Lessons Learned This Weekend

1. Don't book a cozy boutique hotel for a bustling family of 5, even if it is "wonderfully located in the heart of the old town" of the beautiful city of Stockholm. It may just turn out to be the dusty old attic of someone's rundown and unkept home that even their distance relatives would not stay in, mainly because the stairs may be so steep that they are impossible to get up or down, or it may be because the railings that lead to the floor below are so rickety that one could easily fall to one's death with even the slightest push or shove on that railing, or it may be because the worn peices of wood covered with old blankets that they call furniture would never be able to hold the weight of even a small toddler, much less any adult.

2. Don't travel to a different time zone when daylight saving time changes. Wait until you hear this one, Joe and Julie! It's almost as good as Eastern time in Destin.

3. Always double check your itinerary, especially when you are calculating international time.

4. Don't arrive at an airport 4 hours before a flight because you miscalculate international time, especially with 3 young children that have not napped in 4 days because you have drug them through every inch of a foreign city so that no site is unseen.

5. Don't pass the 4 hour airport wait in an area with an over abundance of glass doors that the overly tired children may run into repeatedly. You may risk a trip to a foreign ER.


Good times, here. Good times.