My little travelers

Jake and Hannah continue to amaze me with how well they travel.

This past weekend the kids and I flew to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to attend my aunt's Golden Jubilee (50 years as a nun). We had a big party on Saturday night for Sister Bonnie and a majority of the family was able to make it back for either the dinner on Saturday and/or the Mass on Sunday.

The kids and I left very early Friday morning on a 6 a.m. flight out of Boston. I was worried about Jake's tendency to throw up when we travel before noon. This time I was prepared though and made him eat ginger snap cookies on the way to the airport, take Dramamine when we got there, and then wear Sea Band bracelets while we were on the flight. I don't know which one worked the best but he didn't throw up and for that I was very grateful.

We got back Sunday night and now we have a quick turn around time for laundry, grocery shopping, etc. before we turn around and head out for our annual trip to Martha's Vineyard. It's a busy month. I think we're going to need a vacation from our vacations!

Like brother, like brother, like brother

I continue to marvel at how much my Dad looks like two of his brothers. There was this incident in Albuquerque with Uncle John and now these pictures with Uncle Joe and Uncle John. On the flip side, Uncle Mike still has a full head of hair. That's why he's not allowed to be in pictures. (just kidding!)

A great family and a great foundation

My father has 7 siblings and even figuring in one bachelor and one nun I still have 22 cousins on my dad's side of the family. It's a fairly big family but we've always been fairly close. I'm pretty sure that most Easters and Christmas Eves at Grandma Lentz's house had a majority - if not all - of us under one roof. Sure there is a huge age gap. The oldest grandchild is in his 40's and the youngest is 13 but, with the exception of the youngest five grandchildren, we all know each other fairly well even if we don't see each other all that often anymore. And it's not that we don't know those younger five, it's just that we didn't have as much time with them before the family started moving all over the country. We used to all be primarily living in Iowa and Illinois. Nowadays, just figuring in the 25 grandchildren on the Lentz side we cover states from Arizona to Massachusetts and Florida to Washington State and a heck of lot of other states in between. Most of Lincoln's family is confined to Massachusetts and Vermont and we see them less than we see mine. In fact, until Nate's funeral in December I had only met 2 of his cousins.

But this is what amazes me about my family. We're close in a way you wouldn't imagine. Do we talk to each other every day and know exactly what is going on in every one's life? No. But we know about the major events like weddings, births, and deaths. And we make sure to celebrate them - or mourn them - as a family.

This year we have two major family events. My cousin Rachel, the youngest of all the grandchildren, had her bat mitzvah in January and all the aunts and uncles, and a good number of the cousins, flew out to New Mexico to help her celebrate. This June my aunt, Sister Bonnie, is celebrating her Golden Jubilee (50 years as a nun) and it sounds like almost all of the cousins will be making it back as well as all of Sister's siblings. I'm flying back alone with both kids for 48 hours even though it means early morning flights that Jake will most likely throw up on. My cousin Brenda is flying in Saturday afternoon for the party and will turn around and fly back to North Carolina the next day.

In this day in age, when everyone is so busy and money is tight and we're spread from coast to coast, I am impressed at what a tight family I have. I am incredibly blessed and I know that all of the credit for creating this tight-knit family rests on my Dad and his siblings. All of them have shown us the meaning of family and it is obviously something that each and every one of us have learned through watching Grandma and Grandpa and their eight wonderful children. Thank you Linus, Charlotte, John, Sister, Dad, Rose, Mike and Joe for giving me such a great foundation.

(And no, I'm not discounting Mom's side of the family. They're pretty freaking awesome too but I only have three cousins on that side so it's not nearly as impressive.) BIG SMILE!

Snow day

Last week our office closed - along with the rest of the state - for what became known as the "Waldo Storm". As in, Where's Waldo? The storm never developed but the entire state had been shut down the night before in anticipation of the huge wallop we were going to get according to the meteorologists.

Instead, we got hit today. By the time we woke up this morning we had an inch or two of snow already and the roads were a horrible, slushy mess. I had a doctor's appointment at 8:30 a.m. and the trip to the doctor's and then the pharmacy and then home again was quite treacherous.

When Lincoln got home he told me that our neighbor had gotten in an accident up the street. Luckily she's not hurt but her car got it pretty bad. It sounds like she was basically in the same situation - and in the exact same location - as I was in last January but unfortunately when she spun around there was another car coming and she got T-boned.

Thank God I had Uncle Linus with me that day.

Dad's new hair

Today while we were walking around Old Town with my cousin Julie and her family her husband found this wonderful new hat for Dad. Doesn't he look great with hair?

Family time

As great as it has been to see all of the aunts and uncles and cousins and their kids, the best part of the weekend, so far, was hanging with my cousins last night. After everyone arrived, and the kids were all put to bed, many of us cousins got together and had a few drinks and just hung out in one of the hotel rooms. It amazes me that even though we don't always get to see each other very often, we're still an incredibly close family and every time we get together I feel like we've barely been apart. It was for fun to just hang out with them and we stayed up until about 2 a.m. chatting which has made for a very long day today. I think tonight will be an early night.

Albuquerque - Day Two

We've had another busy day in Albuquerque and another day of crazy weather. Today it has snowed, rained, sleeted, and hailed. And then we had beautiful blue skies and sun while looking at dark, scary clouds in the distance. This weather is insane.

Today was Rachel's bat mitzvah. Considering there were about a dozen kids under the age of 14 - and most under the age of 10 - they all did really well. The ceremony took a little over two hours and, if you've ever attended a bar or bat mitzvah, you know it's mostly in Hebrew. The fact that all of the kids sat quietly was a minor miracle in itself. Jake, Ava, and Zachary actually slept throught most of the ceremony so that was nice.

After the bat mitzvah we had lunch and then Lincoln and the kids spent 4 hours in the pool before getting out long enough to eat dinner and get back in for Rachel's pool party. Tonight is the "Taco and Swimming" party. Jake and Hannah are back in the pool along with the other kids, some of my cousins, and Rachel and 6 or 7 of her friends. On top of that there is another family with about 9 kids and 5 adults so it was pretty packed. The pool also has a really nice water slide so that is adding to the fun - and the chaos.

Tomorrow morning is a family brunch over at Mike and Robin's and them most of the family starts heading back out. We're here until Monday and so are my cousins Julie and Kathy and their families. Between the three families there are 9 kids so I'm sure the pool will be pretty packed again tomorrow night.

Albuquerque - Day One (Subtitled: Why you should never teach children about time zones)

In our first 24 hours in Albuquerque we have had 60 mph winds, snow, pouring rain, hail, sleet, and sun. Not necessarily in that order. It was more like wind, pouring rain, snow, rain, sleet, clouds, drizzle, sun, clouds, rain, sun, clouds, rain, hail, sun. Needless to say the weather is a bit kooky around here.

This morning I woke up at 4:59 a.m. to find Hannah staring me in the face. As soon as I opened my eyes she said "It's almost 7 a.m. on my body time." Damn time zones. And damn her for knowing how to add two to the time on the clock. I couldn't fall back asleep so at 5:30 a.m. Hannah, Jake and I headed down to the pool which opened at 5 a.m. and let Lincoln get some more sleep. We had a nice morning down there and after we all got showered and dressed we headed out to Denny's for breakfast with Mom, Dad, Aunt Sandy and Uncle John. After breakfast we set out on a quest to find swim goggles (for Hannah) and a swim ring (for Jake) since I had forgotten to pack both. We went to Walgreen's, Wal-mart, K-Mart, Sports Authority, and another Walgreen's before, at the very last minute, we spotted a Toys R Us hiding behind the big Dillard's across the street from the hotel. Score! We made out with all sorts of pool loot and the kids are back down there swimming again. The indoor waterslide gets turned on in an hour so they're excited about that. My cousin's two daughters are here as well and they're 8 and 10 years old so I'm sure Hannah will have a blast with them. My other cousins are bringing a bunch of other kids today as well so by the end of tonight there will be a whole pool full of kids in all age ranges.

We also made a stop in Old Town today which was a lot of fun. Hannah and Jake fought it at first because they wanted to be back in the pool but I think they both really enjoyed themselves even though we were only shopping. They found a lot of fun trinkets and both spent some of their allowance money. I also bought Hannah a yellow kerchief-style dress that is very similar to one that I got in Old Town here in Albuquerque when I was the same age as her. When Mom and Dad get back to Seattle they'll have to send me the picture of me in my yellow dress and I'll post both of them here. For now, here is Hannah in her dress. We got it a little big so that she can wear it this summer (minus the clunky black shoes).

Two peas in a pod

You can never say that my dad and his brother John don't look alike.

A long day of travel

Well, we made it to Albuquerque. It has been a long day but the kids did great. We flew from Boston to Dallas and then into Albuquerque. What was different than our usual travels is that we 1) didn't fly during the night time or very early in the morning so it wasn't really prime nap time for the kids and 2) we didn't fly JetBlue so there weren't TVs for the kids to watch. But the kids did awesome. They really are excellent little travelers.

Due to our new found discovery that Jake gets motion sickness if we travel too early in the morning when he hasn't had enough to eat, we decided to take a 1:30 p.m. flight out of Boston. I was smart enough to pack the DVD players but not smart enough to charge them beforehand so Hannah got to watch about 1/2 of a movie and Jake just played Nintendo DS for most of the time. Luckily we brought all the chargers with us so we can charge them up at the hotel. Hannah also had her iPod so she listened to music and played games on that.

We're here in New Mexico for my cousin Rachel's bat mitzvah. I'm really excited to be here as I missed her older sister's bat mitzvah when I was heavily pregnant with Jake. A good chunk of the Lentz side of the family will be in town this weekend and it's a nice little mini-family reunion. The last few times I've been back to large Lentz family events have been for funerals and I haven't had Lincoln and the kids with me so it's nice that we can all be here for a happy occasion. I'm really looking forward to seeing all of my aunts and uncles and a number of my cousin's and their kids.

More from Albuquerque later....