Visiting Family With Kids

Thanks to Toyota for providing the Sienna to facilitate this post.

Last week’s trip was two years in the making. We had originally booked a trip to visit his family in June of 2020 so Emmett could meet his family members. By May of 2020 we realized that we wouldn’t be comfortable traveling quite yet so the trip was postponed, and now we got to introduce our two kids to their extended family.

We had quite a bit of driving on this trip; both to get to our destination, and also between family member’s homes. The trip kicked off with a four hour drive (after a red-eye flight) and we were so glad to have all the space available in the Toyota Sienna.

Anneliese and Emmett each took their spots in the second row, and Emmett immediately fell in love with the foot rests. While his main car seat allows for extended rear facing, we opted for the Wayb Pico as his travel car seat, so this was his first time ever getting to ride forward facing. When he’s rear facing, he has plenty of spots to rest his feet so I think that was one reason he especially liked the provided foot rests.

In addition to seeing family members, we planned a few fun activities as well such as a trip to zoo. Brad’s brother and sister-in-law came with us to the zoo so we popped up the third row of the seats. We were able to move the second row forward so we had plenty of room in the back, and our giant double stroller still had lots of room in the trunk.

We loved spending the morning at the zoo. We definitely could have done the entire day as we only saw half of it, but we had dinner plans a couple of hours away that evening.

For the past couple of years, we have picked up the Home Depot kid’s workshop kits when they were available in-store (the first Saturday of the month). This month, they returned to an in-store program so Emmett got to make and paint a fun flower pot holder on Saturday morning.

We picked up some succulents and cactus to put inside, and Emmett gifted it to his great-grandma for an early Mother’s Day gift.

Emmett and I also took the Sienna out to explore the local town, of course we couldn’t go exploring without stopping for ice cream at the end.

On this trip, Emmett and Anneliese met great-aunts and uncles, their great-grandma, some of Brad’s cousins, and second cousins. Emmett was having an absolutely wonderful time making new friends and memories.

Annelise wasn’t so sure about sitting up on the tire wheel of the giant tractor.

However, Emmett would climb on any tractor or machinery he could find.

We spent many hours in the Toyota Sienna over the course of a few days and discovered lots of aspects that we really liked. The sliding doors made it easy to get the kids in and out of the vehicle, and there was lots of storage throughout (such as this void in the center console which was perfect for my purse).