I woke up this morning and was rather surprised to find myself at home, in my own bed. I mean how did that even happen?

Let’s rewind a bit…

Checkers’ brother Ben got married in Southern CA on April 21st. His whole family flew out for the wedding and spent 5 days there.

So, last Saturday, we got up at 5:15. I’m not a morning person at all, so I spent the next hour in haze.

We packed up the car, microwaved some breakfast sandwiches, packed up our five kids, water bottles and all the things, locked the doors and headed out.

I was driving the first shift of this 11 hour road trip because the babies usually sleep late in the morning.

I drove a couple hours, then Checkers took over. The rest of the trip is a bit of a blur but I know I spent my time nursing babies, making bottles and climbing over the consul from the front seat to the back and then front again. Multiple times.

After their long morning nap, Hayley and Harmony were done traveling. It seemed 1 or the other was constantly complaining about something and don’t even get me started on the noise and demands that came from our other 3 kids in the back seat.

Let’s just say by the time we got there I felt like I ran a marathon when in reality I just climbed through our car like it was some kind of kid’s play set. Even I was amazed at my flexibility.😁

Side note: the middle seating row in our SUV has 2 bucket seats with a center consul, so every time I went back there I was sitting on the consul. (We are currently accepting donations for a vehicle upgrade.)😁

We arrived at our air bnb and found glass decor on most surfaces. I removed most of it immediately and set it in safer places.

A bit later as I was feeding babies, I heard a loud crash. Turns out the kids knocked the glass centerpiece off the table. One of the few I hadn’t moved yet.🤨 I quickly proceeded to remove ALL glass things, even those that seemed safe enough.

Our evening was spent introducing the twins to Checkers family as they dropped by our house and met them for the first time. (We hadn’t seen his family since July so it was so good to see everyone again!)

Day 2: (Sunday)

The day started with feeding babies, then breakfast, dishes and packing up all the things and getting the kids ready to go to the beach.

Packing the diaper bag is a 5k all by its self. There’s water to heat, formula to mix, diapers to find, wipes, extra formula, extra outfits and because I was driving, I needed my phone and drivers license as well. Nope my brain wasn’t spinning at all. (Note the sarcasm in that last line)😅

And water… I go nowhere without water, but unfortunately I spent a lot of this trip thirsty because a water bottle seemed to be the least important thing.🤷‍♀️

Oh and I didn’t even mention how wrangling 5 kids from point A to point B is a 1/2 marathon all by its self.

We finally headed out to the beach… and the parking lot was full and then some. The roads were narrow, the corners and turns were many, there were cars everywhere, kids were complaining and I had this big massive vehicle that I didn’t know where to put.😜

Long story short… I saw a train at the beach, so I found a train station because logic says that if the train runs past the beach, u should be able to park at the train station, board the train and end up at the beach.

Turns out that this logic fails if the train doesn’t stop at the beach. ‘Stop’ being the keyword in that last sentence.

The train station was on the beach though, so we spent some time there. The problem was… it was a different beach then the rest of our people were at. But the kids did have fun for an hour or so. Even the babies did really good.

We headed back to the house, bathed the willing kids, waged a war with the 3 year old who saw the whole bath thing as a waste of time, fed and changed babies and ate lunch.

Then I went to get groceries.

I made it back just in time to start the whole backpack packing, baby feeding, diaper changing, shoe finding, put the kids in the car marathon again. All so we can eat pizza with the whole family.😁

Now you know why Myles tends to show up shoeless, with ketchup on his face. All I can say, is at least he was fed.😁

Oh and we did a load of laundry somewhere in there.

Day 3: (Monday)

Fed and changed babes.

Breakfast. I don’t even know if I helped with dishes.

Ran to target.

lunch.

Checkers took the kids to the playground while I took a mini break which consisted of feeding babies, changing diapers and ‘trying’ to put them down for a nap.

Then Ruthie and I had all 8 kids while Checkers and Elmer went out for lunch with Ben and his friends and family.

They made it back just in time for us to head out to Gabrielle’s bridal shower while they watched all the kids.

The babies were fine when we got back but the rest of the kids were snuggled up on the couch shaking with fear because they watched a scary movie.😂😂

I may have stretched that a bit. Fine. I stretched it a lot. But it was rather humorous.😂

Things I didn’t yet mention: kids fighting about which car they ride in, Harmony crying pretty much every time the car was put into motion, keeping Myles out of trouble pretty much 24/7 and kids being loud. Just. So. Much. Noise.

Can anyone say over stimulated?

Yea, that was me. Pretty much the whole trip.

Day 4. (Tuesday)

Babies. You know the drill by now. Bottles, nursing, diapers.

Breakfast. Dishes.

Remember that leaving the house marathon? You know the whole backpack packing, shoes finding thing? Yea we did all that again. Every last step. Then went to a playground to hang out with the whole crowd.

We didn’t even forget the whining about which car we ride in and Harmony crying on the way part. Thank goodness for Ruthie. She was a pro Harmony whisperer by the end of the trip.😅

Oh. Elmer and Ruthie are also pros at feeding our kids by now. I think there’s a very real chance we wouldn’t have gotten around to feeding them.😳

After the park, we managed to bath the kids, did a load of laundry, we did the whole baby routine, ate lunch (or maybe it was supper?🤷‍♀️)

Then our men took the girls to rehearsal while Ruthie and I held down the fort at the house.

And then…

Wait for it….

We did the entire leaving the house marathon… AGAIN. You know, shoes, backpack, formula, car seats, fighting, crying, relaxing, no wait… that one didn’t happen on this trip. Not even once.🤨

Also, I made coffee, because coffee makes everything better.

Anyway, the goal was to get to a park to eat cake ad ice cream. We made it. And we even made it back to the house in one price with everyone in tow.👏

Day 5: (Wednesday)

I woke up and there was one thing I was very, very sure about. I had ZERO desire to run another marathon and yet I knew that since it was the day of the wedding, I was running that marathon, like it or not.😬

I think it might be called running on fumes. Or in my case running on coffee.😂

And so it started.

Baby routine.

Breakfast routine.

Then we went out to walk the pier. I have no clue why, except it was something we had wanted to do.

Hayley and Harmony thought it was the dumbest thing we had done yet. But at least they took turns voicing their opinions. Mostly anyway.😁

The other kids were sure the ocean was going to swollen them up.😅

They did enjoy it though once we got out past where the waves were crashing.🙃

We got back to the house and realized we are out of toilet paper.

So, I ran to target for toilet paper. And Starbucks. Because coffee makes everything better, remember?

I got back from target and realized that we only had 2 hours to run our leaving the house marathon and this time it was more like a triathlon because we had to dress up and Kenzie was a miniature bridesmaid.

The goal was to bath the babies. I should probably admit that I bathed them Friday night b4 we left and they didn’t get bathed again till Thursday night when we got home.

No, I won’t admit that. I’ll just focus on the fact that I intended to bath them during this trip. It’s true. I even packed their soap and lotion. Not that we used it. Talk about overpacking!

Anyway, we managed to arrive at the wedding with 1 min to spare. Technically, we were late since we should have been there early, but we’re not admitting to that either.

At this point even coffee was losing it’s power. But there was cake. 👏 And we survived the wedding.

While we’re talking about the wedding let me just say that it was beautiful! Gabrielle’s family is amazing, worship was incredible and the Holy Spirit was so clearly a part of the ceremony. It was so peace filled after a crazy couple days.

After the wedding we packed up most of our things.

Day 6 (Thursday)

Basically, we packed up and headed home. Although we did the marathon one last time. You know, diapers, feedings, backpack packing etc.

The ride home was a pretty much a repeat of the ride there, we were just headed in the opposite direction.

We got home around 7 and I finally bathed the babies.🙈 I put them to bed around 9 and they slept till 8 this morning. (Hayley woke once b4 that to eat) at 8 I fed them, they were awake for about 30 minutes, then fell asleep again. They’ve been sleeping ever since and it’s currently 1:00.

I think they may have been exhausted.😂

My alarm went off at 6 this morning and I could barely wake up.

Thank goodness for coffee.

As I thought back over the past week, I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth just happened.

I’m currently very sure of two things though.

1. Traveling with two babies is no walk in the park.

2. Benji did get married and that was the whole point, so mission accomplished. 😁