Vacation Lessons Part 2

So... we had a great week at the beach saw TONS of family and really enjoyed ourselves.

I promise a photo montage as soon as humanly possible. The pics are way better than my attempt to explain.

But... the trip home was not so wonderful. Bad weather in Indy delayed our flight out of Fort Lauderdale and our connecting flight to Columbus wouldn't wait for us, so after 4 hours in the airport (with an energetic 2 year old) we went BACK to the condo and had to fly out the following day.

This travel disaster coupled with the previous one taught me many lessons... here they are:

• Give your kid a bag of his own. Pack it with dollar spot goodies that are individually wrap. BUT be sure those items don't have many small pieces. Froot Loops went EVERYWHERE. Crayons were tossed. I could go on. The best options: a wind up alligator toy, a coloring book with ONE marker, a book, etc.
• Do NOT put the travel DVD play in the overhead bin. It's like and ETERNITY until the captain turns off the fasten seat belt light.
• If you remember, bring goodies for the people who are sitting near you on the plane. I should have baked individually wrapped cookies or bought a few $5 star bucks cards to give to the kind souls that had toys and food bouncing of their heads before we got the DVD player up and running.
• If you have time to kill, try and find an empty gate. Ben LOVED running up and down the aisles and climbing on the chairs.
• And finally, GATE CHECK your car seat. DO NOT check it with your bags. We asked to do this on our trip home and even though we couldn't get on our plane, it still took off and took a few passengers that weren't connecting to Columbus. And our stuff was on that plane. I don't know what we would have done if the car seat was on that plane as well and we had to go back to the condo for another night. Yikes!