Saturday, June 12, 2010

Exciting start to June

As you can see I have given my blog a makeover. No, that doesn't mean I'll update more often (haha) but at least it looks a bit different. I guess Blogger has a new design template so after trying out a lot of backgrounds that reminded me of elementry school pictures (remember the lazer lights?), I have settled on this one.

Jason turned 7 months old on 6/2 and he celebrated this milestone by growing not one but two bottom teeth. He tends to "chew" on my knuckles and I felt a little something and noticed that he had a little tooth in there. The next day I noticed it was a bit wider than I would expect and sure enough there were two teeth in there. He was a real champ with them too. If not for the increased drool (and he drools a lot anyway so it's hard to tell when it's increased) and the whole knuckle chewing thing you'd never know he was getting teeth. I hope they all come in this uneventfully.
We have been planning a trip to Florida for the first weekend in June since February. My grandpa turned 80 this year and as a gift to him we wanted to get as much of the family together as possible. It was decided that my aunt and uncle's beach house on Pensacola Beach would be the ideal location. They got us reservations in a nice resort and we would spend most of the time at their house. Of course as soon as things were planned things went wrong: First a lot of the other family couldn't make it so that was a bummer, but my parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin (obviously) were going to be there for us to see. Plus this would be Jason's first trip to a beach so we were looking forward to it. Then, as you are all aware, there was that whole oil spill catastrophe. It had been staying off of Pensacola but was scheduled to arrive - you guessed it - when we were. But the worst thing was about 4 days before we were scheduled to leave, Dan got really sick. He was having high fevers and general not feeling well and after spending all Wednesday in bed and going to the doctor on Thursday we realized he was not going to be able to make the trip to Florida first thing on Friday morning. I have never been more stressed in my life. I was totally torn between being a good wife and staying home with Dan (which quite frankly was difficult for me take good care of him while trying to keep Jason away so he didn't get sick) or being a good daughter/granddaughter/neice/cousin (plus the whole really wanting to see everyone thing). I didn't want to leave Dan when he was feeling so sick so I called his sister, Abby, who lives in Kansas City to see if she could come down to take care of him. Being the angel that she is, she moved some things around and even missed a performance on Saturday to come down and take care of her brother. I just love her, she's too awesome.

After getting Dan taken care of I had to tackle the next thing - traveling alone with Jason. At least we've been on a plane with him before - Abby's wedding - so we knew he traveled well. Since I had a room to myself at the resort, I had 2 queen beds so instead of bringing Jason's portable crib I decided to make a "pillow crib" out of the other bed. I still had to bring Jason's carseat though so that meant I had 2 checked bags - the carseat and hook-on chair for his highchair in one and all of our stuff in the other. I brought Jason in the Baby Bjorn, filled his diaper bag with all our carry-on stuff and hooked that to the smaller bag and dragged that stuff behind us as we walked into the airport. We must have been quite a sight! Jason did really well on the flight to Atlanta and we were able to find our connecting flight gate dispite my complete lack of direction (I guess when I have to I can figure out where I'm going). When we got to Pensacola it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't told my aunt and uncle that Dan wasn't going to be with us. So my uncle was a bit surprised to see me alone with my caravan. Jason's carseat fit well in their SUV and it was only a mild pain in the ass to install it. Once I arrived at the beach house I was so glad I came. It was so nice to see everyone. I hadn't seen my grandparents or my aunt, uncle, and cousin since my wedding and I really missed them. It was also great for them all to meet Jason and he had a lot of fun with them too. We mostly just hung out and visited on Friday but my mom, Jason and I went down to the beach for a few minutes to check out the water (check for tarballs). The water seemed pretty clear so I put Jason down by the end of the tide so the water could come up on his feet...well, a bigger wave than that came up and got him to just above the knees and he was NOT HAPPY. After fussing for a couple minutes he fell fast asleep on my shoulder so I think it was more than the water scaring him - he was tired.
Here's the awesome beach house:
With Grandma Mounts
With Great-Grandma Shoot
With Great-Grandpa Shoot:

The resort we were staying in had a "dolphin cruise" as part of the cost of the room so my mom, Jason and I boarded the boat at 9:30am for the 2 hour cruise. The water was nice and calm (good news to me since I'm prone to seasickness) but the sad thing was there were no dolphins. I don't know if they were running away from the oil or what. I guess it wasn't a total bust though, it was a nice boat ride and Jason even got to "drive" the boat. My uncle took a walk on the beach that morning and said there were little tarballs on his feet which was really heartbreaking, I wanted to spend more time in the water and let Jason experience it when he didn't need a nap. By the time we ate lunch however, any beach plans we would have had would have been interrupted by the MONSOON that occured next. There was a huge storm and lightening even hit my cousin's balcony and messed up some of the cool electronics in the house. Lightening also hit a nearby power pole as well, knocking out the power to the house. Fortunately they had a generator so we still had airconditioning and use of the DVD player so we just chit-chated, played with the baby and watched a movie.

I think the storm knocked the oil back a bit because on Sunday it wasn't too bad at all. After we checked out of the resort, we swam in the pool - first big pool experience for Jason. He didn't know quite what to think at first but soon he was splashing and having a good time and eventually zonked out on his great-grandma. We got back to the beach house and after dinner headed down to the beach again. I gave Jason another chance with the water, this time being more careful about the size of the waves but he didn't seem a big fan of it so he settled down on the beach with grandma and played with some sand (making sure he didn't eat any due to the oil situation). There were a few nickle-sized tarballs here and there but it wasn't enough to detour us. I got about waist-deep in the water since the waves were still pretty intense and I didn't want to get too wet or slightly oil-covered accidently. I gave Jason a good bath afterwards and took a shower myself just in case there was oil we didn't see. The oil spill just makes me sick, it really does. I'm glad it didn't spoil our vacation though. Next, my mom gets a call from Orbitz that our flight out of Pensacola that night (we were both flying thorough Chicago) was going to be delayed for 2 hours - basically meaning we would both miss our connecting flights. I had to work Vacation Bible School on Monday morning plus I was scheduled to work that night so this was very bad news. After scrambling around, I got the last seat on a flight through Houston that night so it actually worked out pretty well since this would mean shorter flights. My mom was stuck until Monday but it allowed her to spend some more time with her family so it wasn't a horrible situation. Our flights back home went well too (although the Houston airport is a real hole) and we got back safely. Dan's fevers let up by Saturday and he was in pretty good spirits by the time we got home. I think he really missed us - I know we missed him. I sure was relieved he was well taken care of; I don't think I would have been able to leave otherwise.

On Monday we started VBS. My friend who was going to work pee-wee rec with me backed out the last minute without telling me, which kind of annoyed me but they had a great teenager to help me (for 2 of the days anyway due to her migranes) so it wasn't a total loss. Jason had a good time in the nursery with a teenager of his own to play with. Pee-wee rec is pretty easy - I basically have one group of 2-3 year olds and two groups of 4-5 year olds and since they're too young to do organized sports I basically keep an eye on them as they play on the playground for 20 minutes. I also got a good hour break right at Jason's snack/nap time so I could nurse him to sleep and cuddle a bit. When it rained on Wednesday and I couldn't take the kids to the playground I had to get creative on what to do inside but I survived. I haven't decided if I'll do VBS again next year or not. I'll just see how I feel at the time. I'm sure they'd understand if I didn't want to do it due to all the trouble I had with co-teachers and whatnot. The kids seemed happy enough so that was good. Here's Jason sitting next to one of the rocket props.

Sorry that got so long but like the post said - there's a lot to talk about!