10 Tips for Traveling for Work: Special Mom Edition

I have been traveling for work the past few days, and have assembled a list of tips and tricks that I have learned. 

10. Don't forget to pack all clothing articles you need, because it is just about Mission Impossible to find in a strange city if you forget. 

9. On that same note, don't forget certain toiletries, either, or you will spend approximately 1 billion dollars at a shady convenience store buying a replacement.

8. Buy ridiculously overpriced souvenirs at the airport gift shop as a Guilt Offering for your darling children. 

7. Set your alarm ridiculously early the night before, so that you can wake up every hour on the hour, terrified that you will oversleep. 

6. Pack 76 Lara Bars in hopes of staving off starvation when trapped on the runway, so that they can all become smooshed together.

5. Attempt to FaceTime nightly with the kids, so you can either (a) be ignored or (b) see repeated closeups of your son's eyeball. 

4. Say goodbye of any grand plans of staying on a food-restrictive diet, as attempts to avoid all grains and dairy will go out the window when ravioli is the only option at a conference lunch. 

3. If you are an introvert (or a person...), relish the thought of being all by yourself in a hotel room, all night long. 

2. Make grand plans of getting caught up on ALL WORK EVER in said hotel room, but in the end, only catch up on sleep. 

1. Love the time away and connecting with others personally and professionally, but especially love returning home, because, as they say, there's no place like home.

Days 5-7 of Spring Break - Colorado

Phase 2 of spring break was spent in Colorado, where we spent time in Boulder and went skiing at Eldora!

Day 5

Our hotel was located close to downtown Boulder, where we descended upon it to check out the famous Pearl Street. It reminded me a lot of Mass Street in Lawrence.

This was an outdoor mall area with a lot of areas to climb around on. We arrived too early, before all the stores opened up, and had a lot of time to walk around.

The courthouse!

Finally at 10am, stores started to open. We first went into a giant 3-story bookstore and pumped way too much money into the local economy.

Next up - Into the Wind, a large kite/toy story. I got the feeling that kites were the true love of the owners, but toys seemed to be what everyone was actually buying here.

Rocket Fizz, a soda pop and candy store. Only, there was no chocolate anywhere. HERESY.

We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, and told the kids at the end of the meal that the four of us could split a piece of cheesecake. They had fun picking out our selection.

Daniel declared the place "Very Fancy!!" and proceeded to arrange his table setting in a manner worthy of a very fancy restaurant.

Annika did as well. The kids decided that the Very Fanciness of the Cheesecake Factory demanded speaking in an English accent the entire time we were there.

CHOCOLATE!!! This store is a place after my heart.

This picture below cracks me up - Annika is sitting perched next to a trash can, eating a giant marshmallow, while reading a book. Clearly.

That afternoon, we headed back to the hotel and then walked over to the University of Colorado at Boulder campus. We were right next to the campus in our hotel and were able to take an underpass bridge right on over.

Gorgeous mountains.

The university!

The kids' favorite part of our campus tour - chasing after some poor geese.

That evening, we decided to make the 45-minute drive over to the "world famous" Casa Bonita!! This is a place that is definitely a run-down tourist trap, but is the perfect location for kids who are our kids' ages.

There are "theme" areas of the restaurant where you sit. We were located near the waterfall/giant diving pool, where we got to see a cliff diver dive from the rocks, as well as other shows like a man in a gorilla suit running around. The kids loved it and thought it was the best thing ever.

Day 6

We went back skiing at Eldora! This is a small ski place near Nederland and not too far from Boulder - it is very family-friendly and has great lessons. The kids were chomping at the bit to go to the next level in Ski School from winter break.

Spying on ski school! Daniel was in the 4-6 year old group, while Annika was with the 7-12 year olds. I have no idea how the poor ski instructors managed all of this.

On the slopes!

Will and I skied together for a while, and then he went off to do some blue runs while I puttered around on the easiest greens I could find.

Annika at ski school! It quickly became apparent that Annika is now a better skier than I am (which isn't saying much, but still).

Coming down the mountain with her instructor.

By the end of the day, Annika was skiing some of the blue runs, something I have never done. Great job, Annika!

Spying on Daniel. You can see that the weather was quite warm - as soon as the slopes area ended, the parking lot was just a giant pool of dirt and mud.

Daniel coming down the mountain with his group! This was Daniel's first time on the "real" slopes outside of the ski school area and he did great.

Close up of Daniel - great job, buddy!

After ski school, Will and Annika skied some more together, while Daniel and I hung out in the lodge. Our kids were completely tired out after the day ended. And so was I!

That evening, we met Will's cousin Mike for dinner at a local Boulder pub called the Dark Horse. It was really close to our hotel and to where Mike works, so that was perfect. Mike was super patient with our kids as they told him everything in the world about Harry Potter.

The most memorable part of the evening - the part we were in had all kinds of images of naked people on the wall. They had images of just about everything else, too, and it wasn't obvious, but our kids manged to count that there were images of 76 naked people on the wall. The place did have a kids' menu so it was open to kids, but clearly we should sat in another part of the restaurant.

Day 7

Good-bye, Colorado! Hello, Kansas! The only downside of the trip back is that Will realized that his phone was left behind at our hotel, but thankfully they are going to send it via overnight mail to us.

What a great spring break trip - six different states, time with friends and family, two different phases, and so many memories all around. Now, time to work on getting back to reality, and finishing the semester with a bang!

The Days are Long but the Years are Short

When I was pregnant with my eldest, I had a scare that required going to the ER to get checked out. I remember telling myself that if only my baby would live, I would never worry again about anything. Thankfully, everything was just fine. And not surprisingly, this was not the end of me worrying, but the beginning. 

What is truly amazing is that my primary worries seem to have gotten narrower and narrower with time. I have moved from worrying about whether or not a child would survive, to whether they would ever speak or walk, to worries that are much more mundane but every bit as real.

I wish I had some of the perspective that I had when my children are smaller. They are both healthy, thriving kids, who attend wonderful schools and have so many caring adults in their lives. They both speak. They both walk. They have no major chronic illnesses. And yet, I still find myself awake at night, worrying about things that never would have occurred to me a decade ago.

Will my creative, quirky daughter survive middle school? 

Will my artistic, curious son be shunned because he doesn't like to play most sports?

Will my child who is an abysmal speller conquer this at some point in life?

Will my child who is a reluctant reader ever grow to love reading by themselves?  

Am I giving my children enough independence?

Am I giving them too much? 

Am I worrying enough about the important things?

Am I worrying too much? 

But I think that probably part of parenting children is making peace with the fact that worrying will change and morph based on the stage of life, but will never truly end. And that may be a small price to pay for this amazing journey. 

Days 3 and 4 of Spring Break - South Dakota

We have unfortunately wrapped up our time with our friends in South Dakota - and had an epic drive through South Dakota and saw all kinds of amazing sights. Three cheers for South Dakota!

Day 3

Day 3 was the last day that the Millers, Thorntons, and Hagemans were all together. So many good memories of our weekly dinners in Manhattan - wish we could all still get together all of the time! Matt did a great job of taking a picture with all three families.

After a morning of playing outside and relaxation, we all headed out for lunch - adults' table!

Kids' table!

That afternoon, Addie, Daniel, Beth, Will, and I all walked over to Addie's school, where the kids had a blast playing on not one, but two playgrounds.

Later in the afternoon, Addie joined our family for a trip to Falls Park in Sioux Falls!

It was over 70 degrees and sunny - and absolutely gorgeous day.

The three amigos.

The kids had a blast scampering over all kinds of rocks.

Daniel and I.

All kinds of great rock rocks everywhere. You can make out the little dots of people who were also out climbing over the rocks and around the falls.

More of the falls!

That evening, we all had a cookout and ate yummy brisket at the Millers' house with some other friends. The kids' table was outside this time.

We were all so sad to say good-bye to our friends, and can't wait until the next time we are all able to be together!

Day 4

We got a later start than expected (surprise, surprise), and pulled out of Madison, South Dakota at oh, about 9:30 a.m. (slightly later than 6am). We had originally planned to drive across Nebraska today to go on to Phase II of spring break in Colorado, but decided instead that the extra time to drive across and see all of the sights in western South Dakota would be well worht it.

First stop of the day - the world-famous, world's only, Corn Palace! This was in Mitchell, South Dakota, and was under construction. We viewed the Corn Palace in all of its external glory but opted not to go in again this time since we were on a tight schedule.

Stop 2 - Badlands National Park!! Oh my goodness, what an amazing day to check out the scenery. It was another perfect, beautiful day with almost no other visitors around.

Breathtaking views.

The kids. It was warm but still super windy.

Our whole family! We met a nice couple from Leavenworth (where Will grew up) who offered to take our picture.

Truly awesome.

Selfie!

At the end of our loop through the Badlands, we stopped at the world-famous Wall Drug Store. They market themselves very well, with billboards for hundreds of miles extolling their free ice water and 5-cent coffee.

Of course, Will and I had to each partake in the bargain-priced 5-cent coffee!

And the gift stores. We can never go anywhere without checking out the gift stores, especially when there are miles and miles of them. We even got a free bumper sticker. ;)

Daniel was keen to have his picture captured by the mock-Mount Rushmore exhibit.

And our next stop - the real Mount Rushmore!! So exciting.  '

View of the cliff as you approach.

Famous flag-lined walkway.

Boys' selfie.

Me and the kids!

Daniel would only take the previous picture of we also took one where we pretended to be punching each other.

We went on a "nature hike," where we enjoyed seeing the monument through various angles.

And the biggest, most wonderful surprise at all - we ran into our neighbors from across the street!! Yes. Our neighbors in Manhattan, Kansas. Of all the people in the world who happened to be at Mount Rushmore at the same time!! I am still grinning ear to ear thinking about what an amazing coincidence this was.

Daniel and Hayden.

After Mount Rushmore, it was about 5 p.m. and we still had 6+ hours of driving left to make it to our hotel in Boulder. This is where Will was a saint and drove the whole way, while the rest of us got to relax and listen to audio books. We wished we could have had more time in South Dakota to visit some of the attractions below - next time!

Wyoming! I missed the actual sign. It was very, very desolate. We were on a state highway most of time with no cell phone coverage and it struck me how very horrible it would be if we ran out of gas or something.

Monument of some sort! This was probably the most interesting landmark of our drive through Wyoming. ;)

Colorado!! Yup, absolutely, positively black outside. It was pretty late at this point but the kids were troopers.

And finally - our hotel!!! We were not 100% sure if we had remembered the name of our hotel reservation correctly and were elated to discover that we were in fact correct. 

Today, we are having a relaxing day hanging out in Boulder, and are planning to go skiing at Eldora tomorrow. Three cheers for vacation and spring break!