Brayden decided it was far more fun to play than get dressed the other morning. Being behind the door was exceptionally fun.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Long time coming...
It has been another long span of time since I last posted. A lot has gone on in our little world too. I flew out to help Aunt Amity drive home with a load of stuff. The driving wasn't so eventful but the flying certainly was. This country girl sure got a real experience in airports and planes. Thought I learned it all when we were getting Brayden, but the domestic side of experience was yet to be learned I guess.
I arrived at our small airport at 5:30 a.m. to fly out at 6:05, right away the lady told me we had a situation, not a good way to start the day. Our plane didn't come in from Denver the night before so they were sending the plane from Gillette down to pick up the 12 of us leaving from here. That plane didn't leave Riverton till 7:30 a.m.. There went my layover in Denver, out the window. We landed in Denver, my bag was NOT brought to the bottom of the steps so I stepped to the back of the plane to request it, I was escorted back to the steps...can't go back there. I turned around to watch the guy with the luggage and he had listened to me so had just put my bag down on the cart for the other guy to bring to me. This other guy was busy explaining to me that I couldn't have my bag because it was a "checked" bag. I told him it was NOT checked, it had the pink tag on it see its right there, so he went and got it for me. I took off RUNNING across the tarmack to the gate entrance, this was quite a ways actually, continued jogging down the hallway, stopped to double check my gate. Continued on my way, up the escalator, down A concorse, down the escalator, to the tram, on to concorse B, up the escalator, down the concorse to the gate, arrived with still 20 people to board, made it with a few minutes to spare. Lungs burning from the cold air I enhaled, but that does go away all be it not for a couple of hours. Called Am and told her I made it and got on the plane. We pulled away from the gate and out to the parking lot, I kid you not, we sat in the parking lot for 30 min eating up my layover in Chicago. By the time we landed at O'Hare, I was down to 20 min. I ran in found the monitors and my flight was still "on time" but the 4:30 flight to Buffalo was cancelled. I went on down to my gate, there were people waiting in the chairs but no personnel at the gate and we should have been boarding. I guessed it was delayed, so sat and waited for 5 min at which point another young man came running down the concorse and asked if this was still the gate for the Buffalo flight, (a lady had come to the gate as he got there) she said that this flight was cancelled too. Off we went to customer service, a line of 150 to 200 people I am sure. After a few minutes a lady came to about the middle of the line and had all the Buffalo people come to the computers. Turned out to be a wonderful thing as she showed me how to use these computers, I used them a lot that day. I got tickets for two flights to Washington Dulles then would get a flight from there to Buffalo. The earlier flight I was on standby and got on that plane, after a few minutes they came on to say the pilot was diverted to another airport and wouldn't arrive in O'Hare till 7:30 p.m. I ran to the second flight, it kept getting delayed, finally till 7:2o which meant I missed my connection in Washinton to Buffalo. Back to the drawing board, the guy at the gate put me on the 8:30 flight direct to Buffalo. Boarded that plane, and was told one of the crew members was out of hours they would find another one. After a few more minutes, we were told to gather our belongings the flight was cancelled, back to the computers, spoke on the phone to a really nice guy that got me a flight to Rochester no time to print tickets just run down the escalator, across the underground tunnel to the other concorse, get to the gate to get my ticket from the agent, no one there, waited three min and the sign changed to San Diego, flight cancelled just like that. Back to the computers, got the same man a spoke with 15 min before, he said nothing else was moving, best was a ticket on the 7:30 a.m. flight to Buffalo. Time to accept the fact that I was spending the night in the airport or I could spend $399 for a bed at the attached Hilton. I went to the gate for the morning flight and found a bench 4 seats long with no arm rests, I could stretch out, covered up with my coat, plugged the cell phone in and slept for about45 min of every hour. Not bad actually. Amity called me at 5 and said the storm hit there check my flight, yup cancelled, she said to just get to Cleveland, so I went back to the computers and picked up the phone, got a flight to Cleveland leaving at 10:30. Got on the standby list for the flight leaving at 7:45 and actually boarded that flight. Sitting on the plane for 5 min and the pilot said they over fueled this plane for landing in Cleveland, pump truck coming, little later, no pump truck is frozen will be 1 1/2 hrs before it can come, so a different plane, please take you belongings and leave this plane, got to next gate and board again. Finally at 9 something that plane began leaving the gate, I called Am and said "we are MOVING at last". Finally off the ground and I was never so relieved to land in Cleveland and know that I could follow the exit signs and leave the airports for GOOD!!. I waited for Amity for 45 min or so and she picked me up at the door, had to find room for my suitcase, but that was accomplished. Off to find food that wasn't airport food. Seemed everytime I bought something it was $7 no matter what. After lunch I drove for 2 hrs and then it was all up to sis to get us to Davenport. We made it and had a good supper, spent some time in the hottub that was 5 steps from our door and then showers and bed. What a feeling to crawl into a real bed. Next day was more of the same driving except I did a little more my share. We got to Cheyenne that night and then on into Laramie Friday morning to unload and see the new apt. After we unloaded we had to find an open road out of Laramie, turned out we could cut across to Wheatland. On that 54 mile stretch we met 11 highway patrol cars. Thats a lot of cops!! Ate lunch in Wheatland and then on to Casper. A bit of shopping that couldn't be avoided and headed home. Roger agreed to cook supper for us. We made it home in one piece.
Brayden was jumping up and down inside the door when I came in. He was glad to see me, altho he didn't cry or anything when I left. He was a good little boy while I was gone. I did talk to him on the phone each day, so it wasn't as though I was completely gone. I was pretty certain he had grown an inch ha ha.
Since being home, he has continued to spend a lot of time in the shop with Daddy, they had such a good bonding experience. And he is growing, we had to go up a size in shoes today. He was complaining of the other ones being "tight". There was a little room in the toe on them, but apparently not enough side to side. So up to the size 7 tennis shoes we go. I have shoes up to 9 in the closet so he is set for a while, it doesn't require a trip to town to change shoe sizes. :-)
Brayden is thrilled to have Aunt Ami closer to home. He asked for her the other night after she had gone back to Laramie so I called her so he could say "goodnight". Made both their nights I think!! He has been asking when she is coming back, so I would guess he is looking forward to it.
Now thats a long post, shouldn't wait so long to write I guess. Here are some pics too. I mostly wanted this all down for future reference, memory is going out the window ya know. Happens as we get older I hear. :-)
I arrived at our small airport at 5:30 a.m. to fly out at 6:05, right away the lady told me we had a situation, not a good way to start the day. Our plane didn't come in from Denver the night before so they were sending the plane from Gillette down to pick up the 12 of us leaving from here. That plane didn't leave Riverton till 7:30 a.m.. There went my layover in Denver, out the window. We landed in Denver, my bag was NOT brought to the bottom of the steps so I stepped to the back of the plane to request it, I was escorted back to the steps...can't go back there. I turned around to watch the guy with the luggage and he had listened to me so had just put my bag down on the cart for the other guy to bring to me. This other guy was busy explaining to me that I couldn't have my bag because it was a "checked" bag. I told him it was NOT checked, it had the pink tag on it see its right there, so he went and got it for me. I took off RUNNING across the tarmack to the gate entrance, this was quite a ways actually, continued jogging down the hallway, stopped to double check my gate. Continued on my way, up the escalator, down A concorse, down the escalator, to the tram, on to concorse B, up the escalator, down the concorse to the gate, arrived with still 20 people to board, made it with a few minutes to spare. Lungs burning from the cold air I enhaled, but that does go away all be it not for a couple of hours. Called Am and told her I made it and got on the plane. We pulled away from the gate and out to the parking lot, I kid you not, we sat in the parking lot for 30 min eating up my layover in Chicago. By the time we landed at O'Hare, I was down to 20 min. I ran in found the monitors and my flight was still "on time" but the 4:30 flight to Buffalo was cancelled. I went on down to my gate, there were people waiting in the chairs but no personnel at the gate and we should have been boarding. I guessed it was delayed, so sat and waited for 5 min at which point another young man came running down the concorse and asked if this was still the gate for the Buffalo flight, (a lady had come to the gate as he got there) she said that this flight was cancelled too. Off we went to customer service, a line of 150 to 200 people I am sure. After a few minutes a lady came to about the middle of the line and had all the Buffalo people come to the computers. Turned out to be a wonderful thing as she showed me how to use these computers, I used them a lot that day. I got tickets for two flights to Washington Dulles then would get a flight from there to Buffalo. The earlier flight I was on standby and got on that plane, after a few minutes they came on to say the pilot was diverted to another airport and wouldn't arrive in O'Hare till 7:30 p.m. I ran to the second flight, it kept getting delayed, finally till 7:2o which meant I missed my connection in Washinton to Buffalo. Back to the drawing board, the guy at the gate put me on the 8:30 flight direct to Buffalo. Boarded that plane, and was told one of the crew members was out of hours they would find another one. After a few more minutes, we were told to gather our belongings the flight was cancelled, back to the computers, spoke on the phone to a really nice guy that got me a flight to Rochester no time to print tickets just run down the escalator, across the underground tunnel to the other concorse, get to the gate to get my ticket from the agent, no one there, waited three min and the sign changed to San Diego, flight cancelled just like that. Back to the computers, got the same man a spoke with 15 min before, he said nothing else was moving, best was a ticket on the 7:30 a.m. flight to Buffalo. Time to accept the fact that I was spending the night in the airport or I could spend $399 for a bed at the attached Hilton. I went to the gate for the morning flight and found a bench 4 seats long with no arm rests, I could stretch out, covered up with my coat, plugged the cell phone in and slept for about45 min of every hour. Not bad actually. Amity called me at 5 and said the storm hit there check my flight, yup cancelled, she said to just get to Cleveland, so I went back to the computers and picked up the phone, got a flight to Cleveland leaving at 10:30. Got on the standby list for the flight leaving at 7:45 and actually boarded that flight. Sitting on the plane for 5 min and the pilot said they over fueled this plane for landing in Cleveland, pump truck coming, little later, no pump truck is frozen will be 1 1/2 hrs before it can come, so a different plane, please take you belongings and leave this plane, got to next gate and board again. Finally at 9 something that plane began leaving the gate, I called Am and said "we are MOVING at last". Finally off the ground and I was never so relieved to land in Cleveland and know that I could follow the exit signs and leave the airports for GOOD!!. I waited for Amity for 45 min or so and she picked me up at the door, had to find room for my suitcase, but that was accomplished. Off to find food that wasn't airport food. Seemed everytime I bought something it was $7 no matter what. After lunch I drove for 2 hrs and then it was all up to sis to get us to Davenport. We made it and had a good supper, spent some time in the hottub that was 5 steps from our door and then showers and bed. What a feeling to crawl into a real bed. Next day was more of the same driving except I did a little more my share. We got to Cheyenne that night and then on into Laramie Friday morning to unload and see the new apt. After we unloaded we had to find an open road out of Laramie, turned out we could cut across to Wheatland. On that 54 mile stretch we met 11 highway patrol cars. Thats a lot of cops!! Ate lunch in Wheatland and then on to Casper. A bit of shopping that couldn't be avoided and headed home. Roger agreed to cook supper for us. We made it home in one piece.
Brayden was jumping up and down inside the door when I came in. He was glad to see me, altho he didn't cry or anything when I left. He was a good little boy while I was gone. I did talk to him on the phone each day, so it wasn't as though I was completely gone. I was pretty certain he had grown an inch ha ha.
Since being home, he has continued to spend a lot of time in the shop with Daddy, they had such a good bonding experience. And he is growing, we had to go up a size in shoes today. He was complaining of the other ones being "tight". There was a little room in the toe on them, but apparently not enough side to side. So up to the size 7 tennis shoes we go. I have shoes up to 9 in the closet so he is set for a while, it doesn't require a trip to town to change shoe sizes. :-)
Brayden is thrilled to have Aunt Ami closer to home. He asked for her the other night after she had gone back to Laramie so I called her so he could say "goodnight". Made both their nights I think!! He has been asking when she is coming back, so I would guess he is looking forward to it.
Now thats a long post, shouldn't wait so long to write I guess. Here are some pics too. I mostly wanted this all down for future reference, memory is going out the window ya know. Happens as we get older I hear. :-)
Friday, January 25, 2008
Two bright spots in my life...
These are for Aunt Amity, she provided the Sabers shirt for Brayden. Its a perfect fit right now, guess he will get the next three months use out of it and then we will put it away. Seems a shame, but thats how it goes with most of his clothes, just like any other kid. He is growing up on us, seems nothing stays the same for very long. In many ways that is good, but kind of sad too.
fun blow up thing...
Whenever we have company in the guest room, Brayden goes in to investigate the closet. I have had these two blow up play areas in a box in that closet and he always asks to get them out. Originally...I had planned to use this one as a baby playpen, well we never had a baby baby so its just stayed in the box. The other one is a lot bigger, but it really needs more than one kid to be fun and adults are NOT allowed. We thought we would blow up the smaller of the two and see how long it took for him to grow tired of it. It took about one hour for him to lose interest. Now if there was more than one kid in there jumping around, that would be different, but there is still just one kid in our household. We took it down and put it away again.
I have also recently gone through the toys and made lots of them "disappear". He "found" his car last night, but it "disappeared" again. I am waiting another couple of weeks to rotate the toys out and put some new ones in. Seems like he has soooo many but isn't interested in any of them very much. Perhaps there will be some "new" ones when we rotate. When all his attention and time are spent indoors it really shows how much time he spends with any set of toys. Of course in the spring and summer they will get largly ignored.
We "found" the little basketball hoop that I had bought at a yard sale a few years ago. Roger put it out in the shop and now the "boys" shoot hoops in their spare time!!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
completely out
We went in to kiss our son goodnight the other night and this is what we saw...completely out of it. He rolled over after the flash went off to take the pic. Stayed crashed though.
cutting it up
note the Bar J's in the background, should have turned it off, but don't know how to edit it out now...
Saturday, January 05, 2008
two better than one
Kevin and Brayden went down the slope several times together and seemed to squeal all the way!!
great recovery skills
Brayden did pretty well to stay on this sled...thats Becky doing the video. It allowed me some time to sled as well.
Zoo lights
We enjoyed our time at the zoo altho it was COLD. We got to see several animals. The leopard, cougar, tiger, black bear, white crocodile, some monkeys, that about covers it. The cats were fun to see as they were moving around instead of sleeping. The light show was most of it though. This video is several clipped together, so it will be a bit choppy, but better than posting six diff videos.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Fabulous Holiday's
We have had such a wonderful end to 2007 and then an equally wonderful beginning to 2008. We spent Christmas with my family. We all made it home and had a few days together, meals, games, good laughs and some serious talks too. But it was all fun. We also shared a cold between us all. Started with Dad and drifted down from there with Roger coming home on Wed with it. Brayden and I came home on thurs night and had friday to do laundry and left again Saturday at lunch time headed for Provo Utah to meet Noah and Becky and Kevin. We had planned a full action packed two weeks. Most are aware that Becky and I are cousins and we both have been married to our wonderful husbands for 12 yrs. We all went to Russia in 2006 and brought our boys home. Kevin is 6 months older than Brayden. We wanted the two boys to meet and connect with each other, we hope to accomplish this every year at least once.
We drove on some pretty nasty roads to get to Provo, so it took us a full hour extra on time. We got there and Becky and Noah and Kevin met us at the door to let us in to our hotel room. We introduced the boys and encouraged them to hug. Brayden was faster on the uptake on that than Kevin was, but they did hug and had an instant bond. In fact when we got up to the third floor and headed down the hallway, they ran down that hallway squealing to beat all. It started some dogs barking in the unit next to us. :-) We had a wonderful suite, it had two queen bedrooms with master baths, one on each side of the living room, dining table and chairs, full kitchen. We took three main meals between us, breakfast was included with the room. Sunday we went to meeting with Bobby and had a nice time there. We then returned to the room had lunch and went sledding. There was a really nice park there in town that had a large bowl scooped out of the middle with really neat slopes on the sides, some more steep than others. We had a complete blast sledding. After sledding for a couple of hours, we went back to the hotel and dressed the boys in swim clothes and sent them to the pool with their daddy's. Becky and I had a little down time and then joined them at the pool. They were sooo close to complete crashes, no naps and a late night the night before. We decided to feed them early and hope for the best. I made supper and we fed them after their showers. They played real good while we ate our supper and then we sent them for stories by daddy's. I will put the video of Brayden on here, its really funny!!! Soooo tired, but not giving in. Monday we headed for Salt Lake to the Imax theatre and then the zoo had a real neat light display for the holidays. Brayden was scared during the theatre show, it was Santa versus the Snowman, all animated, but Brayden was worried. Part of it was that it was 3D so it seemed to come right out at us. I took his 3D glasses off and tried to explain stuff to him he calmed down and made it through. The zoo was a bigger hit, except Mama wasn't dressed warm enough. Both the boys were in snow pants, coats, hats, boots the works. Mama wasn't smart enough to bring my snow pants or boots along, so I was just wearing my coat and gloves. Oh well, it worked out ok. After we finished at the zoo, we tried to find a place for supper, but all the restaurants we tried had 1 hr to 1 1/2 hr waits. We went back to our room and finished off with soup I had brought. Everyone was glad actually to bypass the whole restaurant thing, we might have had a real public meltdown. We let the boys stay up till 10:30 as it was the last night together. They played and played. Altho as parents we have to admit that they did get pretty familiar with each other and with that came the not sharing toys well and some very minor issues. Its hard to explain to a 3 yr old that goodbye means a long time sometimes. They both asked about each other the next day and seemed to miss each other. We are so glad they met and had such a good connection. We will let the videos and pics tell the main story.
We are back home and somewhat back to normal. Its been a little tough to get the schedule back on track. Its even been alittle tough for Brayden to learn to play alone some of the time. He had two full weeks of lots of people willing and eager to give attention. Its actually so nice to sleep in our own bed lots of nights in a row. In fact on the way home, Brayden was asking about his dump truck bed. He really seemed to look forward to sleeping in it again. Now if we can just get him over his cold we will be doing good. He woke up from his nap yesterday with real congestion and coughing. We have been keeping him dosed with his meds and he is doing ok. He is playing well, so he's not lethargic or anything, just a bit slower than normal. If all goes well we won't end up with an ear infection and he will get well quickly.
We wish everyone a wonderful new year!! Don't forget to comment or just let us know you stopped by to visit.
We drove on some pretty nasty roads to get to Provo, so it took us a full hour extra on time. We got there and Becky and Noah and Kevin met us at the door to let us in to our hotel room. We introduced the boys and encouraged them to hug. Brayden was faster on the uptake on that than Kevin was, but they did hug and had an instant bond. In fact when we got up to the third floor and headed down the hallway, they ran down that hallway squealing to beat all. It started some dogs barking in the unit next to us. :-) We had a wonderful suite, it had two queen bedrooms with master baths, one on each side of the living room, dining table and chairs, full kitchen. We took three main meals between us, breakfast was included with the room. Sunday we went to meeting with Bobby and had a nice time there. We then returned to the room had lunch and went sledding. There was a really nice park there in town that had a large bowl scooped out of the middle with really neat slopes on the sides, some more steep than others. We had a complete blast sledding. After sledding for a couple of hours, we went back to the hotel and dressed the boys in swim clothes and sent them to the pool with their daddy's. Becky and I had a little down time and then joined them at the pool. They were sooo close to complete crashes, no naps and a late night the night before. We decided to feed them early and hope for the best. I made supper and we fed them after their showers. They played real good while we ate our supper and then we sent them for stories by daddy's. I will put the video of Brayden on here, its really funny!!! Soooo tired, but not giving in. Monday we headed for Salt Lake to the Imax theatre and then the zoo had a real neat light display for the holidays. Brayden was scared during the theatre show, it was Santa versus the Snowman, all animated, but Brayden was worried. Part of it was that it was 3D so it seemed to come right out at us. I took his 3D glasses off and tried to explain stuff to him he calmed down and made it through. The zoo was a bigger hit, except Mama wasn't dressed warm enough. Both the boys were in snow pants, coats, hats, boots the works. Mama wasn't smart enough to bring my snow pants or boots along, so I was just wearing my coat and gloves. Oh well, it worked out ok. After we finished at the zoo, we tried to find a place for supper, but all the restaurants we tried had 1 hr to 1 1/2 hr waits. We went back to our room and finished off with soup I had brought. Everyone was glad actually to bypass the whole restaurant thing, we might have had a real public meltdown. We let the boys stay up till 10:30 as it was the last night together. They played and played. Altho as parents we have to admit that they did get pretty familiar with each other and with that came the not sharing toys well and some very minor issues. Its hard to explain to a 3 yr old that goodbye means a long time sometimes. They both asked about each other the next day and seemed to miss each other. We are so glad they met and had such a good connection. We will let the videos and pics tell the main story.
We are back home and somewhat back to normal. Its been a little tough to get the schedule back on track. Its even been alittle tough for Brayden to learn to play alone some of the time. He had two full weeks of lots of people willing and eager to give attention. Its actually so nice to sleep in our own bed lots of nights in a row. In fact on the way home, Brayden was asking about his dump truck bed. He really seemed to look forward to sleeping in it again. Now if we can just get him over his cold we will be doing good. He woke up from his nap yesterday with real congestion and coughing. We have been keeping him dosed with his meds and he is doing ok. He is playing well, so he's not lethargic or anything, just a bit slower than normal. If all goes well we won't end up with an ear infection and he will get well quickly.
We wish everyone a wonderful new year!! Don't forget to comment or just let us know you stopped by to visit.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
over x-mas vacation
We have been at Granny and Papa's since saturday evening. We had pro family pics done on saturday evening so we started our vacation early. Brayden did pretty good through all the pic thing. We hope there are a few good ones.
Sunday we had our own little meeting here as a few of us haven't been feeling good. Its been good family time for everyone.
Brayden really has enjoyed it this year. He is a lot more settled and secure than he was last year. This year he is more ready to sit on other laps and be spoiled by others rather than just mama and daddy. Its actually been mama and daddy that really aren't on the radar unless he needs safety. If he feels unsure he comes to find me, otherwise he is just running the household as usual. We looked back at some pics from last year and he has changed soooo much. Hard to believe how he changes until we are looking for it. We are so very glad he is completely normal and healthy.
Will let this do for now. Lots of other things to do, but will keep posting pics as time goes. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!
Sunday we had our own little meeting here as a few of us haven't been feeling good. Its been good family time for everyone.
Brayden really has enjoyed it this year. He is a lot more settled and secure than he was last year. This year he is more ready to sit on other laps and be spoiled by others rather than just mama and daddy. Its actually been mama and daddy that really aren't on the radar unless he needs safety. If he feels unsure he comes to find me, otherwise he is just running the household as usual. We looked back at some pics from last year and he has changed soooo much. Hard to believe how he changes until we are looking for it. We are so very glad he is completely normal and healthy.
Will let this do for now. Lots of other things to do, but will keep posting pics as time goes. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!
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