Auntie Rachie's owl collection to the rescue

Hannah: What is Hooter's?

Me: It's a restaurant with a lot of owls in it.

Hannah: I think Auntie Rachie would really like that place.

Aunt Debbie: I think Uncle Kevin would probably like it more.

A very exhausted girl....and dog

Hannah stayed with my sister Debbie and her husband Mark this weekend. They have a yellow lab puppy that followed her everywhere but after a long, busy weekend I think both of them were completely worn out.

I love the fact that he's laying on her legs like Leo does but he probably weighs about 50 lbs more than Leo. What a difference!

Dear Seattle- Please give us back our summer. Love, Boston

My sister just sent me the 5-day forecast for Seattle. What the hell? That's the type of forecast you usually see here in Boston and we haven't even hit 90 degrees yet this year!!! In a city where less than 5% of people probably have central a/c in their houses this doesn't bode well. I wonder how Hannah will handle it. She's had central a/c ever since she was born.

My Mom's Life

A couple of weeks ago Hannah "interviewed" me for school. I wasn't sure what it was for until she brought home the final product today. Below is her work....spelling, grammar and punctuation are all hers.

My Mom's Life

My mom was born in Decorah Iowa It was a small town with a lot of relitives nearby. Her parents names are Dena and Dan. She has 2 sisters named Rachel and Debra. It was a nice little town

When my mom, Diane, was a kid her best friend was Rachel. They loved the monkey bars and playing kick the can. She was bossy and friendly when she was a kid. She had a lot of fun.

When my mom grew up she met her husband at a 2 year old's B-day party. He liked her right away. They both liked The Blue Man Group That is what I learned about my mom.

The darn press....they're always getting their stories wrong. Isn't that what all the celebrities say?

Yes, I was born in Decorah.

Yes, my parents are Dan and Dena.

Yes, I have two sisters.

No, they aren't named Debra and Rachel. Their names are actually Debra and Denise. Denise, however, re-married a few years ago and no longer participates in our family. Since Hannah hasn't seen Denise in a few years, but always sees "Auntie Rachie", I can see where she got confused.

Yes, Rachel and I loved playing on the monkey bars.

No, I have never played Kick the Can.

Yes, I was bossy (and friendly!). I still am.

As for meeting my husband (as opposed to her father....LOL) we did meet at a 2 year old's b-day party although Lincoln thinks he was 3 years old. And we did both like Blue Man Group. In fact it was our first date.

I guess she got enough of it right that I won't demand a retraction but we'll have to work on her attention to detail.

FINALLY! Pictures from our trip to see Mom and Dad in Feb/Mar

It only took 2 1/2 months but here are some pictures from our trip out to see Mom and Dad back at the end of February. We flew in and out of Las Vegas and stayed at Mom and Dad's rental place in Needles, CA for a few nights. The last two days we spent in Las Vegas staying in "old Vegas" at the Golden Nugget hotel. Since Mom and Mark take so many pictures I didn't take any on my own camera. When I was out in Seattle a few weeks ago I had Mark load up all of his pictures onto a flash drive for me. Below are a few of my favorites.  The green tags that Hannah and Jake are wearing, if you're wondering, are ID tags that I made up for them that they have to wear when we travel.  On them it lists our home and cell phone numbers as well as phone numbers for Mom and Dad and Lincoln's parents.  It also includes any medical conditions or allergies for each kid.  I make them wear them whenever we're out in large, public areas in case we get separated from each other.

Feeding the donkeys in Oatman, AZ:

Hannah and Jake with Grandpa and Grandma Lentz in Oatman, AZ:

Lincoln, Hannah, and Jake feeding the donkeys in Oatman, AZ:

The shark tank in the middle of the pool at the Golden Nugget hotel.  Note the tube going through the middle of the tank.  That's the waterslide.

Hannah having fun with Uncle Mark's underwater camera:

More fun with Uncle Mark's underwater camera:

I could resist including this picture.  The look on Dad's face is priceless.  I'm guessing Jake must have just been splashing him the face while he motored his little floaty around.

The scuba divers in the fish tank.  They really freaked Jake out even more than the sharks.  He didn't mind the sharks at all.

Jake giving "two thumbs up" for his McDonald's lunch.  McDonald's is a pretty big treat around here since we don't take them out for fast food very often.

Hannah and Mommy out on Fremont Street for the light show:

And last but not least, a little video of the kids feeding the donkeys in Oatman, AZ.  Jake's  telling them "No, you can't have anymore!" is the best.

A travel tour of our newly finished bedroom

Back during my holiday break Lincoln and I started re-decorating our bedroom. I had a lot of stuff from our travels over the years and I wanted to use all of it to decorate our room. Most of it had been sitting in storage for years because I never got around to finding a home for all the pieces. This still isn't everything but we've made tremendous progress. We got the furniture moved around back in December but I knew the decorating would have to wait until Mom came. Mom and Dad have now come and gone and here are the results.

This is my favorite corner so I'll start here. The round pillow on the bench was bought at the Grand Bazaar in Turkey. The bookends and the King/Queen/Eternity plaques were bought at an adorable little shop in Boston. The blue pitcher is from Greece. The wooden figurine with three heads was brought back from Mozambique by a colleague of mine. On the other shelf is a little country western style mail holder from Moab, Utah and the wire flowers in the vase are from our first date. Lincoln, my beloved "phone guy", brought me flowers made out of telephone wire. Obviously a better choice than real flowers since I still have them 10 years later. The glass flowers in the little bowl and the orange palm tree, both on top of the dresser, are from a glass blower in Venezuela where we went on our honeymoon. The little green box is something I won in a raffle drawing in Decorah when I was in elementary school. The lamp has no significance other than it matches our decor. 

This corner is my "reading" corner with my old hand me down lazy chair from Mom and Dad.  The pillow in the chair is a Quillow that my sister Debbie made us for Christmas.  The thing hanging in the corner has no real significance other than it matches our decor. The figurine on the corner shelf was purchased in Corinth, Greece. The green candle on the other shelf was purchased in Decorah. The parent/child figurine was a gift when I was pregnant with Hannah. The fabric hanging under the shelf is Irish lace that we purchased on our trip to Ireland in January 2004.

These are all pictures that I took in Greece on our trip in March 2008.

The plate on the left is from our trip to Greece and was purchased in Athens. The stuff above the TV is from my friend Nikki who lived in Australia for 5 months. The red fabric below the TV is a table cloth from Singapore that I purchased when I was over there on business while pregnant with Hannah. The small framed photo beneath the plate is from Lincoln's first Father's Day when Hannah and I took him to Washington DC.

As you can see, there are a bunch of little things tucked along the floor and leaning against the walls that still need to be put away. Like I said, we haven't found homes for everything yet but we may end up having to move out into the hallway outside of our room eventually.

The bathroom should be finished soon too. We've been working on that for so long I don't even know what to think anymore. Lincoln was working on prepping the tiles for mounting last night and that is really the last piece for the bathroom. I'll hopefully be posting pictures of that soon as well.

The cone of silence can now be lifted

Since January my sister Debbie and I have been working on a project that I haven't been able to blog about.  I can now finally talk about all the details since it was a surprise for our parent's 40th wedding anniversary.

Debbie and I decided that instead of taking Mom and Dad on a trip for their anniversary or throwing a big party for them, we would do a Life on Record for them instead.  All of Mom and Dad's friends and family were given a dial-in number where they could call in and leave a message for Mom and Dad wishing them a happy 40th anniversary.  They could also tell stories, do a toast, talk about favorite memories, etc.  After all the recordings were collected they were burned onto a CD for them to listen to.  (Side note: a great big THANK YOU goes out to everyone who participated in the CD.)

Over the years Mom and Dad have lived in Minnesota, Iowa, Washington, Arkansas, and Wisconsin.  Combined they also have a large family that is spread from coast to coast.  Add in all the military contacts of Dad's that have also moved on to different states and you end up with a lot of loved ones that wouldn't be able to wish Mom and Dad a happy anniversary in person.  A gift like this was a perfect idea for them.

The end result was a two-disc set with 76 tracks on it.  I believe it was approximately an hour and a half total and included people from 15 different states.  Mom and Dad LOVED it.  We didn't give them the track listings until after they listened to it so they had no idea who was on the CD and every new track was sort of like "name that tune" to figure out who was talking.  It was great fun to listen to the CD.  There were also a number of "blasts from the past" on there that really surprised them.

But the surprises didn't stop there.  Debbie had also arranged to take Mom, Dad, and Grandma B out to a fancy brunch on their anniversary as a joint anniversary/mother's day event since Mom and Dad will actually be out here in Boston for Mother's Day.   What Mom and Dad didn't know was that I flew in from Boston to join them and we also rented a limo.  Despite a little snafu where the limo driver went to pick up Mom, Dad, and Grandma before picking up Deb, Mark, and I, it all worked out well.  Mom and Dad were VERY surprised when the limo showed up at their door and were also very surprised when I walked out of Debbie's house to go to brunch with them.  It really threw them off because the day before I had been posting about the Derby party at the Walker's as though I was there.  I really did talk to Jake about the horses in the morning.  It was just over the phone instead of in person.  Lincoln sent me the picture from his cell phone so I just posted it on the blog as though I had taken the picture.  If you go back and read all of my posts about the Derby I never actually said that I was attending the party.  Just that I've gone every year and that I was betting on certain horses.  I never actually lied about anything....just implied certain things.  I'm pretty tricky that way.  

Anyway...back to Mom and Dad's anniversary.

Mom and Dad were very excited about the limo.  I didn't realize that Mom and Dad had never ridden in a limo before (not even at their wedding) so that was a great treat.  Deb, Mark, and I had gone to the store the day before and gotten champagne and orange juice so we had mimosas in the limo as we drove to West Seattle for brunch.  It was a nice sunny day and the drive takes about 30-40 minutes so it was great to visit and have some champagne.  After a very nice brunch at Salty's (more food than any person should ever have the opportunity to gorge themselves on in one sitting) we headed back to the house.  Debbie and Mark had to go home and let Cooper out but I went to Mom and Dad's house to listen to the CD with them.  Deb, Mark, and Cooper came over a little while later.  I had heard every recording as they had come in but it was great listening to it with Mom and Dad and watching them light up with every new voice that played.  As soon as they identified a person they could often guess what story would be told.  You could tell just by watching them that they were loving every moment.  Of course Dad rolled his eyes every time someone commented on how wonderful his daughters are but that's just Dad's way of saying "I love you".

In the end it was a GREAT anniversary celebration for Mom and Dad who really hadn't had any plans other than the brunch.  I think it meant a lot to them that we turned it into such a big deal.

As for me, I was a little exhausted yesterday but I'm feeling much better today.  I flew out to Seattle on a 9 p.m. flight Friday evening and took the red-eye back on Sunday night.  I arrived in Boston at 7:40 a.m. yesterday morning and went straight to the office.  I actually made it until 5:30 p.m. before heading home so I only cut out 30 minutes early (with my boss's permission).  

I did, however, give away my secret over brunch about how you can tell when I'm working on something secretive by watching when my blog postings drop (or become utterly mundane).  It happened with Tracy's surprise for her 40th birthday and again with Mom and Dad's 40th anniversary.  When my life becomes consumed with secretive things I can't write about I start to struggle for "material". Debbie's 40th birthday is next March so if the blog goes on hiatus you'll know I'm up to something.

Introducing Cooper

My sister and her husband just got a new puppy. Isn't he adorable?

She comes from a long line of strange women

Me: Guess what I finished last night?

Hannah: The yearbook?

Me: Yep.

Hannah: Yay!!! (she lights up like it's Christmas morning)

Me: Guess what that means we get to do now at night when Mommy gets home from work?

Hannah: What? Sit on the couch and snuggle?

Me: Clean the house for Grandma's visit!!!!!

(Her face falls)

Hannah: I don't like to clean. Do you?

Me: Nope.

Hannah: Does anyone like to clean?

Me: Aunt Debbie does.

Hannah: That's just weird.

Me: Grandma does too.

(she just shakes her head and walks away)

Teaching them while they're young

Last week while we were on vacation Jake was looking at the plastic cup that Uncle Mark was drinking out of. I don't know how the conversation came about but they started discussing the triangle on the bottom of the cup.

Uncle Mark: Do you know what the triangle means Jake?

Jake: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Our trip

I don't even know where to begin....

It was a busy few days but our trip was a lot of fun. We flew in and out of Las Vegas but spent a few days down in Needles, CA at a house my parents have rented for six weeks.

Friday night we boarded our flight to Las Vegas. The flight left about 35 minutes late due to some wind delays encountered by the incoming flight. It was super windy on Friday evening and the flight was coming from JFK airport in NYC so I don't know if the wind issues were on the New York end or our end but since they turned the plane around and got us out pretty quickly I think it was a delay on the NYC end of the flight.

Despite some issues with our seating reservations earlier in the week Lincoln and I really lucked out and managed to have two complete rows for the four of us. Lincoln and Jake had three seats to themselves on one side of the aisle and Hannah and I had three seats on the other side of the aisle. The plane was pretty full and there were less than 5 empty seats on the entire plane so how we managed to get two full rows to ourselves was a little JetBlue miracle. Our flight left about 7:45 p.m. and the kids sat and watched TV in their seats for a little while and then Hannah went to sleep around 9 p.m. and Jake a little while later. The flight was fairly smooth and even though Lincoln and I didn't get much sleep it was an okay flight. We actually were both dozing off about halfway through the flight when all of a sudden a man who was walking down the aisle passed out and hit the floor right between our seats. Apparently he was overly dehydrated and got light headed and fainted. He was a big guy though and they were afraid he had hit his head on the way down. Luckily there was both a doctor and a nurse on the flight and they took good care of him. Even though he was fine they had medics take him off the plane to check him out before they let everyone else get off the plane in Las Vegas.

Our flight got into Las Vegas somewhere around 11:00/11:15 p.m. local time. By the time we got all of us off the plane, did a potty break for everyone, and took the tram to baggage claim our bags were waiting for us. They were actually being collected off the belt by the airline since they were the only bags left by the time we got down there. After we collected our bags we tried to find the hotel shuttle stop but couldn't find it. I called the hotel and they said that the next shuttle wouldn't leave the airport until midnight. Since it was only 11:35 p.m. (which was 2:35 a.m. for our bodies) we decided we'd take a taxi instead since it was so late. By the time we got through the taxi line at the airport it was about 11:55 p.m. so we didn't save much time but at least we felt productive. The kids were doing great and pulling their own bags. Despite being young kids they are great travelers and despite long flights and crazy hours they always hang in there with us and very rarely complain. Considering how much they complain at other times I find this to be a miracle every time we travel.

The first night we stayed at the Doubletree out by the airport. It wasn't anything fancy but it certainly served its purpose. By the time we got to the hotel, got the kids in fresh pajamas, and everybody in bed it was about 1 a.m. Unfortunately that doesn't mean the kids (or the adults) got to sleep in late on Saturday and we were all up by about 5:30 a.m.

My sister Debbie and her husband Mark were flying in on Saturday morning around 10:30 a.m. and we were going to meet up with them and head down to Needles together in order to save on the rental car situation. Since we were all awake so early, and we had so much time to kill, we decided to head out to the Strip to get breakfast with the kids. We took a taxi to the Paris hotel ($25) to eat at their breakfast buffet ($59) and then walked down the Strip before ending at the Venetian and taking a gondola ride ($74) and heading back via taxi to the hotel to meet Debbie and Mark ($25). Basically breakfast in Vegas cost us $183 so it was a good thing we were heading down to Mom and Dad's for the rest of the weekend. At that point we'd pretty much spent our entire vacation budget.

After heading back to the hotel to meet up with Debbie and Mark we headed down to Needles which is about an hour and a half away. It's a pretty rundown little town but the house that Mom and Dad rented was very nice. Grandma B is staying down there with them and the kids haven't seen her in quite awhile so I was really glad they got to spend time with her. It's great that they're going to be old enough (especially Hannah) to remember spending time with their great-grandmother. She's 95 years old and hopefully she'll hang in there for a few more years. She has already selected where we're going on vacation if she reaches 100 years old.

Saturday afternoon we didn't do too much but we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Bullhead City, AZ. The really freaky thing about the area that Mom and Dad are in is the fact that they're across the river (about a mile or so from their rental house) from Arizona and the time is an hour later in Arizona than it is in California because Arizona doesn't change with Daylight Savings. It definitely can make things a little confusing.

Saturday night Mom and Dad took the kids to a local hotel since the rental house isn't big enough to sleep all 9 of us and to take the kids swimming but unfortunately the hotel pool had been drained for repairs. Lincoln, Debbie, Mark, and I all crashed pretty early that night (well before 8:30 p.m.) and it sounds like the kids outlasted us by hanging with Grandma and Grandpa at the hotel.

Sunday we got up and took the kids to Oatman, AZ. Oatman is a ghost town where there are burros walking up and down the street and you can feed them carrots. There are also staged shoot-outs in the street which are pretty interesting. The kids had a good time and we spent a few hours hanging out in Oatman before hitting Route 66 and heading down towards Lake Havasu, AZ. Lake Havasu is where Grandma and Grandpa B used to live during the winter before Grandpa started to go WAY downhill health-wise and needed to be moved into a home back in Minnesota. I really like Lake Havasu and I would love it if Mom and Dad decided to move down there themselves. It's a great little town that isn't too big but also not too small. We got there just in time for dinner (the only lunch we had was ice cream in Oatman) and went to the Mudshark Brewery for dinner. The food was delicious and the beer was too. It was also Debbie's birthday that day (she's 29....again) so they brought out a dessert for us to share as well. After dinner we headed over to a small traveling carnival and the kids got to go on a few rides before we walked down to London Bridge and then headed back to Needles. Mom and Dad were going to switch hotels and stay down in Lake Havasu at the only hotel with an indoor pool but it turns out it wasn't heated for some reason. It was too cold so Mom and Dad took the kids back to the hotel in Needles and Debbie, Lincoln, Mark, and I headed back to the house to watch the Amazing Race (my favorite show) and have a few beers. Debbie and Lincoln went to bed fairly early but Mark and I stayed up playing cards. We started our playing a drinking game called Drunk Driver but quickly decided we'd end up dead if we continued so we switched to Blackjack instead. I've never really played Blackjack before so Mark was teaching me. We started playing with honey roasted peanuts and I'm happy to say that I started with 30 peanuts but walked away with 64. Woohoo! It was my most successful gambling of the weekend. The only other gambling I did was putting $8 in slot machines and losing it all in less than 2 minutes on the last day. Needless to say....I'm not a gambler. I suck at it. Even at the slot machines.

Monday morning Mom, and later Lincoln, took the kids down to the Colorado River to play on the beach. After Lincoln took over kid duty at the beach Mom, Debbie, Mark, and Dad headed into Bullhead City to do some shopping and I sat out on the deck overlooking the golf course and read my book. It was 80+ degrees and it felt wonderful to be out in the sun - especially since I knew Boston was getting 15+ inches of snow that day.

Monday afternoon we all headed into Las Vegas and checked in at the Golden Nugget down on Fremont Street. The hotel has been renovated in the past few years and was very nice. I like being down on Fremont Street as it's not quite as chaotic as being on the Strip and is much easier to walk around. After a fairly lackluster dinner at the buffet at the Golden Nugget Dad headed out to gamble, Mom and the kids went back to the hotel room, and Debbie, Mark, Lincoln, and I headed out to Fremont Street to see the light show. We walked around a bit, watched some cool artists paint really neat pictures of Las Vegas, and then I crapped out and headed back to the room. The other three went on to drink and gamble but I was still worn out from the night before and my wild night of gambling with peanuts and a 12-pack of Corona.

Tuesday was a beautiful day and we finally got to take the kids to a pool. The Golden Nugget has a fantastic little pool area which has a large shark tank in the middle and a water slide that goes right through it. It also has a bar which made the grown-ups happy. Even though the air was a bit cool when the breeze kicked up it was a pretty nice day and the pool was heated. Mom, Lincoln and Mark got in with the kids and played for quite awhile. Mark was in the pool with the kids for almost the entire three hours and they had a great time climbing all over him and splashing around. Mark took some awesome pictures with his underwater camera and I can't wait to post some of them up here on the website. After three hours and a little bit of sunburn on some of us we headed back to change for lunch. After a light lunch of Subway the kids headed back to the room with Grandma and Grandpa for a nap, the boys (Lincoln and Mark) went to gamble and the girls (me and Deb) headed to the spa. That was just what I needed! After the spa we all went for a very nice dinner at the Grotto inside the Golden Nugget. After dinner we all headed out to Fremont Street for awhile to show the kids the light show and do a little shopping. After that we headed up to the room to finish packing and headed out to the airport. Lincoln and the kids and I were flying out on Tuesday night and Mom, Dad, Debbie and Mark were all heading out on Wednesday.

Tuesday night we took the red-eye flight home and left Las Vegas on an 11:15 p.m. flight. It was a fast flight (4 hours and 15 minutes) and we touched down in Boston at about 6:40 a.m. local time the next morning. The kids slept through the entire flight and both Lincoln and I got a little bit of sleep as well. Luckily there were no medical dramas this time to keep us awake. Jake and Hannah headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Snow's for the day and Lincoln actually headed to work but I went home and crashed. I took a 6 hour nap and still felt groggy. Today we're all back at work and school and all I can say is thank God tomorrow is Friday. I must be getting old because these trips are getting harder and harder to recover from.

Finally...a worthy opponent (and 700 lbs of paper)

The last few days have been a little crazy both at work and in my personal life. First of all, the company that I work for has a division that is opening a new venue here in Boston. Because the venue isn't built yet we're housing some of their employees in our office and taking deliveries for them. Unfortunately, even though I am the Office Manager, no one bothers to tell me anything. Yesterday I had 705 lbs of stationary delivered for them with a COD order and had no idea what to do with it (and no check to pay the COD bill). Luckily I was able to figure something out and found a place to stash 700+ of letter head and envelopes but it wasn't easy. Today they sprung 4 employees on me looking for desks, computers, and phones but hey....all in a day's work, right?

In addition to that I was trying to book our trip out to Needles, CA to see Mom and Dad in February. Mom and Dad have c0-rented a house in Needles with Mom's brother and sister-in-law for three months. Art and Karen have the first 6 weeks and Mom and Dad have the second 6 weeks. They're practicing being "snowbirds". Our original plan was to go out and visit them during Hannah's February break. I had (or so I thought) two free tickets on JetBlue which meant we'd only need to buy two tickets to get the four of us out there. On JetBlue you need 100 points for a free ticket. I already had one free ticket and then I had 97 points towards another one. It appears that my points post on the 13th of every month so I was waiting until Tuesday to book our trip. I could have purchased the additional 3 points for $70 and would have been happy with that since it's still a cheap ticket but since it was almost the 13th I decided to wait. All day on Tuesday I kept checking my account to see if they had posted. By the 14th they still hadn't posted so I called AmEx and was told I had points in my account and they'd be released but I had to call back in an hour because their system was down. I called back an hour later and he said I had points in the system and he would release them immediately. He said they usually take 24-48 hours to post to my account but he would expedite them and they'd post that day. By afternoon there still wasn't anything in my account so I decided to call AmEx back and see what was happening. At that point the lady told me that in fact there weren't any points in my account but that I had credits in my account that would eventually lead to more points. Basically the two people I had spoken to in the morning were either dumb as rocks or completely full of shit. Well at that point I lost it. I had already waited an additional week to book my ticket (and the price of the tickets we were paying for had gone up by about $40 each) and I had wasted 48 hours updating my computer screen every hour on the 13th and 14th waiting for the points to be released. I laid into the customer service lady. She was actually kind of a snot so I didn't feel too bad about it. At one point when I was ranting about something and she kept trying to interrupt me so I finally said "No, no. I am the customer and therefore I get to be the one that talks." I finally asked to speak to her supervisor. I went a couple of rounds with her before she finally said "Ma'am, how many points do you need for your free ticket?" I told her I only needed three and she put me on hold. When she came back she said "Mrs. Snow, I've put four points in your account. The extra one is just to make sure you don't have any more trouble. You're all set. Have a nice day." Like I said in a previous post, I've been spoiling for a fight and I have to say she was a worthy opponent. It was a victory well earned.

Of course then I went in to book the flights and there was no award travel available for the dates that we wanted to fly out there. At that point we decided to scrap the dates around Hannah's February vacation and look at going either later in the month or in March. Mom had told me that Deb and Mark were coming out over Deb's birthday on March 1st but I also knew that their house in Needles wouldn't hold all of us. I called Debbie and asked her when her exact dates were so that we wouldn't be there at the same time and she actually suggested that we DO come at the same time and they would be willing to get a hotel room in Needles. Of course that required working out all the details and making sure everyone was on board before booking the tickets. That involved a three-way conference call between Debbie, myself, and Mom (who was the airport in Las Vegas flying back from being down at the house in Needles) and an IM conversation between Dad and me while I was on the phone with Debbie and Mom. Add in Debbie calling Mark on her cell phone while talking to me and Mom and me texting Lincoln to make sure he was game with changing the plans and it was an exhausting round of technology abuse. In the end we worked out all the details and I booked our flight out there. As exhausting as all that was I really need a vacation now.

Add in my PTO meeting last night and you can see why I've been so busy the past two days. Thank God I have a three day weekend coming up!

This blog has just proven very useful

I have enjoyed doing this blog for the past few months. I started it this past spring and I have to say it's a great way to keep our family and friends up-to-date on stories that I might otherwise forget to tell people. For example, the skeleton story with Jake earlier this week. It's a good thing that I posted that story. My sister Debbie was checking the blog earlier today and called me right away. She wanted to warn me that maybe Jake shouldn't open his Christmas present from her and Mark because it's an outfit that has a skull and bones graphic on the shirt.

We'll have to be careful with that one!

The Aquarium

Aunt Debbie had suggested that we take the kids to the Seattle Aquarium yesterday and I have to say, it was an inspired idea. The kids loved it. Especially Jake. He would run from exhibit to exhibit screaming "Look at this! Look at this one! Did you see this!?" while Hannah had more fun taking pictures in the wooden cutouts. We couldn't get many photos of Jake posing because he was too excited. In the one of Jake and Hannah with Aunt Debbie and Uncle Mark you can barely see Jake because he was crawling behind them to look at the fish.

Here are some pictures of our day:

We made it!

Well we finally made it to Seattle last night. Our first flight, from Providence to Detroit, was late getting in due to some crazy thunderstorms although the same storm that delayed us delayed our connecting flight so it wasn't too big of a deal.

The crazy turbulence coming into Detroit was pretty bad though. I have to say it was one of the worst flights we've ever been on. Lots of bouncing back and forth, jerking around, and plummeting in little air pockets. Not fun. It didn't affect the kids though and I'm just glad Mom and Deb weren't on that flight as they are not the best fliers. Jake actually almost fell asleep during the worst of it. It was like a giant rocking chair.

Like I said, our 2nd flight was also delayed due to the weather so we didn't get in until about 10:15 p.m. last night. Both kids slept pretty much the entire flight so that was nice. Then we met Grandma and Grandpa at the airport and came home to bed. The kids were up bright and early this morning so we're already well into our day. I think the plans today are church, brunch, and the aquarium with Aunt Debbie and Uncle Mark. I'm sure I'll have pictures to post later. I actually got a cute one on my camera phone from last night that I'll have to post.

More later...