Things I have learned...

while taking a road trip with two under two and a dog.

1) The dog is the easiest to get along with and makes the least demands. Always take the dog.

2) When the weather man forecasts "flooding" while driving through Arizona, listen to him. Otherwise you might end up hitting a rock while driving on a flooded road (with rock slides) have a blow out in torrential rain and have to change a tire in the dark, cold, wet conditions.

3) In case you need to change a tire in cold, wet, torrential down pours in the dark, before packing a van with two car seats, a boat load of stuff, a dog and two adults, check to see where you access the spare tire and jack and then don't pack stuff there.

4) Verify that your vehicle can store a full size flat tire in the spare compartment, if it can't, don't pack the van so full that you have no room for a flat tire and have flashlight in your car at all times (seems like common sense, right?)  (don't have any pictures of the above adventure)

5) Hotel rooms are a ton of fun!

6) Cousins are great!

7) California traffic SUCKS!

8) 30 year olds can still have a ton of fun on huge roller coasters!  And two month olds are content to do anything.

9) If you take a ~2 year old on a carousel, force him to eat lunch when he doesn't really want to, he may just puke. I guess it is not a big deal when you are at Magic Mountain...they are used to that stuff.

10) Sand feels funny to little feet!