Susan Heim on Parenting: Road Tripping with the Twins ~ and Joining the @Kia Social Club! #kiasocialclub

Friday, October 19, 2012

Road Tripping with the Twins ~ and Joining the @Kia Social Club! #kiasocialclub

I used to own a Kia Sorento, and it was one of my favorite cars! I cried the day I had to trade it in for a minivan because I’d had twins and needed something bigger to haul around four kids. Now that my oldest two are in college and have their own cars, I’m thinking about downsizing again. I’ll definitely be looking at the new offerings from Kia because I loved my first Kia so much. With that in mind, I joined the Kia Social Club, a group of bloggers and social publishers who love Kias. For my first post as a member, I’ve been asked to share a story about a family road trip!

The most recent road trip we took was to Nebraska! We live in Florida, so we flew out to Denver, but then we had a long drive ahead of us to get to Nebraska for a family reunion. We rented a car at the airport, and off we went! It wasn’t long into the trip before we heard those words that every parent dreads: “I think I’m going to be sick!” Yup, Caleb proceeded to barf all over himself in the backseat. Fortunately, he hit mostly himself and spared the car, so we pulled over on the road, dug a fresh change of clothes out of the trunk, and got him cleaned up.

Lesson #1: Caleb was feeling sick because we hadn’t eaten much after a long day of flying, and then we couldn’t find much to eat on the road. Next time, we’ll feed him at the airport before embarking on the road.

So, off we went once again. Fortunately, instead of driving all the way to our destination that evening, we had booked a hotel about an hour outside of the airport. (We couldn’t get anything closer because they were having wildfires in western Colorado, and many of the hotels were filled with evacuees.) I’m so glad we stopped because the boys were tired and cranky after traveling all day, and they were happy to settle in for the night and get some food.

Lesson #2: Don’t attempt to do too much traveling in a day. Hours in a car and/or plane can make for very cranky kids and miserable parents!

When we headed out the next morning for Nebraska, we still had quite a long trip to get to our destination. Instead of going straight there, we decided to make several stops to sightsee along the way. We spent lots of time in the small town where my husband’s parents grew up, and the boys were thrilled to visit Dairy Queen! We also stopped at some stores to get our Nebraska souvenirs and made plenty of roadside stops to take pictures. The kids had a great day exploring Nebraska and observing how different the terrain is from that in Florida.

Lesson #3: When you have kids, don’t drive for hours without stopping. They’ll definitely get bored and start whining. Plan several “adventures” along the way to break up the trip and explore new areas, even if it means getting a little bit off the main road.

So, those were the lessons we learned on our most recent road trip with our twins. Have you recently hit the road with your children? Please share your #1 road trip tip or any advice you might have for roadtrippers in the comments section below!