Traveling With a Baby

We were lucky enough to travel to Hawaii a few weeks ago and it was our first trip with baby. I am so happy that Jamie and I took a couple big trips before baby because traveling with an infant is so different. It was a very long trip getting to Maui but I'm glad we had the support and help of my in-laws along the way. First mistake we made was booking a 7:00 AM flight. Every time we book flights, I say to myself I'll never book another 7:00 AM flight and yet I do it time and time again. With a baby though, definitely not doing it again. It was extremely challenging for us to plan Charlotte's feeds for 14-16 hours and carry all that gear with us. We had 2 big backpacks just full of feeding equipment such as bottles, formula, thickener, pump parts, ice pack etc. The first night I had a mini meltdown, saying to Jamie, "This is SO hard and I just want to be home right now." We settled in nicely after getting some decent rest though. I'm glad we chose a destination that was nice and chill because you really can't go go go with a baby. We opted to bring our own car seat but decided against the base because it was just that much more to lug. Lesson learned. Although it was easy getting the car seat strapped in with the seat belt, it definitely was less convenient so we will bring it on our next trip. We also decided to go stroller-less. I used a ring sling in the airport on the way there and then used our Emeibaby carrier for the rest of the trip. It was definitely very convenient using the carrier although I did have to remove her when going through security because the rings set off the alarms. I thought I was going to use my woven wrap a lot but I didn't bring it out once just because the carrier was that much more convenient. I only missed the stroller once and that was when we landed and had our first Costco trip. Having the use of a kitchen was also another lifesaver. We were able to wash all of Charlotte's bottles, my pump parts etc. Charlotte is fussing so I'll cut this short. All in all, even though we did not accomplish much in Maui, it was fabulous to get away and I can't wait to show do it again! 

The View From the Top

I'm about 2 years behind on my Project Life albums when I finally decided to skip ahead and work on 2014. I'm not making a lot of headway since I'm only working on it 1-2 hours a week, but as +Cynthia Chau pointed out, that's more than when I didn't have a baby. We did a hike at Diamond Head and the view up there was so spectacular. I tried to capture it the best I could and here's my pieced together attempt. It's choppy but still breathtaking. Besides the view, the second most memorable part of the hike was when we were half way up, in the blazing sun, 20 weeks pregnant, I ask for water, and we have none. Not one drop. We forgot to pack it even though we did a mental checklist of everything we needed. Needless to say, pregnant mental checklists are not dependable. It's a good thing we packed a small container of mixed berries so that gave us a bit of sustenance. I was so excited to gulp down some water when we made it back to the car, but we didn't even have nasty hot car water to drink!!! Epic fail.