Trip to Atlanta

Eli and I spent the last five days in Atlanta, visiting my old roommate Amber, her husband Stephen, and their cute baby Sydney. Below are the highlights of our trip:

Eli enjoying the crazy lights in the O'Hare United terminal:

Eli LOVING walking to the park in Amber's neighborhood - in shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of October! It was so warm.

Sydney enjoying the swing for the first time
Attempting to get them to slide down at the same time (didn't happen)
Sweet boy
This has to be the funniest picture I have ever taken of a baby before - I LOVE her expression:
Playing in the downtown square in Marietta:


It's so cute when little ones snuggle

Georgia Aquarium - the world's largest aquarium
Eli and Sydney LOVED seeing so many fish - and Eli enjoyed pointing them out to Sydney
Spider crabs - a little gross!
Checking out the beluga whales - Eli kept singing his version of Raffi's "Baby Beluga" song; it was cute.
Taking a snack break at the aquarium


Eli thought this fish was hilarious and kept waving to it after we walked away. Amber and I thought the aquarium had a slight Disney feel to it, including stuff like this walking fish :)
Next jellyfish exhibit
Making a fish face
Pointing the fish out to Sydney
Going through the ocean exhibit that had a moving walkway under the aquarium
Cute baby food face:
I took Eli to get his haircut at a place called Pigtails and Crewcuts. He is always miserable for haircuts, but this time I let him go without the cape (which he hates), and having a lollipop was the magic trick! He was still whimpering and borderline unhappy, but the sugar, combined with being strapped into a fire truck, made a huge difference. I think my friend Lindsay should invest in a fire truck like this for when she cuts kids hair! (just kidding...)
On my last day there, we took a tour at the CNN headquarters, which was fun to see! A little tiring though - we couldn't take strollers on the tour, and it takes you down eight flights of stairs. I was carrying Eli for most of the hour-long tour, but was impressed at how well behaved he was.

I would say overall, the trip was a success. This was my last hurrah before having the second baby (having two young kids will definitely restrict my ease of travel without Ben). Both flights were completely full, and on the way to Atlanta, the guy in front of me leaned way back in his seat, which was pretty uncomfortable for me, being pregnant and holding Eli in my lap. But we made it - and two-hour flights are a cakewalk compared to the three or four-hour flights I've gone on in the past alone with Eli.

I'd say the hardest thing about the trip was getting Eli to nap - he does fine in his crib at home, but on the first day, I put him in the pack and play in Amber's office, and he cried so hard that he threw up. Gross. Such a nice way for Amber to get to know my child in the first hour of us being there :) She was very understanding though! Thankfully, Eli napped some every afternoon at least (often with lots of fuss), and nighttime was always fine.

I had never been to Atlanta before, and love how green it is there. And that it was so warm outside in October. I had so much fun catching up with Amber and Stephen and meeting their cute baby Sydney. Thanks for a really fun visit!

When we got home from the airport tonight, Eli was so funny - he was so excited to see his toys again and kept jumping on his Spiderman couch and kicking back on it. It's always nice to be back home.

On a side note - I think these pictures don't accurately portray how huge I am now - (I didn't put any on here that actually show a side view b/c those aren't very cute)

Leaving for Vacation was No Picnic

I'm up early with Eli this morning (he's gotten up early both days now since his body is on Central time, but we're on the West Coast two hours earlier...) and the rest of the house is completely silent. I figured it was a good time to write about the craziness of Saturday morning when we tried to get out of town.

Backing up - on Friday night, I had about 100 things I was trying to get done before we left the next morning. I was running errands as late as 11:30 p.m. and then came home to start packing my suitcase. I ended up getting three hours of sleep that night and STILL didn't finish everything on my list.

On Saturday morning, we woke up at 5 a.m. to be ready for our cab that was picking us up at 6 a.m. I sat in the backseat with Eli, and the first thing I noticed (as the Nigerian cab driver zoomed off with us inside) was that his car's speedometer was not working. Fantastic. The second thing I noticed was that he had a Bible sitting on top of the dashboard - it was the African American Jubilee Edition. I couldn't decide if it was on the dashboard for protection from his crazy driving?? The cabbie blasted a religious radio station the entire way.

The cab flew down Lake Shore Drive (at who knows how fast of speed), on our way to Midway Airport. Ben and I had debated driving our car to the long-term parking lot and taking the shuttle over, but I was nervous about having Eli in one of those shuttle buses without a car seat (and those shuttle bus drivers are never the safest either). I sat there closing my eyes thinking, this is MUCH worse than 5 minutes on the shuttle bus...

We made it to the airport in just under an hour. Ben pulled out his credit card and the cabbie acted like his credit card machine was broken! That would have been nice to know as we didn't have enough cash to pay him. So Ben ran into the airport looking for an ATM and came back a few minutes later with some more money.

Fast forward to our 4 hours, 20 minutes on the airplane to Portland. Eli was tired, but was too stubborn to give in and fall asleep. Instead, he fussed for about 3 hours of the flight (I think the entire plane was listening to his unhappiness - there weren't any other small children on the flight). Our tricks kept him happy for maybe an hour total. My favorite thing was when the guy in front of Eli decided to recline his seat, leaving zero leg room for my child (we brought Eli's car seat onthe plane, so his legs were sticking out rather than straight down) and Eli, in his tired, frustrated state of being, kept pushing on the back of this guy's seat (despite my efforts to get him to stop - after 10 min. of this, the guy brought his seat back up). Eli finally slept for the last 30 minutes of the flight.

In the meantime, my lack of sleep all last week had caught up to me, and I was getting a bad cold. On the flight's descent, I had the most HORRIBLE sinus pressure and pain - it felt like someone was shooting darts through my face, behind my eyes, nose, and jaw. I was in tears the entire way down and made a beeline to buy some tylenol once we were off the plane. Thankfully, Ben's cousin is a doctor and I am now taking an antibiotic to get rid of my sinus infection.

Now that we're here, things are going well. There are 31 of us staying at Ben's brother's house for the weekend and then we'll go to the big reunion with 110 Seversons (we rent space at a camp) for the rest of the week. It should be fun! I'm not looking forward to our flight home though... (or the cab ride back :)

(and I'll post pictures next time - sorry for the text-heavy post...)

Trip to Utah

Sorry for the lack of posts last week! I just got back from a marathon trip to Utah. Going there is never a calm, relaxing vacation, but I always get to see lots of friends and family, which is great.

My friend Rachael's mom and sister were flying back to UT from Chicago, and her mom and nephew were on my flight. We weren't allowed to sit by each other since Hayden and Eli are both lap children, but we did come visit them throughout the flight:

I got to see my Diva friends from our college days, Kelly and Asialene:

I stayed with my friend from Chicago who moved to UT last year, Mariah, who has cute kids Jane and Wes:

I saw friends who used to live in Chicago for grad school, but now live in UT - Katie and Kerstin:
Here we are on the flight back - Eli was a bit of a terror both going to UT and coming home. I was sweating and exhausted by the time we finished both 3-hr flights! Here he is trying to figure out the seatbelt:
Here is all of my gear. I barely made it dragging all of this stuff around the airports!

*PS - there are more photos below from the trip