I’m going to try not to make this entire post about traveling with two toddlers and save that for another time — because there is a lot to say on that topic. So I’m going to skimp on some of those particular details and keep things pretty general in that regard.

But man! It’s been a minute since I wrote about any travel I’ve been on. I have actually traveled since my last post on the subject back in ye old 2019. Yet unlike the trips I’ve taken between then and now, this trip has been a bit longer in the making. You see, the last time I went to South Carolina, it was only myself and an infant. This time, it was our whole little family going, double the people traveling. Kevin had never been to this specific state and couldn’t go the first time we went, and one of the boys hadn’t even been born yet. In fact, I had just recently learned I was pregnant again before that first trip. So, in more ways than one, we were due back to this portion of the East Coast.

And it was pretty great to be back! For the amount of time we were there anyway, late April seems like a fairly nice time to be in an East Coast state, especially a southern one. It wasn’t too hot yet, and it even rained for a couple of days to cool things down overall. Somehow, even after living out east, I forgot just how green it is there. You look out one car window, and you see nothing but a forest of green and nothing beyond it. Then you look out the other car window and see the exact same thing. And not even a dark, pine tree sort of green; a bright, vibrant light green. It’s rather mesmerizing in a moving vehicle.

I’m losing the plot a bit here. My dad and my step-mom have lived in South Carolina for several years now. My little family and I hopped on a short flight to Denver (which you will never, ever have a smooth descent into that city, and we certainly didn’t this go-round). On this leg of the trip, we stayed overnight and managed to squeeze in a quick visit with my brother before we flew out early the next morning and landed in Charlotte, North Carolina. As far as available options and prices go, it’s either you fly into Charlotte or Atlanta, Georgia, both of which require a drive to get to where we needed to go in South Carolina. My dad and step-mom, the saints that they are, told us not to drag our two car seats through multiple airports and were prepared with two of their own in a three-row rental car. On both of our travel days, this was an immense help.

Once we were in their corner of South Carolina, we didn’t go very far from there. We spent a week just finding local things to do and swimming in the pool. The boys got in heaps of quality time with their Grandpa and BiBi. We celebrated a birthday and got in a lot of time to play with a lot of new toys. We played at different parks and went out walking when the weather was nice. There was plenty of TV watching — for the adults, it was catching up on the third season of Ted Lasso, and for the kids, it was a ton of Bluey and various Mickey Mouse shows. There was also plenty of reading, whether at home or at the library branch down the street. We worked on two puzzles with 1,000 pieces each, a relatively recent tradition that’s been established on this side of the family. We talked over homemade meals and laughed over drinks. We checked out a children’s museum, in which the only rule was that the parents had to be accompanied by their children (this is a real thing at these places, and it’s hilarious: if you are a teen or an adult, you legitimately are not allowed inside unless you have kids in your group). To top it all off, we sat in box seats for a minor league baseball game.

As a parent, I’m quickly learning that many of our trips end up being staycations of sorts, specifically if we’re traveling to see family. You aren’t staying home, but once you get to the place you’re going, then you mostly stay pretty close to “home,” if that makes sense. Especially because our boys are still so young — and one of them continues to nap not just daily, but often for three hours straight –, we can’t exactly do a day trip elsewhere or pack a day chock full of activities to do. There’s a lot of downtime at this stage of our travels, and honestly, after traveling great distances with kids, whether by plane, train, or automobile, downtime is required.

However, it’s totally fine. The whole point of many of our trips in the last almost four years has been to see the boys’ grandparents and other relatives and have a wonderful time letting them get to know their family. They aren’t going to be this young forever. And trips will only get busier and busier as time goes on, although the travel to get there will hopefully get much easier in the same span. No. More. Carseats through airports. Or strollers. And having to take care of the boys’ belongings for them. Like I said, I have enough material there for a different post!

We had an amazing time out in South Carolina, and it was a hop, skip, and a jump to drive back to Charlotte and fly back to Denver. With a stroke a luck, and also because Kevin is such a champ, we scrambled our way onto an earlier flight. So instead of spending a seven-hour layover at Denver International Airport, we were home before that later flight even took off. Plus we had an entire Sunday to simply be back at our own house and return to our routine for a day until Kevin had to be back at work on Monday.

Saying goodbye to any of our folks after a nice trip to see them has always been hard. But guess what? Like many things, that’s become even more difficult now that I’m a parent. I think that, as a parent myself, I now know what my parents are feeling when they hug and kiss me goodbye. So I hugged my dad and step-mom tight and told them I loved them, finally realizing what it had been like for them and for my mom and for my in-laws for so many years and how it continues to be for all of them. And that’s how I’ll be feeling when I start saying goodbye to my boys after their nice trips to see us. Parenthood continues to be such a profound gift. I remain grateful for the experiences it keeps giving me.

And hopefully grandparenthood has been just as incredible. 🙂