First Family Trip with Five

Last weekend we took our first family trip as a family of five! We rented a two-bedroom house from Air BnB, and drove the few hours north to Tulsa for a four-day weekend.

I know Tulsa, Oklahoma, is not going to be anyone's first thought of grand vacation destination, but it was actually a really fun time! We visited the Oklahoma Aquarium, a super neat park called The Gathering Place, and a local business called Adventure Avenue that offers indoor play areas with costumes, a play kitchen room, fire engine, and other fun toys.

F was born last February right before the pandemic hit, so that plus the fact that it's difficult to eat out with kids meant that we had never gone to a restaurant with all five of us, and then we did it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the same day! And it actually went as well as I could have hoped.

The kids had a great time, and so did we, but I won't lie. We. were. tired. It takes approximately 800 times longer to do anything with little kids. Exhausting.

We had trouble getting them to bed at night, everyone refused naps during the day, and we ate McDonald's for dinner on Saturday night instead of the local Italian place that Jordan and I wanted to go to because the kids were freaking out about getting chicken nuggets. It wasn't a perfect trip by any means. 

But I'm so happy we were able to make this happen and get away for a couple of days. R and J still talk about our trip to Arkansas (the same trip as that poop story Jordan likes to remind me of LOL), and they were super excited to go on another family trip... this time we really leveled up the cool factor in our minivan ;)

I did feel a little bad for F. He's not quite old enough to play with the big kids, especially because he can't walk yet. But he's 14 months old, which is old enough to have opinions but not old enough to understand why he can't do what he wants. But he seemed to have a good time for the most part. He loved the aquarium and the fish, even more than the big kids did!

Just a reminder, in case you needed one, that you don't have to plan an expensive, extravagant vacation. A long weekend in a town a short drive away can do the trick just fine!