Our First Family Florida Road Trip – Day 1

Sunday night, everyone went to bed early — mom and dad, after cleaning the house and packing the van. Monday morning we got up at 3am, climbed into the van, and hit the road. Everyone slept until about 7:30, while I drove. The border was a breeze — not that we expected issues, but with a month-long trip, you never know what kinds of questions they’ll ask. Another 12 hours after that, and we were pulling up to Jason and Brooke’s house in Virginia Beach.
The kids did extremely well — NetFlix on the van’s flatscreen helped, I’m sure. Ben and Abi did some colouring, and played a little of their new Nintendo DS. Everyone napped a lot, Eli not as much as we would have liked. She screamed when she was hungry or poopy or tired, but otherwise was as pleasant and happy.
We hit weather once, and traffic once. The weather was in Pennsylvania (no surprise there) where lake effect snow had us in white-out conditions for a while. This was the start of an arctic front that was supposed to hit our home neighbourhood later in the day, so we were pleased to be ahead of the majority of it. The traffic was a mysterious total stoppage in Virginia on I-64, where we were stuck for so long that people just shut off their cars for awhile. Suddenly it started moving again, and that was it: smooth sailing the rest of the way!
Its been great to visit with old friends from our time in New York. Our kids are close to the same age (Ben and Alivia used to take baths together as babies!) — in fact, Ben stayed with Brooke and Jason while Abi was being delivered! And encouraging to see that they’re the same awesome people, just living in a different place. Its been a short visit, as we need to be on the road in an hour or so, but we have 2 more legs to this journey, and more friends to see.