RI Day

We spent Tuesday through Friday last week with my sister's family in Rhode Island. This was my first trip up since we took Maia in 2018. We had a trip planned in 2019 but I caught a weird flu bug the day before and Rebecca and Maia went up without me.

The plane trip up went very well, in spite of the fact that we left from the three-character A terminal of Dulles which required at least 20 elevator rides for our stroller, car seat, and kids. Maia disliked how much patience each phase of travel required, while Ian enjoyed everything about the trip until he reached ultimate tiredness and boredom on our descent.

My sister has three kids, Sam, William, and Luca, and a commensurate number of toys to wow my kids. Ian was in heaven because almost every single toy had wheels. We listened to a garbage truck that sang "To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump" to the William Tell Overture at least 500 times. Maia liked that the boys were so interested in video games and had fun being a "cat obstacle" in their Mario Kart Live races.

We spent an hour or more each day in their giant pool which was heated to a luxurious 91 degrees and has spoiled me from ever going into a normal temperature pool for the rest of my life. Maia still refused to go underwater and get her eyes wet, but she did wear goggles and float around the pool on a noodle without much oversight. Ian went in just once and successfully avoided pooping in the pool.

Other highlights of the visit include a bike ride to Del's for frozen lemonade, smoked meats for dinner, and scooter/vehicle rides around their court.

We came home on Friday afternoon. The trip was uneventful other than a 30 minute delay sitting on the tarmac in Providence. Ian's restlessness was assuaged by a friendly seatmate who let him look at nature videos on her phone. Having learned our lesson on the way into Dulles Airport, we skipped all of the elevators on the way back by putting the car seat in the stroller and riding escalators all the way to freedom.