Recipe for Disaster

1. Wake up at 4am for a 4:30 departure for West Point

2. Pile 3 kids in the car and hope for the best during the 5+ hour road trip to NY

3. Plan to spend the day on foot with strollers, walking miles up and down hill

4. Attend a football game in the middle of nap time and plan to visit several tailgates 

5. Head back to a gracious friend's house where we will all sleep in one room and have W's first night in a pack-n-play

What could go wrong, right?

You see, I have this enormous tiny problem with worst-case-scenario travel anxiety. I always get myself worked up before we leave, absolutely convinced that whatever we are going will not go well. I'd like to think that because of this, my expectations are always exceeded, but in this case, they truly were. 

None of those things above really went wrong, even though they had so much potential to.

We left early Saturday morning and even though the boys were awake for the first hour (pointing out how cool all the lights were), they then slept for two hours and the rest of our trip up was fairly easy. We arrived at our Monterey-turned-West-Point friends Tyler and Dena's house to freshen up and then headed down to meet up with Kev's little brother Mike who is a cadet before the game started.

The boys were so excited to see Uncle Mike and visit his room. It was Kev's first time back in the barracks since he graduated and he said it was definitely weird how much it had not changed at all.

Next was the Homecoming game vs Eastern Michigan. The boys were SO excited to go to a real football game, but unfortunately, got totally overwhelmed when we got in. At one point, Cullen looked at me with alligator tears and said "I don't like West Point. I want to go home." I told him that he would probably be saying that again in 14 years.

After a healthy lunch of pretzels and skittles, and several games of musical- children-out-of-the-stands, they had a great time. 

Within minutes of leaving the stadium, big boys were out, while W focused on his elephant hanging from his carrier. 

Tailgate #1 was some of Kev's old soccer teammates. Number 2 was with Mike and his friends and finally #3 was the Class of 2003 10 Year Reunion. I loved meeting so many of Kev's friends and especially loved seeing Monterey friend Cassie with her new baby Jax (the baby's not quite as excited) and the boys had a blast with some old tires next to the tent. 

The day ended with a 2 mile up hill walk (in my outfit, but not walking long distances, appropriate cowboy boots) back to Tyler and Dena's where we put the boys to bed, had a drink with our friends and went to bed with the expectation of being up all night... until we actually had the best night sleep we've had in two months. Wells slept until 2am (from 8pm) and then again until 7am, while the boys cuddled on the air mattress all night without climbing into our bed.

Sunday morning included out to breakfast with everyone, followed by another fairly easy trip home and super early bedtimes for three boys:

A Recipe for Disaster avoided.