. But we just ignored the whining and eventually she passed out and we gobbled chick-fil-a in the car since we were starving! (See lesson 4). The house we rented in Frisco was super nice (bedrooms were all on separate floors) and the weather was gorgeous so most of the travel pains were forgotten about when we arrived.

Friday:

Playground in the morning with the kids. BBQ and pig racing and then we stuffed both kids in a rented bike trailer and went for a ride on city bikes. I was slightly concerned that Hannah would beat up the baby in such close proximity but I saw her taking care of him instead and trying to give him milk etc. The denver area has a magnificent set of bike trails so we headed off on one that would go around the lake. It was rolling and fairly flat so after 6 miles when we got to the turnaround/ferry point, we decided to continue with Ann, Phil and Darlene around the entire lake which the bike shop folks had said was 17 miles total. That didn’t sound so much harder (even though we had been warned by the bike shop people that it was a mountain we would have to climb - we scoffed at that assuming it was just an exaggeration to scare off tourists).

But boy it was painful. It was hot. It was at altitude. C was towing 75 lbs. He was in a lot of pain and he for sure didn’t have enough liquids with him. To make matters worse when we started the long hill climb, the baby started screaming because he is only calmed by momentum. And C was going too slowly up the hill to soothe him. Every time C went a little faster, the baby would stop screaming but then every slow down was followed by shrieks. Poor kids. We were all ready to be done at the end and rewarded everyone with ice cream at Foote’s sweet shop. Yum.



Sat: Train ride on some cool bridges nearby. Then tried to go to the bbq again for lunch but it was way too frustrating and crowded.

Sun: H ended up sleeping in the closet Sat night due to a nightmare about a big baby coming to her at night and biting her. On the plus side, she was in a wonderful mood after sleeping 11 hours which pretty much lasted all day. It was quite amazing. We took all the things we learned from Thursday’s travel day and fixed each one. Got there 3 hours early. Curbside checkin.  Ate an early dinner at the airport. Carried the baby as much as possible though he was super pissed off having to be constricted. And we fixed H’s squirminess by strapping her down with a cares harness which instantly made her manageable (our kids are used to being restrained which makes road trips actually okay for us). It also helped that she was glued to a gadget for most of the flight (we were prepared with videos this time). We also learned that southwest has free drinks on Father’s day!

The only thing that still needs to be fixed is how to make the baby sleep better when we travel. He didn’t like the crib we borrowed and basically ended up sleeping on the floor and then woke up every 1-2 hours. Sigh.



Next up: Lassen road trip.