Highlights and Lowlights

The kids and I are back from a 6-day trip to Texas to see my parents and to give Ryan some time to really work on his school and air force stuff. I'm glad we were able to go, but the trip was not without its challenges. I'll mention here some good and some less-than-desirable circumstances.

On the way there, Stephen and Abby were delightful travel companions. On our 2nd flight, the young woman next to us was sleeping almost the whole time. As we were getting ready to deplane, Stephen noticed that she still had her eyes closed. He started pointing at her frantically: "WAKE! WAKE! WAKE!" I promised him that I'd make sure she got off the plane, too, but at that point she was already smiling at him. Stephen was so excited when he saw mom, dad, and Emily waiting for us that he sped up from his casual stroll to an all-out run to greet them.

We got to have lunch at the restaurant where Emily works. It was a busy time for them, so she was pretty busy, and Stephen didn't understand why he couldn't have "Tantie Em" all to himself.

I was given a few names of women to connect with in San Antonio (hi Bethany and Julie and Sherri) ... and that was really nice as we weren't really there to be tourists but rather to get a feel for what the locals do.

While I'm glad we got to go to San Antonio for the day, it was a little overwhelming for me. The hour-long wait at the visitor center to get onto the base was tiring and the city is too big to just drive around a few areas where we might want to live.

Wednesday when mom and I got back from toy shopping, Stephen was resting on the couch with a fever. He continued to get sicker and sicker and we finally took him to the minute clinic at the CVS down the street. We did that mostly so they could take a look at his ears to see if he would be able to handle the airplane ride today. She heard his wheezing and sent us immediately to urgent care. "Urgent care" was not a good name for this place, as we waited 2.5 hours to see a doctor and get a prescription for a sinus infection. The medicine did its work and Stephen is much better today!

We celebrated Emily's 25th birthday with a giant cookie. Stephen sort of ruined the little bit of surprise it would have been; when she walked in the house he said, "CANDLES!"

I mentionned the toy shopping before. Mom and I found a great deal on toy train track (all you could fit in a gallon ziploc for $5!) and I got a magnetic calendar that I won't use for awhile. We also found the pushtoy for Abby that she LOVES!

MAMACITAS!

Today was pretty much a nightmare at the airports. We flew Austin-Chicago-Indianapolis and then drove home. Stephen hardly ever wants to sit in the stroller, and that's fine when we aren't in a hurry and when he is being cooperative and staying close to me. After being sick Wednesday and Thursday, he was still feeling rather weak and would really have prefered to sit on the couch with mommy watching Thomas the Tank Engine. So hooray for being home with 2 sleeping kids :).