When we had to move to Atlanta for Dh to go to school he drove the huge moving truck with my car towed behind. He loaded the cat, german shephard and our goldfish. He got about 2miles down the road when he decided to return home. He handed me the cat, in her carrier, and told me there was no way she was going with him. He stopped to potty the dog, and himself, and get gas/food. The goldfish did not survive the Tehachapi mountains in so cal and is buried somewhere in the Mojavi desert. I flew with my 4mo baby in her carseat and the cat in carrier under seat. That was horrible because I had a carryon, baby in carseat and cat in carrier. I had to walk 20' at a time in the terminal carrying the bag and baby while shuffling the cat carrier on the floor. People just sat and watched me, no one offered to even open a door for me. It was a nightmare. Upon returning to CA 2.5yrs later my dh again drove the huge truck with our dog but this time he towed his truck on the flatbed. I drove my car with my cat in carrier and my 2.5yr old in carseat. We got her some fries and she kept poking them into the cat carrier because she thought the cat would eat them. We stopped in Shamrock Texas for the night and managed to sneak the pets in the motel with us. We got separated somewhere in Barstow and it was late and foggy when we got to Fresno. I decided to stop at a motel because it was something like 2am. Dh continued to our home in No Cal. He can drive and drive. I would not recommend doing a cross country trip in two days with three kids but I managed with a 2.5 and a cat just fine. But I think you could have a good time with your kids as long as they had activities and breaks. A stop at a fastfood with a play area is always good. They can play while you order the food. Also, with the older kids you can pick landmarks for them to keep track of where you are on the trip. On one of our trips to Utah my 11yr old dd was really getting on my nerves so I had her count the various flowers we passed. That kept her occupied for many miles. When my dd was 15mo we drove from Atlanta to Florida. She decided that was the time to be potty trained. We tried to put a diaper on her for in the carseat and she would not have it. At one point she started saying "poo poo" but the next rest stop was about 25miles. She held it to our amazement. But it did make things stressful for a bit. Any trip can be fun but always plan for disaster.

My island is smaller than yours - a little over 6' x 3' - and I went with three smaller ones. Main reason was function: the sink is in the island and I wanted maximum light on that instead of two lights flanking it. Also, the location of our joists and ceiling ducting dictated that pendants could not be hung perfectly symmetrically, whether we went with two exactly one-third of the way in from each side, or three placed at quarter intervals. Since the island layout is also asymmetrical (big sink flanked by dishwasher on one side and smallish trash pullout on the other), placing three lights slightly asymmetrically mimicked the asymmetry of the island and made the whole feel planned and purposeful. With two, nothing above lined up with what was below. With three, we created the illusion of some symmetry.

We are finishing up our downstairs remodel so I can sympathize with your confusion. I read 2 tips that really helped me choose lighting. First was to find pictures of other kitchens and various pendant lights where they specifically listed the dimensions of the island and ideally the diameter of the pendant (although I could often find the specific light fixture if it wasn't identified). It helped me to visualize how it might look above an island similar to mine. It also helped to hang balloons above my island blown up to the various widths we were considering.....(I openly admit it. just can't visualize ANYTHING without seeing it for myself). My island is about the same width as yours (3 ft.-3in) but is shorter-7ft-3-in. We used the large Sutton pendants with a diameter of 13.75". These pendants...along with many other lights...are sold under different names, by different vendors often with very different prices as well so it pays to shop around. I assumed I would get clear glass, but after reading how the clear glass can often look really dusty I decided to go with the seeded glass instead. and I'm happy that I did. Please disregard the fact there are 2 different bulbs in my picture.....If I don't post a pic now I will never get back to it! Hope this helps. Diameter of lights is 13.75" over an island 39" wide x 7ft-3in long I had no idea how complicated picking a bulb would be once we finally had the lighting selected and installed. They sure can look different! Buy yours locally to find out which style bulb, lumen, etc you prefer. It will be easier to keep the ones that look good and then return the others you don't like. I have a pile from Amazon I will likely just donate to our local Habitat for Humanity.

I really like clear glass pendants much better than anything else because I like to see through them and have them be less prominent but to alleviate the glare issue, I used Edison bulbs. I searched high and low for ones with the spiral filament (so they are interesting to look at) that matched the Kelvin temperature of my cans (all 3500). Most of the Edison lights I found were 2700 which was going to be way too yellow against the cooler can lights. But I did finally find them. I don’t find the glare to be an issue at all. I don’t use the pendants that frequently—usually just if someone is sitting at the island having a late night snack or something.