This past weekend, we took a day trip to Sarasota. It’s about an hour and 20 minutes from our house, but we decided to go on Memorial Day weekend, so slap on an additional 3 hours for traffic. JK, it wasn’t THAT bad, but every extra minute in the car with Evie feels like eons. She’s only good for about 30 minutes and then she starts losing her shit. 

The main reason we decided to load Evie into the car for that ungodly amount of time was to check out the model of the house we already bought. Yup, we signed and handed over a hefty deposit check, without ever actually seeing in person what the house looks like. There’s not a model near us, and and we needed to make a decision ASAP because the market is nuts right now and we couldn’t risk waiting. I did do the virtual walkthrough like a thousand times so it wasn’t a total surprise. But, virtual isn’t in person. Even though we were already committed to the house and our lot, we figured it would be a good idea to see what our forever house even looked like.

As a parent, I’m going to be direct and say that you should never allow a video service to autoplay anything for your kids. It’s like playing roulette with your eyeballs. I knew this about YouTube, but I realized recently that this applies to traditional TV as well.

A few Sundays ago, Vince was watching The Internship on our living room television. Part way through, it ended up attracting Gianna and Scarlett’s attention so they started watching with him. After it was over, Vince left the TV on, even though he was pretty much done watching it and was playing sudoku on his phone. 

Cue the next movie: We’re the Millers.

I’ve seen this movie years ago, but I didn’t remember the content that much. But, it was on cable so I didn’t think much of it. I figured it would be fine. I was loosely paying attention, but mainly playing with Evie.

About 5 minutes or so into the movie, Jennifer Aniston’s character, Rose, comes on. If you’ve never seen the movie, she’s a stripper. Whoops, forgot about that character detail…

The actual traveling part of traveling is probably the most stressful piece of vacation for me. Especially now that I am planning trips again with a baby in tow. Plans need to take into consideration nap times, snacks, leg room, things to do on the way, getting a car seat there…along with general plans for rest of the fam.

We’ve traveled with kids and babies before, but our most recent trip to Hawaii was definitely the most challenging. Mainly because it was our first trip across the country with the older girls and our first time dealing with time zone changes with them. Transportation, specifically the flights, were actually the deciding factor in why we decided to go to Hawaii when we did.

Since I spent some time figuring out logistics to Hawaii, I thought it might be helpful to share my thought process, timing, and the companies we chose to book with. First up, the flights to Hawaii.

Initially I had wanted to spend Mother’s Day mulching my front yard and planting some flowers to get my house ready to sell. I was going to guilt my family into doing manual labor since it was “my day” after all. However, after thinking about it, I realized that deep down, I didn’t really want to mulch. Sure, I want my yard to look nice, but honestly I don’t want to do it. I just want it done.

So, the night before Mother’s Day, as I was in another decade long nursing fest with Evie, I decided we would go to the local Bay Area Renaissance Festival instead. There were two more weekends left and we had never been to the one down here in Florida so I figured, why not? Here is my review, as only I review things. With honesty, tips, side tangents about personal stuff, and a healthy dose of curse words when appropriate.

We try to raise good children. Honest, funny, caring, aware, financially savvy, confident…all things we want our kids to be. We teach them to tell the truth, to never bully, to find the joy in life and see the positives. To recognize their impact on the Earth, to differentiate between needs vs wants. To save and invest their money and to not spend it on stupid crap they don’t need.

We teach them that normal is boring, that they are the only one of them on this planet and they need to be the best Gianna and Scarlett they can be and to not worry about anyone else. That the world is going to be unkind to them so they should always try to be kind to each other. To make home a safe space.

I feel pretty damn good about the parenting choices we’ve made so far. We’re not perfect but, like everyone, we are doing our best.

However, this week I got thrown into a parenting gray area. A situation where I couldn’t really tell what the right thing to do in terms of being an honest person was. Here’s what happened.

I am starting to write a section in the blog about our travels. Partially because I’m somewhat nutso. I research the hell out of things before doing it; reading reviews, finding out deals, etc. And, for big trips, I get somewhat crazier. Like I make spreadsheets and binders kinda crazy. Not that I am a stickler and we can’t veer from my plans. But I like to have a sense for what we are doing and not just “wing it.”

Plus, I get super annoyed when I get asked “what the plans are” for the day. That’s one of the downfalls of being the planner. You get asked constantly what’s going on, what time are we leaving, where are we going for dinner, what’s next? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!! Stop asking me questions!