Colorado Vacation Begins

Early early on Jesse's birthday, we started our trip to Colorado.  Our plan was to be up by 4:30am, to get to the airport early enough for our flight at 7am.  Well, I accidentally set my alarm for PM instead of AM, and Jesse apparently either didn't hear his alarm or turned it off.  Jesse woke up up at about 4:45, gasping in terror that we didn't wake up.  We were lucky he woke up enough to notice the time, because it took me forever to fall asleep the night before, as is always the case before a big trip, and so I was essentially dead, only about 3 hours into my sleep.  There was no way I would have woken up.  But Jesse's panic got me moving, and so off I went on only 3 hours of sleep.

Melinda woke up easily - just the lights turning on got her out of bed and excited to start the trip.  Jacob had to be shaken around a bit before he was up enough for us to get him dressed and going.  Alex woke up as soon as I got him dressed.  Amazingly, all three of them stayed awake the entire trip down to the airport.  And the only ones who slept ON the plane were Jesse (I admit I was furiously jealous of that for a little while), and Alex... for only about 45 minutes or so.  On a 4 hour flight.  Alex fought sleep and wanted to run and play the rest of the time, and Melinda and Jacob didn't even look like the were tired.  Out the window went my ideas for airplanes putting young, sleep-deprived kids right to sleep!!!

Our arrival at the airport was actually pretty stressful.  Since we were running behind, we were rushing to make up lost time.  There was no traffic, but we still had to park at the long-term parking, remove all three car seats, grab a bus to the airport, and check in.  We were banking on short lines due to the day and time of the flight, and we didn't have to wait long to get to the check-in counter, but security wait was longer than we anticipated, and our agent that checked us in was as slow as molasses.  And this was AFTER she chided us for being so late ("so late" being only1.5 hours before departure), earning us no boarding passes (I didn't know I could actually CHECK IN online a whole day before!), and told us that we needed to hurry to the gate to get seats, or they'd give them away.  So we're like, THANKS, lady--- could you maybe hurry it up a bit??  I swear I could have checked the luggage faster than 3 versions of her working together.  So anyway, we finally got checked in, and waited through security anxiously, and then really booked it down to our gate, as best as we could while trying to urge the kids along.  Jacob likes to stand completley still on moving sidewalks, so getting him to run was a joke.  But we made it, and got our boarding passes easily, like there was never any question that it would happen.  And then we had to wait around for a while... all while realizing that our planned "breakfast" of leftover Arby's burgers was sitting back in the van between the front seats, and would have to stay there for 10 days.  We had snacks, at least, but no real breakfast.

It was a full flight, but because we had young kids, we got to board rather early, and picked out a row of seats, with Melinda at the window, Jacob in the middle, and Jesse on the aisle, and me with Alex on my lap in the aisle just across from them.  An older couple sat next to me, and helped entertain Alex a little bit (because, no matter how many toys you bring, they simply aren't interesting to your own kids).  But they started to make me uncomfortable after a while, offering food to Alex, wanting to hold him, and walk him up and down the aisle.  I'm sorry, but I'm uncomfortable enough with Alex's safety while he's sitting firmly locked in my own lap, on the off chance that there's some crazy bad turbulence that rips him out of my arms and kills him.  I am certainly NOT going to hand him over to a perfect stranger and let that responsibility pass from myself.  I would never ever forgive myself if he got hurt on a plane because someone besides myself was holding him, at the wrong time, you know?

Anyway, we arrived in Denver bright and early at 10am Mountain time, where Rachel met us and took us home in the van.  All three kids fell asleep on the drive back to the Newson house, thankfully.  I was worried about them being so low on sleep!  We ate some lunch back at their house, and said hello's to Grandma and Grandpa, and Sarah and her kids (Meredith, Max, Jack and Luke), who had already been there for a few days.  Once the kids looked good and distracted with playing, I crashed on the couch, fast asleep.  I was so exhausted, after only 3 hours of sleep, a busy morning of travel, and wrangling with Alex to keep him happy on my lap on the plane.  I woke up much happier and feeling more energetic, which was a relief.

The day was spent mostly by me watching after the kids, while the others kept getting the house ready for more guests.  Jeremy and Heidi's family would be coming the next day, with their 5 kids, and Tobin would be flying in as well.   It's hard to believe it, but a good 24 people stayed in the same house for more than a week!!  The time change for us made it easier to get the kids to bed than it otherwise would have, with such a noisy, busy house.  But the downside, of course, was that they were getting up at the crack of dawn, while we kept on going to bed late so we could stay up and visit and play with the adults.

We had a delicious birthday dinner that day that we arrived, to celebrate Jesse's birthday that day, and mine a week before.  Rachel had made dessert for us, and we even got to blow out candles!  My mom had sent a birthday card to Jesse at his parent's house, and it arrived in time for him to open it that day.  That was a surprise!!  And then we got to open up some presents from the family after dinner.  Jesse's always been a hard one to give gifts to, but they had found a big collection of Calvin & Hobbes comic books to give to him, and Crocs brand swim trunks and sunglasses.  And cousin Meredith (9 years old) made for a good laugh when she wrapped a single tic tac in a giant pillowcase for Jesse to open!    I got a couple small kitchen gadgets, a great hand-made tote bag from Sarah, and a needle felting kit, which was fun, because it's something I've been wanting to try!  It's easy to feel a little spoiled when we get together with the Newson family.

The first few days we were there, we mostly just hung out at home and let the kids entertain themselves... and with so many cousins available, and Grandma's ample supply of toys from the 70's and 80's, and the giant sandy "beach" in the backyard (thanks to the unfortunate septic tank issues they had recently, and new regulations about drainage systems), entertaining themselves was generally very easy.

 

  

 

 

  

 

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

Sunday we had another birthday celebration for Rachel.  I think it's really fun having a sister-in-law the same age as myself.  Of course, as she reminded me, I'm SOooo much older than she is.  A whole 8 days older!!!  Gasp!!  But after her birthday dinner (which, in Newson tradition, the birthday girl or boy gets to choose, and Rachel chose homemade Chipotle!  Yum!!), we had more birthday dessert and singing and gifts.  Alex had his first ever ice cream cone, which he thoroughly enjoyed, and everyone else got delicious ice cream and brownies. What a weekend!!  ;)

On Monday, Jesse and a couple of his brothers helped clean out Ron and Nedra's gutters, which were overgrowing with little plants.  They actually did quite a bit of work around the house, which I'm sure was a big help to their parents.  Jesse also helped install a screen door on one of the doors downstairs.  

It was so, so, so good to see everyone again.  All those cousins had grown up so much since the last time we all got together, 2 years ago!  And being in Colorado itself was just wonderful, too.  Even though it was chilly the first several days, and raining with thunderstorms every single afternoon/evening... it just felt good to be there.

More to come later.... if I don't split this up, I'll never finish it!!   ;)

Back Home, For Now

Well, our Colorado vacation has come and gone.  It was a really fantastic 10 days.  Well, most of the time.  With three young children, there are definitely some unhappy moments that you can't escape even while you're on vacation.  But we enjoyed ourselves so much that we didn't want to come home.  I'll have plenty of pictures and stories to tell, when I have more time.

In the meantime, it's been a difficult transition to come back home.  Between switching timezones and having issues with sleep for ALL THREE kids, Alex getting a bit of pinkeye, then me getting a bad head cold (oh, how my entire head ached for a whole entire stinking long day!!), and trying to restock the fridge/cupboards, and deal with maintenance issues in the apartment, well... we hardly went out at all last week.  And everyone was crabby and constantly fighting.  It was not a happy time.  But I think we're getting back into the swing of things.  Maybe.  At least, Alex went to sleep at his usual time for the first time since coming home last Monday late night, and it didn't take TOO long for Melinda and Jacob to fall asleep tonight.  We helped Jacob go potty every single time the whole 10 days we were in Colorado, and he's still not willing to go by himself back at home yet.  That's immensely frustrating.  He's had a few accidents, thanks to that stubborn streak.

And then, of course, Jesse went back to work.  And then came home early on Friday, with news.

He's going to work next week to train people who might potentially be interested in buying the company, but the major company that was looking to buy them have now gone away.  They gave a couple offers that Jesse's company's CEO refused.  Jesse's opinion is that he's looking to make a buck in the transaction, since he certainly won't be keeping a job if someone else buys them.  But because of this, they're running out of money badly enough that they've asked everyone not to come back to work for 2 weeks.  Since Jesse is one of the few who are participating in the training, it's only 1 week for him. But at this meeting, where apparently no solid information was given, someone asked if they'd be coming back after the 2 weeks.  The answer was, "Well.... you'll be getting a call." 

Joy.

And when Jesse was given a ride home from work, Henry (not a boss, but not quite a co-worker either) pointed out that nobdoy gave anyone paperwork, and that was kind of a problem.  Yeah.  Great.

So, we don't really know at this point if Jesse has a job in a couple weeks or not.  We're not terribly surprised, based on how the company has been going for oh... the past year or so??  But it's still frustrating. 

Game plan for right now:  Jesse steps up the job hunting another notch, we cut back on our food budget and cancel the cable TV (the only regular bill we really have any control over).... and we'd be surprised if we stuck around in Maryland for longer than through the end of summer.  The apartment costs too much to rent if we're unemployed, and our lease only goes through October, anyway.  We'd really rather not have to uproot Melinda once she starts school, just because we have to up and move again.  Then again, if he somehow manages to keep his job, we'd probably go ahead and stick around while he keeps job hunting.  But my preference is to definitely be elsewhere by the time Melinda starts school.  (and ohhhh, it's so much sooner than I want it to be!!!)

Some of you out there are already aware of this job situation, and I just want to thank you for your concern and prayers.  We have faith that everything will work out for the best, and that Heavenly Father will take care of our family.  Jesse is an incredibly smart, hardworking guy, and I know he'll be able to find something else good for himself and our family.  But your prayers mean so much to us!!

A "Sweet" Day

On Saturday the 26th, Jesse's company treated everyone to a company outing to Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania. How fantastic! The company parties in recent years have been wine tastings or other similar events, which automatically excluded us because of our religious beliefs. Needless to say, this year's event was perfect for us - we had a slight bit of schmoozing with co-workers during the catered lunch, but otherwise, it was just our family doing our own thing at an amusement park, courtesy of Jesse's work!

We intended to get there as close to 10am as possible, but we were slow to get going, and only left the house shortly before 10. We thought it was just over a 1-hour drive, but as soon as we got off the interstate to head towards Hershey, we hit a wall of traffic. It took 2 hours in all to get there, bringing us to the park right at about noon. Between parking, using the restrooms, riding the tram, getting through the admission lines, and walking to the other end of the park for the lunch, it was almost 2pm before we had a chance to tackle the rides. There is a water park within Hershey Park, but since the kids and I had gotten sunburns only just Thursday, we had decided ahead of time to skip that portion of it to save ourselves additional pain. It was a good decision - the water area was MUCH too crowded, anyway. We decided instead to focus on kiddie rides. Neither one of us liked the idea of trying to entertain all 3 kids while one adult at a time waited in long lines for the bigger roller coaster type of rides. An added bonus to our plan was that there are generally NO lines for the kiddie rides!

Our first stop was one of the giant slides where you ride down on a potato sack. Jesse took Melinda, then I took Jacob. Jacob had a hard time waiting our turn, but thought the slide was great. I couldn't quite see Melinda's reaction during the slide down, but she said she enjoyed it, too.

We then went over to the next set of kiddie rides, which included this circular ladybug ride, a horse-and-carriage circular ride, and a little tiny train that went around in a large loop. They really liked them, and ran eagerly from one to the next. Right after we took this picture, our camera batteries ran out. D'oh!! I forgot to bring extra. So we spent the next 10-15 minutes walking from one shop to the next looking for someone who sold batteries. Just as we were about to give up and buy a disposable camera, we found some. Hooray!
New batteries in place, we backtracked to this ride, the Musical Express. Melinda was big enough to go on, so I took her. Jesse declined to go on most rides, it's just not his thing, so anytime there was a situation where I couldn't take Melinda and Jacob both, he stayed back with Alex and Jacob. And if I could take them both, he stayed with just Alex. So almost all of the pictures in this post are Jesse's handiwork. Anyway, the Musical Express ride was a lot of fun - my personal favorite of the day! It spins around really fast and the track has elevation changes, so that you feel like you're flying over a bump sometimes. The gravity of the spin made myself and Melinda get squished to the outside of the car, and we both giggled our heads off over those bumps!! I may not have giggled, had I been all on my own, but Melinda was sooo infectious. :) Really, we were both laughing our heads off the whole time!
We went and found more kiddie-exclusive types of rides after that, so Jacob wouldn't feel so bored waiting for us. Every time we past a restroom, we asked the kids if they needed to go. Jacob said "YES!" every time. Melinda said "no" every time. And they were both drinking just as much. Strange kids! Anyway, we found a spot with a couple kiddie rides - a mini carousel and a mini "scrambler", and Jesse took them to each while I sat down on a bench to nurse Alex. I had to grin when a couple other moms also sat down next to me to nurse their children. I don't often run into other moms who are nursing in public, and I don't think I've ever had a stranger sit next to me and join me, before! Alex and another adorable little baby boy had fun grinning at each other after they were finished eating, too!


We also all went on a family-friendly train ride after these kiddie rides. We didn't get any pictures of that. In MY opinion, it was incredibly boring - most of the time the train was actually going slower than a leisurly walk. But later, Melinda said it was her favorite. I have absolutely no idea why, since her reaction was so much better on the bigger rides.


Jacob, Melinda and I stood in line for "The Rodeo", which ended up being a longer wait than I anticipated. Melinda sat in a seat all by herself, and I took Jacob with me, since we could only do 2 people per seat (even though we would have all fit onto one...). It started out just going in a fast circle, but then added a tilt to it, making you go up and down while you were spinning in a circle. Melinda loved it, and Jacob loved it at first.
After the tilting started, Jacob's wide grin quickly changed to a very somber, concerned face, and he huddled against me. I spent the rest of the ride telling him it would be over soon. After the ride was over, he said that this ride was "too hard for me. Yah." So, I didn't take him on any other potentially scary rides the rest of the day.

Melinda and I went on your classic "boat" ride, that just swings you really high, back and forth. Great fun! Melinda, as you can see, was grinning hugely while we were on the ride. As we were going, she said to me, "Mom! This really tickles your belly, huh!" I really loved her description of the feeling in kid-speak, I thought it was so cute, and pretty much right on target!
After this ride, we grabbed some orange Icees (which I *loved*, but Jesse said was too heavy on the syrup) and headed to more kiddie rides. Melinda and Jacob rode on a mini "boat". It was so tame! Nothing more than what you would get from mom or dad pushing you in a swing. Pretty soon the kids were putting their hands in the air to try and liven it up a bit!
Alex was so easy-going, it was surprising! I brought my carrier in case he got fussy, but he was perfectly content to sit in the stroller the whole afternoon, dozing off when he got tired, and otherwise just people-watching.
Jesse was starting to get a headache by this point, and it was after 5pm, so we started walking back towards the front of the park. On our way, we rode the Starship ride. The original plan was for me to take Melinda and then Jesse take Jacob (who was waiting eagerly on the sidelines), but after riding it, I decided that Jacob would not like it. It spun so fast that *I* got too dizzy and didn't feel good. Melinda had a lot of fun pulling the lever to make the starship go up and down, though!
Melinda and Jacob both rode on the neighboring kiddie Hot Air Balloon ride, which, like most of the kiddie rides, basically just went in a circle, but this one had up's and down's as well. It seemed like they enjoyed it!
And our last stop was the BIG carousel. Jesse stayed with Alex once again, but Melinda, Jacob and I all sat on our own horses that moved up and down. I was pretty nervous that Melinda would lean over and fall off, but she did really well! Jesse didn't take any pictures of that one.

On our way out of the park, Jesse's head hurt badly enough that we stopped at a nearby store to grab some Gatorade (his go-to drink when his head hurts after being hot and sweaty, like we all were at Hershey Park!), and he asked me to drive the rest of the way home. Everybody snoozed while I drove. We arrived home at about 7pm and ate some dinner. We did bathtime in preparation for church and then tried to get the kids into bed just before 9pm. I was really hoping they'd go right to sleep. But nope, the car nap did them in - they were still up, running out into the front room, by 10:30pm. Finally Jacob fell asleep, but Melinda took apart her sippy cup and let it leak all over her bed, so she joined us in our room at 11pm. Which, again, is the reason I didn't realize she had a fever when she first woke up. And, by the way, her fever broke late last night, and she woke up feeling perefctly normal. But we're still staying home today, adhering to my mom's old rule of waiting 24 hours to make sure the germs are gone.

Anyway, we had a really fun day, despite the big crowds and Jesse's headache. We avoided getting any additional burns, and the kids loved the rides. Melinda has been asking almost non-stop when we'll go again, and she's not too keen on accepting the fact that the only reason we went was because it was completely free! Well, not completely - it did take an entire half-tank of gas to get there and back, and these days, that's not cheap!

Vacation Recap, Part 2

(Don't forget to click the pictures throughout this post to see a larger version - I kept them small for the most part because of how many there are!)

Alright, when I left off, I had covered pretty much only the drive out to Ohio and the 3 days of the Wilcox family reunion. I'll start off here with Day 4, which was a Sunday. We made plans to drive into Columbus to attend church with my cousin Andrew, who was blessing his first baby that week. Because of that, his parents (Uncle Harold and Aunt Adele) and my Grandma Crockett were also in town. So it was almost like another little family reunion! Andrew gave one of the most original baby blessings I've ever heard, it was really special. Melinda and Jacob got to experience what it's like to visit a different ward (and it sounds like they had fun!), and Jesse and I got to remember what it's like to go to a Gospel Doctrine class. We haven't been to one in over 2 years. Before we started team-teaching in Primary, we were in the Marriage and Family Relationships sunday school class. Which was great, but sometimes we both miss Gospel Doctrine. Andrew happened to be the teacher, and I just have to say that he was a wonderful at it! We both enjoyed sunday school very much.

After church, we went to Andrew and Sarah's house for a little dinner. It was fun to visit with everyone, but it was also brief. Just enough time to play "catch up" with everyone. (And my goodness, it had been about 7 years since I had seen Grandma Crockett, and she didn't look or act a single stitch different! She's really amazing!) Before long, we were heading back to the hotel. And Monday morning, we woke up, got dressed, packed up, and headed down to the lobby to have breakfast with Mom, Dad, Dallis and Kaija. After dragging it out as long as we reasonably could, we said our goodbyes and began the road trip again.

Two hours into our drive, we stopped at Kirtland, Ohio, to see some church historical sites. We stopped at the LDS visitors center long enough to discover that Alex was desperately in need of a diaper change, and let everyone else use the bathroom, and then we walked around the historical downtown. We didn't take the official tour because of the heat and general antsy-ness of the kids, so we didn't see inside the buildings. But we walked around and saw the Newel K. Whitney home and store and other surrounding buildings, and then headed over to the Kirtland Temple. It was the first temple built, completed in 1836, but was abandoned along with the rest of Kirtland when the early members were forced to leave the area. It is now owned and operated by the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who believed that only direct descendants of Joseph Smith should be ordained Prophet). We did take the formal tour here, because we did want to see the inside. I was surprised at how different it was from modern-day temples! Still, it was an impressive building, and I feel glad that the Community of Christ has taken such good care of it, giving us the opportunity to see it. So many early members of the church sacrificed so much and worked so hard to build that temple... it's a blessing that it's still standing.

We left Kirtland and continued our drive northeast, eventually arriving at Niagara Falls, NY. Of course, what New York drive wouldn't be complete without toll roads? It baffles me that a state can take a perfectly good interstate highway and turn it into a pay-to-use road as soon as it's within their borders. We got to Niagara Falls around dinner time, and checked into our motel, and then found a Mexican restaurant just down the road to eat at. Hooray! I love, love, love Mexican food!! Of course, it was difficult for the kids to sit through a meal without drawing the attention of every patron in the restaurant, since they had just sat in the van for so long. Thank goodness it was a loud Mexican restaurant, and not a stuffy Italian place, huh? Once it got dark, we headed over to find parking near the Falls and to see them lit up at night. Very beautiful! But it probably would have been nicer to see from the Canadian side, since you can only see the falls from the side, instead of straight on, when you're on the American side.

We got up bright and early in the morning, grabbed some quick breakfast, checked out of the motel, and headed over to Canada. We sat in a relatively short border crossing line for a good 45 minutes. We were practically screaming with frustration. The lines just weren't moving!! Finally a couple extra lines opened up, and we got through. After paying $20 for parking (ugh!!), we walked over towards the sites. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we could see why the Canadian side was better. For one, you could actually feel the mist from the falls, even as far away as we were. Secondly, you could see the entire expanse of the falls, all along the walk. Compared to seeing only the side of one section of the falls from only a couple vantage points, if you're on the American side. We headed towards Journey Behind the Falls, where we donned our yellow plastic ponchos and went into some VERY damp tunnels that came out right under the falls. There were even a couple windows that peeked out to the falls, but all you could see was a wall of white and the very loud roar of the water falling! After re-emerging to the ground above, we bought a souvenir picture (somehow, it was actually a good photo of everyone!), and headed towards the Maid of the Mists. Based on a nice map, we thought it was a nice short walk. It was actually more like a good mile or two, and we were all very glad when we finally reached our destination. We were even more happy when we didn't have to wait to board a boat!! We arrived just as they began boarding. We put on our blue plastic ponchos, and got on the boat. I have to add that I kept getting the funniest reactions from other tourists who saw me carrying Alex in his pouch carrier. When it came time to put on the ponchos, I just ripped a hole through them for Alex's head, so he would be covered, and my torso would still be covered. When I did this before the Maid of the Mists boat, a whole bunch of Japanese guys near me just absolutely burst into laughter. It made me laugh, too. :) We really loved the boat ride - we got absolutely drenched, going right to the base of the horseshoe waterfall. Alex was awake at that point, and kept trying to eat his hands, so I added some armholes into my poncho for him, so he wouldn't be sucking on plastic. The lady next to me thought it was pretty funny!! And he kept grabbing anything he could reach... he was grabbing the lady's hand in front of us at the edge of the boat. Later, he grabbed an old woman's shirt while we were on an elevator... she looked at me as if she were trapped when it was time to get off the elevator and I hadn't realized what he had done! But anyway, the boat ride was great. Lots of fun! I miscalculated where the mist was coming from at one point, though, and Alex got a very sudden face-full of mist. If you can even call it that! It's more like a solid wall of a million tiny water droplets! He instantly started wailing, poor guy. But he recovered quickly, and we all enjoyed the rest of the ride, just grinning and laughing the whole way.



Once we got off the boat, we had to walk all the way back to our car, so it was another ~1 mile walk. Only this time, we were all even more tired. We took a few rests - we had to. Jacob refused to walk (you can see how he got around on Daddy's back most of the time!), Melinda was too tired to walk very long, and my back was getting tired of carrying Alex, too. But we finally made it, and headed back to the United States. I'm so glad we went to Niagara Falls. It's something I've wanted to do ever since we've lived out here on the East Coast, and we finally did it! It really is a must-see destination. The falls are HUGE and so incredible! You really can't imagine how much water is falling over them until you see them in person.




On the way out, we somehow managed to get into a non-moving border crossing line again, much to our extreme frustration. Finally we got through, and since the kids had all fallen asleep during the wait, we decided to drive for about an hour before stopping for lunch. And then, we were really on the road again! We stocked up with drinks and ice to put in our cooler, and headed east.

At about 4pm, we stopped at Palmyra, NY, another church historical site. We briefly visited the the visitors center to get our bearings, and saw the Hill Cumorah from a distance. Unfortunately, we missed the big pageant by about 4 days, but then, we didn't really plan on staying for any length of time, anyway. We took a map and pamphlet and drove a few blocks to find Joseph Smith's childhood home, and toured it with the Sister Missionaries there. It really was incredible how very SMALL their home was, with so many children to fit inside! It hardly seemed possible to have a second story, and yet there it was, and that's where all the children slept. And the living room/kitchen was so small and cramped, it made me feel a little selfish for wanting more space than I have. I have a smaller family and more space than they did! But it really made the whole account of Joseph Smith's childhood come to life for us.

Then we walked as quietly as possible through the Sacred Grove, where Joseph Smith had received his vision. It was gorgeous and peaceful, and I would have loved to stay longer and just enjoy and think about the scene. Unfortunately, young children (at least, our young children) don't have much patience for that sort of thing, so we left after a short while. And got on the road, again. We stopped at a service station to grab some dinner, and the kids were crazy and Jesse was frustrated with them, and when I accidentally set off the car alarm, Jesse got even more frustrated, and got on my case about how he was trying to keep 2 kids from being run over while carrying food, and good grief, why did you do that? Again, it was a complete accident, and I thought it was no big deal, but obviously I was a little frustrated, too, because I actually snapped at him. I yelled at him to stop getting mad at me for what was an honest and harmless accident. Now, Jesse and I don't always get along, sure, but we don't tend to argue and yell with each other. We're the type to just avoid each other until we're ready to talk calmly. I don't think I've ever yelled at Jesse before that. And it seemed really silly to snap at something so trivial. But we both got over it quickly, I'm happy to say, and everything was good once we got back to driving.

We had originally left it up in the air whether we would make one more overnight stop between Niagara Falls and home, but after 5 nights in hotels, we were more than ready to sleep in our own beds and stop living out of our suitcases. So we bit the bullet and decided to drive all the way home that night. Between Palmyra and home is about 6 hours, and it was already 4:30ish when we left, so we had a long evening ahead of us. And unfortunately, Alex didn't quite cooperate as nicely as he had during all the previous driving, and I couldn't take a turn driving, because I had to spend so much time trying to keep him happy. Or at least content. After a gas station stop around 9pm, when I had a chance to change him and nurse him thoroughly, I did try to drive again. It lasted a little while, but before long, Alex was fussing loudly. The sun had set, and we ran into road construction. Suddenly, our GPS was telling us to take exits that were blocked off due to construction all while Alex was screaming his head off, and we all just desperately wanted to find a safe place to pull off the highway and take care of the screaming and get our bearings and figure out where we were going. Oddly enough, this all happened in Scranton, Pennsylvania (home of the television show, "The Office"!). We did eventually find an exit that wasn't blocked off, only after I felt excruciatingly horrible because of how hard Alex was screaming in his car seat, and after much stress and confusion as to where to go to find a safe place to pull over. I took him out of his seat once we stopped, tried to calm him as best as I could, and nurse him some more, hoping that would help, but the rest of the drive home was difficult. I spent a lot of time balanced- not buckled- on top of the cooler in the back next to Alex's seat, trying to keep him calm and entertained. Finally Jacob and Melinda fell asleep, and Alex fell asleep after much effort. Around 11pm. Jesse and I enjoyed the rest of the drive home in peace and quiet, finally getting a chance to listen to some music and just chat. We arrived home just minutes after midnight, and eagerly took the kids out of their seatbelts and headed to bed, bringing in minimal luggage, just wanting to sleep.

Hooray!! Home sweet home. It really was a whirlwind of a last day - From tourism in Canada to home in Maryland, with stops in between, all in one day. PHEW. The good news was that Jesse had the rest of the week off, so we could kick back and relax! We did take the opportunity to go to the National Aquarium in Baltimore on Thursday, which was great! All except for Jacob, who really didn't care to stand in front of the displays and watch the sea life. All he wanted to do was move, move, move... keep walking, no stopping. I didn't take any pictures of it, unfortunately, but was fun to see aquariums full of sting rays, sharks, tropical fish, river fish, ocean fish, frogs, and even jumping dolphins! There was a lot to see, and I'm glad we got to go.

And THAT, folks, concludes our Vacation Recap! I hope you survived at least as well as my typing fingers did. :) And now, I must go and remove a too-small toy from Alex's grasp... he scooted about 3 feet to get to it. He won't be happy, but hopefully he'll forgive me!