Today marks a number of firsts for the McNulty clan:
- My first plane trip since COVID started
- Declan and Sammy’s first airplane trip ever!
- Our first time traveling with tod dlers in a major way (we’ve driven places with them, but we haven’t gone several states away!)
I’ll be honest with you, dear reader; I wasn’t looking forward to it. In fact, Marisa and I had one of our rare arguments about the whole trip. I was of the mind that we shouldn’t go, but Marisa convinced me that she needed to see her family (and I get it!). I agreed that we should go, but I did require we get a direct flight to Austin (which was crazy expensive but totally worth it, if you ask me).
After many days of planning (mainly by Marisa), we set off to the airport this morning. And you know what? The whole trip was… super easy.
Sammy and Declan were great! Our Uber driver showed up early! We could check our luggage at the curb for $16 (a steal!)! Our flight was delayed by 2 hours, 2 hours of us sitting on the tarmac!
Ok, that last part wasn’t fun, but once again, Sammy and Declan were great. They were a little wiggly but overall very well-behaved.
One of the things you might not think about, if you don’t have kids, is that when you travel, you need to bring a car seat with you (If you’ll be using a car anywhere). If you happen to have twins, you’ll need to bring two car seats. And a twin stroller (which has to weigh less than 20 pounds if you want to gate check it on American Airlines.. and you’ll want to gate check it. Though be aware: there’s one twin stroller that’s under 20 pounds!).
I worried about this the most, but thanks to the whole curbside luggage checking, it wasn’t horrible. Marisa did pull a muscle putting them into her sister’s car which was sub-optimal.
I declare air travel with my children to be totally doable.
I won’t declare this trip a success until I’m back home, and after several days I am COVID-free. We’ll see! I will say it was very nice to see Sammy and Declan play with their cousins and see their family. They are having so much fun!