Perfect Travling Companions

We took the first big trip of the girls young lives this past weekend. Went out to Arizona to see Grandpa's (Gina's dad's) house and took a trip down to the ranch as well. We were a little apprehensive heading down (I don't know why) considering we had finally gotten the girls to sleep through the night multiple times in a row and we knew we were basically throwing that feat to the wind by taking the girls out of their element for 5 days. But that's what we do. We perfect things and then totally shake them up just to see how the dust settles. We were quite brilliant in our planning though. We packed two pack n' plays, two baby Einstein saucers, two high chairs, bathing suits, baby sun screen, floppy hats, extra blankets, extra bottles, everything that we could imagine needing. Of course what we forget was everything else - the photo album gift we'd made up for Gina's dad, more than 2 pairs of socks for me, all of my law study aids and books. But what do we matter any more? We also took advantage of two things: 1) Gina's mom, step dad and sisters were staying at Casino Morongo that week and 2) the night time. We went down to Morongo and hung out at the pool most of the day on Wednesday. The girls got to swim and play and get generally tuckered out. Daddy got to play cards and win enough to pay for the rest of the trip. Then we left there (cutting out 2 hours of the trip) at 8pm and the girls slept the whole time. Well, Arianna woke up 20 miles outside of Phoenix, but we fed her a bottle in the back seat and she was asleep again by the time we got through the city (hard to sleep when there are so many lights outside your window). Only downside, of course, is then Mommy and Daddy are really tired. Plus Genevieve woke up when we got to Tucson at 2:30 and wouldn't fall asleep again until 4. Then they both got up at 7, so we ended up running on about 3 hours of sleep that first day. But, as usual, the girls were great the entire trip, smiling and laughing for anyone and everyone. We even took a trip to Tombstone (great old timey photo taken which I'll post as soon as I can scan) and it happened to be Founders Day so there were all kinds of parades and "gun fights" and signings from old Western stars. It was a total mob scene. Even in all of that the girls managed to steal the show. A gun shot went off at one point during a re-enactment and Arianna "lost" it, so we hightailed it down main street and everyone kept looking and pointing out, "look, twins!" Every store and saloon we walked into we were surrounded by oglers. It was funny because some of the people had the same smiles as the girls - toothless and somewhat confused by life in general. Grandma also bought us our first pair of moccasins. Although I'm pretty sure Native Americans weren't rocking the pink 150 years ago. When we finally had to go home we decided to leave early and stop in Phoenix so the girls could meet Jim and Diane (Gina's step mom, Francesca's parents) since they've been so sweet sending gifts and cards to the girls and Gina. We left at 4 am (got up at 3:30. ... actually, got up at 1, 2:15 and THEN 3:30) and headed out into the dark desert. Had to explain to the Boarder Patrol agent who stopped us why we were traveling through the middle of no where (literally a single lane road closer to the boarder then any US town) at 4 am, with two infants. Gina wanted to cover the girls carriers with blankets to keep out light (which there is very little of at 4 am) so the girls would sleep better. I convinced her to wait because Boarder Patrol would think we were smugglers. Even uncovered you could tell they had their suspicions about us, but they let us through anyway. They were probably to afraid to open the car for fear of all the baby crap stuffed in the back creating an avalanche and burying them. No one wants to be crushed to death by a Baby Einstein playing "Old McDonald" and telling you how to say "Cow" in Spanish. Which is "Vaca" by the way. We made it to Phoenix by 7am(girls slept the whole way, Gina most of it as well). They played for 2 hours and made big fans of Jim and Diane. Then they slept until 11:30. We stopped at a truck stop, fed them, then I sat in the back seat with them and played for an hour or so. Then they went back to sleep and stayed asleep until we got home at 3:30. No fussing, no crying, no unpleasantness through almost 19 hours of car rides this weekend and 5 days of new places, people and schedules. In my wildest dreams I would never imagine that two infants could be so pleasant to travel with. I'm not saying I'm going to push it and try something like this every weekend. But it's amazing to walk away from this and not have a horror story to tell the girls when they grow up, have children, and are foolish enough to try something similar.