It's been almost a month and tons to catch up on. Been reading some good books rather than blogging, went to Vegas for Spring Break with the Carter clan, and have spent the past week with Ryan and Easton sick - probably from the pools since McKay and I didn't really swim and haven't gotten the bug. That's the theory I'm going on anyhow!
The trip was real fun to see Easton get a taste of extended family. He kept trying to figure out how he was related to these people and cousins was a new concept to him. He has yet to hang out with his Bare cousins, so this was new. Easton and Lizzie (3) were pretty cute to watch together playing with Grandpa's remote control car or the nintendo game thingee - I so don't know gaming world lingo yet! Rand and Camilla enjoyed using Ryan as their personal water toy and springboard in the pool! Ryan was always worn out after hanging with them. Good fun trip! Wish I'd taken more pictures! We sure missed the Packer girls, Jason and Hayley! It was just nice to have fun chatting and getting caught up.
Eric and Tamsyn took us adults out for a night on the town. Tamsyn's sister watched all the kids, bless her! We went and saw Cirque de Soliel Mystere which was amazing!!! And a great tapas restaurant - YUM!!! Vegas is just the oddest city on the planet might I say!!! I was so glad Nelson and JoLynn had us all come together to enjoy some warmer weather!
Tamsyn and I laughingly tried to sit down and watch a movie, Stardust, and made it about 3/4 of the way through when everyone descended upon us. Ahhh, that's a mother's life - interrupted! We did a pretty good job of shooing them away, but it was never really quiet except for maybe the beginning. Fun movie though! Tamsyn amazes me - always happy, loves those fun happy kids, just goes with the flow, and is just plain interesting and brilliant! You ROCK, Tamsyn! She makes having six kids look fun and doable.
We're lucky to get to see lots of family this year between vacations and Bare weddings. I hope they are vacations and not "trips" - I now know the distinction, it's called being a mom. And yes, that is plural weddings! Two of my sisters, Brooks and Lorry, are adding more boys to the Bare Brood. Ryan surprised me and bought me tickets to go to Lorry's wedding in May! Yahoo! A vacation all by myself!!! And then me and the boys will spend a few weeks with my family in August around Brooks's wedding. Must say I'm not to excited about flying with the boys by myself for that duration since my memory is pretty freshly remembering our recent flights cross country. Let me share the highlights of the trip back from Vegas, a red eye flight with a 4 and 2 yr old . . .
PREFACE: 11pm + Easton = Meltdown!
We arrive at the airport with the plan that Easton will walk or push McKay in the stroller thereby freeing Ryan and I to wrangle the bags and carseats. Nope - Easton demands to ride in the stroller so McKay gets to scream in mom's ear for a bit since he'd had his heart set on riding in the stroller.
As we wait at the gait for our flight back, Easton says he's hungry. I told him to grab the bag of Honeycomb cereal I'd stashed for such an occasion. He pulls it out and tearfully whines, "Mommy, did we borrow it?" I said,"No Easton, it's our cereal. Go ahead and eat it." He begins to fall apart and cries, "No! Did we borrow it?!!" I exhaustedly reply, "No Easton, it's ours, we own it, we didn't have to borrow it. Just eat it." Easton now full on hollers,"NOOO, I WANT TO BORROW IT!" and is quickly descending into hysterics when Ryan intervenes and says, "Yes Easton, we borrowed it. It's okay, we borrowed it." I guess I was too tired to bow down to the tired gremlins.
Finally on our JetBlue flight, Easton is freaking out about his seat belt "doing silly things", as he says it. He spends a whole ten minutes contorting himself within the seatbelt which I'm okay with as long as he's got it on. Then he was upset I would only let him watch and not listen to the only cartoon playing because it's some adult cartoon with very rude, explicit language, but the scenes look tame. After much arguing and tears over trying to get him to watch Animal Planet lions, he announces he's sleepy. Next time I turn around, he's out cold sitting straight up in his chair. Out cold!
McKay takes much longer and demands his own seat. He wants to sit on mom, but then he locks his legs on the chair in front or bounces his legs making the old lady in front of us and her son very upset with us. We did give the boys a little something to help them crash on the plane and thank heavens because I had no reserves that night to deal!
Easton is still asleep upon our Dulles arrival - Ahhh, the red eye flight is over! Not so! Easton will not wake up enough to walk. We have to put him in the stroller. Ryan goes to get the car while I wrangle Easton in the stroller and McKay walking at his own "don't tell me what to do" pace. I get to the baggage w/ the boys finally - Easton's slumped over in the stroller, sound asleep. McKay wants to climb on the baggage belts or flirt with ladies who catch his eye - but Mom isn't one of them! I get the luggage onto the cart and now have to figure out how to get the big luggage cart, Easton in a stroller, and wandering McKay over to where the car seats arrive and then to the arrivals area for Ryan to pick us up. Thankfully, a passing JetBlue woman saves the day and helps me to the door! HURRAY, blessings upon you!!!
Easton sleeps all the way home, we put him in bed, and he sleeps another 4 hours until noon! McKay, Ryan and I sleep til 2pm. YAHOO, we're home!
As I said, it's all just a little too fresh in my memory to look forward to the next flight with them. But it will be worth it, right?!
