A few weeks ago we took our first real family vacation! We’ve gone several far away places with our parents or to visit our parents and we’ve done lots of under 5 hour car trips, but we’d never done a full on road trip, week out of work vacation as just a family of four. I anticipated the worst. Two days there and two to three days back in the car with a five and 2 year old sounded like a nightmare. But overall the trip was wonderful, restful and full of quality family time.

We left mid- morning on a Thursday and drove towards North Carolina, stopping for the night in Virginia.

The next day we drove to our first destination – Winston Salem, North Carolina. We visited some of our best friends from high school and finally got to meet their children.

We spent one of our days with the Winston Salem crew out at their river. We had a campfire, hot dogs, scores and tubing down the river.

After three nights in Winston, we drove only an hour and a half to Charlotte to see some of our best friends from college. They have a little girl the same age as S and just had a second girl.

While in Charlotte, we visited the Charlotte Nature Museum (butterfly garden below) and Discovery Place.

After three nights in Charlotte, we left for our final adventure – a day at Sesame Place!  We drove one very long day and then spent the next day at the theme park.

We spent 10 hours in the park! By the end we were all exhausted but it was a very fun day! There was a lot more to do there than I thought there would be. The kids loved all of the rides – wet and dry. They were just about the perfect ages. M loved the characters and S was terrified of them, so I am kind of glad that the character meals were sold out by the time I decided to book one. Here’s a fun video of R riding one of the rides with the girls.

After a long day at Sesame Place and a not so great night sleep in a not so great hotel, we hit the road for home sweet home. I thought I’d miss home more than I did, but it was really wonderful to be on the road with my family. We listened to way more than cheesy kids music in the car, but this song is a great example of the fun times we had.

I can’t wait for a next year.