Our journey begins

Wednesday morning 3am, we awoke to shower one last time- fearing this will be my last HOT shower I enjoyed it while it lasted. Packed the last of our things and were out the door by 3:45am. My mom dropped us off at the MSP airport and we were off on our Grand Adventure. We breezed through security and waited patiently at the gate for our plane to arrive. The Little Misters were pretty excited that our Italy trip was finally here and it was time to RIDE ON A PLANE!

A quick 45 minute flight and we were in Chicago. Pretty much walked to our next gate and it was off on an 8 hour flight to London, England. The boys both liked going up and down for take of and landing. Lucius asked once "is it time of blast off?"

The Misters did an amazing job, between eating, napping and other electronic and non-electronic distractions they seemed to be mostly content. The flights were not going all that well for me, as I had some motion sickness I was dealing with, which I almost never get. I slept most of the long flight and Jerimy single handedly helped the boys enjoy the air time.

10:20 pm London time, now about 12 hours into our travels we had to transfer airports. We bought tickets on a coach bus which took us to Gatwick from Heathrow. It was an hour away by bus- which meant a little more snoozing and distractions.  

My cousin gave me some really helpful kid travel tips, and as we had 12 hours to kill I made an impromptu luggage/ blanket fort for the boys to sleep in. Worked awesome, Lucius fell asleep right away (poor guy was utterly exhausted and hadn't napped too long on the plane.) Oliver had his second wind but calmed down when I put a shirt over his eyes for darkness.

It was middle of the night London time and the floor/ airport were cold. The boys slept for about three and a half hours before we woke them up to check in and go find a gate to lay down at (to be warmer). Little did we know that they don't announce gates till JUST before the flight time. We still had 5 hours to kill, luckily Jerimy spotted a sign for "family seating". When we turned a corner we found this little play area. The Little misters were ecstatic  to say the least. They played, watched new TV shows, jumped, and play some more while Daddy used his first real chance of downtime to sleep.

 

Once on the plane from London to Rome I gave the boys a cliff bar for their "lunch", mentioning that after snack it was time for naps. Lucius was out cold before we even left the gate. Oliver sat watching out the window as his blinks got longer and slower. Fastest flight ever as we ALL got a nice two and a half hour nap (sleeping for the entirety of the flight). Still had two more trains and a taxi ride to go. First train took us to Roma Termini, the central station, where we then bought our tickets to Florence. After a bit of confusion and frustration we managed to find the train and board JUST before it took off. Whew.

Definitely a LONG two days but we're so glad to be here safe and sound. The boys did an amazing job, as many strangers commented to us. It was not all that easy to take a trip with little people, but it was nice to power through and get here so we could all SLEEP.

In total we took:

1 car ride, 3 airplanes, 1 coach bus, 1 monorail, 2 trains and 1 taxi adding up to 34 hours of travel time.

Waiting, waiting and Packing

In order to take this big life adventure to Italy we had to sell our house and move out. Which meant we needed to pack all our things up and find a place to store them. So we moved into my parents lower level and found places for all the boxes in our living spaces. 

Our stuff has been in "storage" for the past two and a half months. It feels weird to live without everything we thought we used all the time. The little misters have been living in a room full of boxes. They've only climbed on said boxes occasionally. I guess it's hard for little boys to keep from climbing floor to ceiling mountains of stuff.

This is what their room currently looks like...

The majority of the boxes ended up in the laundry room at my parents, in case you're curious looks like this:

A few of our big furniture pieces are on a little vacation at my sisters house while we're away. So that's where our stuff will stay till we return. We leave on the airplane in two days time.Now I'll go back to my impatiently waiting...

Two Sleepovers

Oliver and Lucius had a few sleepovers at two of their aunts house before we take off on our big adventure. These aren't actually photos from all the fun they had, but thought they were so cute while they sleep.

(Oliver is totally his Daddy's son. He always wraps himself up and his head is almost always covered when he sleeps.)

Thursday they spent the afternoon/ evening with Auntie Em, cousins Carl and Brianna. I heard they played with balloons, glow sticks and even had a four kid bath time experience. Slept there till Friday morning. Then it was off to Auntie Mick's house for another fun night. I do believe Uncle Hung set up a dome tent in their newly finished basement to have a camp out with our little misters and cousin Casen. They surely packed in a LOT of fun with family before we run off to Italy and will be away from all the cousins for two whole months.

Quotable: No Mother

Oliver was talking to Lucius at breakfast on the morning of his fifth birthday.

"When I grow up I'm going to leave and get a house and you can come with me Lucius and be my grand kid. I might have a mother, I might not have a mother when I get bigger. In my house there won't be grandparents or moms so you can come with me and be my kid. I'll take good care of you, I'll play with you everyday!" 

Not sure how I feel about that. I'm glad he wants his brother around to play with and take care of, but I hope I get to come visit at the very least!

Doctor's well check visits

These two little misters when in for their well checks this morning. Ended up getting a few shots- absolutely NOT their favorite thing. They've both repeated told me how much the do NOT want to go back to the doctors ever again.

The good news is they're happy health little boys and are growing like weeds:

Oliver is currently 3'-8" tall and weights in at 41pounds.
Lucius is rapidly catching up at 3' -2.5" tall and 35 pounds.

Don't eat anything GREEN

A couple weeks ago I gave Lucius a small bowl of green grapes. He wanted nothing to do with them and wouldn't even try a bite. In a moment of good parenting... I actually made a game out of it instead of getting frustrated with him. I joked with him "don't put that grape in your mouth, it's GREEN!"

Not knowing how he'd react to reverse psychology, he looked at me and smiled a big grin. Slowly he picked up a grape, looking to see what I'd do. I said "um, don't eat it... don't you put that in your mouth". He had that sneaky glint in his eyes as the grape moved closer and closer to his mouth.

Of course he ate it. What surprised me was that he kept eating them and laughing at me cause he was sneaking them into his mouth with me telling him not to. He ate that small bowl and two more. The next night at dinner he grabbed a green bean and said "me gonna eat this!". I wondered what he was talking about, but realized he was looking for me to tell him not to cause it was green. Well, awesome I can play that game again.

The following night it was lettuce in our salad that was green and he "shouldn't eat it cause it's green". Guess I didn't realize how many times I could use this. He's still eating green things, but he looks to me first to see if I'll notice. Silly guy!

Oliver's Birthday adventure

We celebrated Oliver turning FIVE years old ... a couple days early because Daddy will be out of town in two days. Plus I'm the meanest marmee ever for scheduling a doctor appointment (with shots) for both the little misters on Oliver's ACTUAL birthday.

We adventured to the Mall of America to Sea Life Aquarium. Oliver was a bit excited to see everything all at once but we managed to stretch it out. Taking our time to watch all the sea creatures and enjoy the time as a family. I was also super excited to have brought my big camera to capture a couple hobby photos as well as the LOTS of us pictures.

 

After our (not crowded in the least) walk through the underwater tunnels, we went to the food court and had a little lunch. Then ventured back home for naps. It was a super fun adventure. Can't believe Oliver's 5 years old in just a few short days. I'm hoping to take more time to slow down and enjoy these moments with him.