All Good Things Must Come to an End

Alas the last week of our summer vacation.  It's always a bittersweet time.  Nora & I love, love our time in Florida but we definitely miss Aaron & can't wait to get back home to him!

We were so lucky to be able to stay with The Johnsons almost an extra week after the cruise.  They are so good to us!  Most of that week The Browns got to stay also.  That meant more party time for us.  By Tuesday everyone else had left to go home.

Some of us had a friendly Twister competition.

The winner of each age group played in a 'finale'.

The twister audience (aka family)

We spent time hanging out.

Millie & Nora enjoyed Ruby's doll bed as a couch.

Nora loved taking Ruby's sink out and climbing in.

Nora loved to dress up in the boys stuff.

Nora swimming in their community pool.

Nora swimming with her floaties.

One day we went to this amazing mangrove place.  We took a canoe and paddle board out to a small sand bar/island and took turns going through the mangrove tunnels.  While there were a lot of small critters and some tall grass underwater it was fun.  I've never seen anything like it and it's definitely a to-do again next year!

Emma, Riley, & Beau paddling together

Nora enjoying the sand bar.

Another favorite thing we did was I went with my aunts (Molly & Karen) to the fabric store and bought fabric to make Nora a fabulous outfit.  After The Browns left Molly helped me sew most of it.  I still haven't finished it, but I definitely will before next summer!  It's to die for!  (Well, not literally.)


Since it was almost back to school time, Nora & I were there when Beau started football.  We got to see his first practice of tackle football ever!  (Not counting football camp this summer.)  Isn't he cute?

Nora at the field

Beau's team

Workin' hard

Beau in his pads

Saturday came and it was time for us to fly home.  This was Nora's first time flying and, of course, my first time flying alone with an infant.  Woo-wee.  It was entertaining to say the least.  The morning of our journey I went to plug in the portable DVD player and the crazy cord broke in two.  Taping did not work so my saving grace of Baby Einstein went out the window.  I quickly downloaded some Word World and Sesame Street on my iPod just in case.  We didn't end up using it but it was nice to knw I had something to fall back on.  Little did I know that you can't really get things out of your bag under the seat while flying with an infant on your lap...because, well, there's an infant on your lap.

Thankfully we had help checking our bag & car seat in and picking up our luggage when we got home because that was a lot of stuff!  Nora is pretty good so I know the flights could have been worse.  (I'm oh-so thankful they weren't!)

Beau, Molly, Ruby, & Nora at the Sarasota Airport

We had two short (around an hour each) flights with a quick layover in Atlanta between them.  Let's just say we were blessed with loving & patient people sitting beside us on the first flight.  The only open seat was a middle seat and there was no changing it.  Nora definitely kicked the poor grandpa beside me and repeatedly poked or tried talking to the sleeping grandma on my other side.  The grandpa was nice & regularly pulled out the Sky Mall magazine to show Nora the dogs.  Nora did fine until we started descending.  In rare form she started crying, screaming, and thrashing around.  (Try controlling that in the middle seat!)  I know she was unbelievably tired of me holding her in my lap and I'd be willing to bet her ears were hurting.  Thankfully she stopped a minute or so after we landed.  The whole episode was maybe 5 minutes.  I count that as a blessing.  I can handle a few minutes even with all the people commenting to her about how unhappy she is.

While in Atlanta several people still found us and commented about how happy she was now.  Haha.  Oops, sorry fellow flyers.  The layover went by very fast & we boarded the next plane.

Once again we had very patient kids, parents, & grandparents around us that would play peek-a-boo or "enjoy" their head & back massages instead of getting upset.  Almost immediately upon boarding Nora had a pungent present for me.  We made our way to the bathroom to change her.  Boy was that an experience.  As a 14 month old she was too long for the changing table.  It was a battle and neither of us "won".  After waiting on the plane for about 20 minutes and not taking off they reported that they could not find the pilot.  Something was wrong with the paperwork.  It had the flight time wrong on his stuff so they had to track him down to tell him to hurry up.  We waited for at least 45 minutes before we left.  At first the very nice flight attendant let Nora play and walk in the aisle or play in the back of the plane.  About 5-10 minutes before we left she fell fast asleep in my lap.  (Hooray!) She was such a trooper & slept all the way until we started descending.  You better believe I was nervous about her waking up in time for that!  I tried and tried to find her sippy cup (in case that helped her ears) but I couldn't.  (Turns out I left in the stroller we checked at the plane door.  Fail.)  Nora actually did fine and didn't whine or cry at all.

Of course she was very happy to see Daddy waiting for her in the baggage claim.  We were both happy to see him & to have successfully made it off the planes!  The only casualty we had was a big tear in the handle of our stroller (which cannot be replaced).  Fortunately for us, we now have compensation in the form of a $50 travel voucher for a future flight.  Sweet...maybe we'll fly next year.

Whew, that was long but not near as long as it all felt.  Moral of the story:  put your go-to things in the back pocket of the seat and pass out ear plugs to your neighbors if you fly with an infant.  =)