Our First "Family" Vacation

Shaun had a big conference in Columbus, which is a couple of hours from us. He usually drives back and forth each day but this year his lab covered half of the expenses if he wanted to stay. So Claire and I joined him for our first family vacation as just our little family.  

 

It was definitely quite the adventure. We stayed Thursday night -Monday afternoon. The hotel was nice but a little (okay A LOT) more difficult than we imagined with a toddler. She had her Pack N Play and we thought it would work to have her sleep in the bathroom (since there wasn't a better corner in our room). The bathroom set up was definitely untraditional. One bathroom was a sink and shower. The other was a sink and toilet. Both with a sliding class door. So Claire spent hours opening and closing the shower door and singing at the top of her lungs. We hung a blanket outside the glass door which helped a little bit. The other crazy part was our bed was so loud. Just to get on and off it sounded like an old rickety staircase.  

The bonus of the hotel was their free gourmet breakfast! You could make your own hot waffles, oatmeal, muffins, breads, etc. It was  yummy!

 

Claire's room

 

 

Despite the horrible sleeping situation we had a great time. Claire and I enjoyed all the awesome shopping and the hotel pool. This picture above is from my phone so it's not so great, but she LOVES to swim.

 

One night we splurged and went to PF Changs. We do not have any decent restaurants in our little town (which is probably good for our budget) so we took advantage of the great options in Columbus.

It was kind of tricky packing enough Gluten-Free food for Claire but she did pretty well. This was our dessert we took home after dinner.

 

 

Claire has really liked the show "Super Why" lately so I let her watch a bit on the ipad. She was in heaven!

It also gave me time to read my book!

The temple is right across the street from the church house so Sunday more we were showing Claire the temple.

 

 The great accomplishment of the trip was Claire learned how to drink from a straw. Shaun has been working with her on it and it finally clicked.

By Monday afternoon we were all exhausted. We had to check out of the hotel and then met Shaun up for lunch. It was so so so hot and humid that even going to the zoo was out of the question. Shaun wrapped up a little earlier than planned and we headed home. I'm glad we got to join Shaun for his conference. We will definitely have different expectations next time but it was definitely a memorable adventure. Ü