A month of travel . . .

. . . seriously. A month and really . . . . we're still going . . .

And so the marathon of postings begins with this:

Mind you, this post is nothing thrilling - not even close; but I think it's important to catch you up on the amount of travel that was done in three days. . . . WITH a three year old.

Sean, Addison and I left on a Monday and drove to Anchorage.

It should've been about a 6 hour drive (But it wasn't. We had about 11,789 potty breaks. Little girl = little bladder, apparently). And if you take into account the two hour nap Addison SHOULD have had, I would've only needed to entertain her for four hours. (Mind you, we do not do cartoons or tv in the car despite the tv in the headrest right in front of Addison's carseat).

Well, this girl had other plans . . . . She was like this:

for the entire drive. Wide awake - but happy.

So I figured since she kept busy coloring and reading she'd go to bed early that night.

Not so much.

We got to Nana & Papadopolis' house and she was wired. It took forever for her to get to sleep. Once she did, it was only four hours before we had to wake up and be at the airport.

So Sean dropped Addison & I off at the airport where we met up with Monka.

To recap:

It's Tuesday.

We're at the airport.

No nap the previous day.

Only four hours of sleep.

Lovely.

Even though Addison is potty trained and we rarely ever have accidents I put her in a pull-up; because she should've fallen right to sleep on the plane; right?

Nope.

Two flights - 11 hours of travel - and she only took two naps lasting 20 minutes each.

The naps, of course, took place during the plane's decent. Do I even have to tell you about the crying that took place when her ears wouldn't pop because she was asleep and, oh yeah, exhausted? Yeah, didn't think so.

This all takes place while the man in front of us is having a SERIOUS medical emergency. We land in Minneapolis with fire trucks and ambulances waiting. Thankfully, the gentleman was in much better shape by the time the medics took him off of the plane.

So . . . . where was I?

Oh yeah, so Addison, my Mom & I land in Minneapolis.

The upside: even though she was put in a pull-up she did not regress. The thing stayed dry. Which means all of the time I spent stressing about whether or not to put her in a pull-up was for nothing.

So we (and when I say, "we" I mean Monka) retrieve our mountain of luggage haul that and the carseat to the rental car desk - because we are not done with traveling. We still have a hour and a half drive to Rochester.

Without dinner we get about 10 minutes from the airport and it's time for a potty break. Nice.

So after a drive FULL of potty breaks we get about 15 minutes outside of Rochester and Addison crashes. She's completely out.

We pull up to our hotel in downtown and the bellman removes our luggage. All the while, Addison sleeps on my shoulder through the traffic noise. We went inside and checked in. She's still asleep. Get to the room. Yep, she's out. I put her on the bed, tipped the bellman look over and look what she's laying next to:

A pillow that says, Sweet Dreams.

That has to be a sign of things to come; right? I mean, what a fantastic way to get her adjusted to a new three hour time change?!?!

Ha.

Not even close.

She slept for another half hour, for a total of a hour and a half nap.

Then every possible stimulating thing took place, room service, fire alarm etc. . . .

She was wired again.

It took her over TWO hours to fall asleep - which was late for even our AK time zone.

Geez....

Oh. Did I tell you that I had to wake up at 3 am AK time to be at my first appointment the next day?

Two days down and one more day of travel to go . . . . yowsers.

So that morning she slept in.

Then the three of us walked to our favorite Rochester restaurant.

On the way the wind was blowing. Addison loved it.

After lunch we loaded back up and hit the road for Iowa. Should've been a four and a half drive; but it ended up taking us more like six and a half. Arg.

Addison didn't nap until the last half hour of the drive. Notice a pattern?

Lots and lots of miles and no sleep - But we made it.

Three days of nothing but travel.