Traveling with Kids 101

1. Set your expectations low and you'll exceed them everytime!

2. Be patient!

3. But most of all, be prepared!

We took a week long trip to visit Kim's parents in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a great trip and a lot of fun to take the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's house to sleep away from home. They loved it! The preparations leading up to the trip and the getting back to life as we know it has led us to neglect this blog for quite some time. Also the fact that we had our camera stolen on our flight to NC hasn't helped keep the blog going either. Luckily, Grandma and Grandpa Helms had a camera that we were able to use during our visit. We finally have a new camera so we will try our best to update you guys as to what we've been up to this month. To start, we'll share our trip preparation.

Taking 3 kids aged 3 and under on an airplane is a task most would run away from, but we met the challenge head on and were largely successful (minus the camera mishap and despite 2 of 3 kids having some sort of illness before we left) due to all of our research and planning ahead to prepare for the trip. Our lifesavers were the following that I would highly recommend to anyone traveling with kids on an airplane.

• CARES Harnesses (http://www.rentmycares.com/): these are 5 point child restraints designed for use on airplane seats that elimate the need for lugging bulky carseats onto the plane and installing them.


• L'il Topper (http://travelingwithkids.com/proddetail.php?prod=752&cat=533): turns almost every water bottle and juice bottle into a sippy cup eliminating the need to carry around sippy cups and keep them clean.


• Children's book about air travel to show kids what to expect. We really liked I Fly by Annette Cable.


• Cradler Car Seat Neck Support (http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=424755&parentCategoryId=85184&categoryId=85220&subCategoryId=86211): these are little pillows that you can use when kids fall asleep to keep their heads supported. Jacob slept almost the entire flight to Charlotte and this worked well to keep him comfortable.
  

Anyway, just thought we'd share these helpful tips with you guys because anything that will make traveling with kids easier is usually always appreciated. Above are a few pictures of the boys from when were packing.

We'll blog again about our trip as soon as we can!