Lena

Lena travels by bike

Dave

Dave travels with trucks

I traveled a great deal as a newborn, moving from Japan to the U.S., but things slowed down after that. Most family trips involved the minivan, fruit snacks, and those miniature cereal boxes.

In college, I studied abroad and have been attempting to pare down the amount of luggage I carry ever since, with little success.

Upon meeting Dave, I discovered that there is someone else out there who can get quite far by just eating candy. I love that he does not criticize my over-packing. And I love that he is willing to carry a stroller up stairs, or wear a baby backpack over a suit at a wedding so that Wyeth can attend in comfort.

Certainly we could continue our adventures without taking Wyeth, but that takes even more preparation than if we just bring him. We’re slowly learning how to pack and move about efficiently and effectively. We’ll make this work!

For us this whole travel thing is a work in progress.
Hopefully we can figure it out, either way we will go down trying.  We have one son, Wyeth, and it currently takes us 8 bags and a few hours to get things in the car for an afternoon trip.  By the time we are out the door, everyone is cranky, there is no free space in the car, and it is nearly time to turn around and return home.  With 4 strollers and a larger number of baby-carrying devices, just picking the right tool for the trip is a major decision.  So the real question is: what would happen if there were another
kid or another two kids, etc.? Would we ever make it out the front door?

Lena has two younger siblings and I have five.  How did our parents manage to travel across the country? To numerous other countries? Camp for 30 days? Hike the great wall of China? Mexican ruins with 4 kids under 10? South Africa (nightfall, broken down car off an out-of-the-way road in a tribal village)? Costa Rica in the mud? Alaska? Alaska again? Alaska again? 4-hour road trips with up to 6 kids? We’ll find out…