Oklahoma/Texas

I wish I had brought along a computer so I could have blogged more accurately. We got home from a week-long trip in Oklahoma and Texas. This will be logged from my brain which has a very poor memory, which is also trying to recover from a week of intense travel and less sleep than desired. The time in Oklahoma was spent celebrating with family to honor Rachel's graduation from her Orthodontic residency at Oklahoma University. She completed the 30 month program with excellent reviews from her professors. She is so passionate about orthodontics, I know this is the right field of medicine for her to practice in. We scheduled our flights to leave on Thursday evening last week the 10th. We flew from Waterloo to Minneapolis, then Minneapolis to Oklahoma City. It was a rush getting to the airport for some reason, even though we had all day to prepare, pack and load the car. Life with kids just seems to do that and operate that way, no matter how much fudge time you allow in. We pulled up the van just in time to check our luggage. Dave got the kids inside the airport, I parked, and ran inside. Just as we got through security and into the line where we boarded the airplane, Dave realized we forgot to unhook the car seats and bring them with us. Oh noooo!! How annoying. We were stuck...the security people wouldn't let us back through with 8 minutes to departure. So that was it, we just had to deal with it the whole way there. And it wasn't fun. We made sure to purchase four airplane seats so the kids would be sure to have their own seats their car seats could be strapped into. If anybody has flown with kids, yes, its a pain to lug along the big car seat (not to mention two of them) but its SUCH a blessing once you get on the airplane. Kids just know (well, mine do) that when they're strapped into their car seats, that is as far as they can move. The air travel to MN and OK was a struggle the whole time, Violet and Calvin were buckled in their seats, but with a pathetic lap strap that they could both wriggle out of. They were difficult to keep in one place and neither slept a wink even though we got in late around 11 pm. Both were whiny, tired, cranky, and miserable. I had counted on them getting sleep on the airplane (the 2nd flight was over 2 hours and it could have worked beautifully but nope). I communicated with Rachel and my dad (who was already there) that I'd need their help. I asked them if they could run by Walmart and buy two car seats for our kids and leave them at the airport for us to use when we got our rental car. Thankfully, they made time in their schedule to run that errand for us. We could have rented two car seats from Hertz but I never like to do that, who knows what their history is, they could be gross and peed on, and could have possibly even been in an accident and nobody would have known. Not safe enough for me...if anybody knows me they'd know I am a little on the particular side when it comes to car seat safety. Anyway....that problem was solved. Besides, renting the car seats was $26 a day ($13/day for one) and we needed them for 6 nights. That would have been more expensive than buying two new ones for $52/piece. And the beauty of buying them was the ability to return them when we got home. So essentially they were free. :) The three nights we spent at the Hilton hotel in Oklahoma City went by slowly. Even though the kids got to sleep by 11 pm or midnight each night, they some how woke up at the crack of dawn by 7 am each morning. Don't they realize there is always the option to sleep in!?! Apparently not. The first morning was a little tense between Dave and I. Neither of us do well on low sleep. I think we got maybe 4 or 5 hours, since neither kid slept soundly through the night. I think Violet had a night mare, Calvin lost his pacifier, etc...I'm sure there was more, it is all a blur. One nice thing about Dave's status with the Hilton chain of hotels is that he got coupons for free breakfast each morning. It was a full buffet with cook-to-order eggs, all free. So we all ate big breakfasts. On Friday we kept ourselves entertained by going to the mall about 10 min north of the hotel. There was no way we were going to spend all day cooped up in a hotel room. Dave shopped for a blazer to wear at Rachel's graduation ceremony, I shopped for maternity jeans and a winter coat to accommodate my large belly the whole winter. We got lunch at McD's on the way back from the mall and the kids took naps from around 3-5 pm. Friday night was Rachel's graduation party. It was so fun. We all dressed up and had a party with her friends and family. My grandparents were there from Arizona, my great aunt Lucy drove up for the party from Little Rock, AR. Jay and Molly drove from Iowa, and my parents came too. Violet was in some crazy social mood, running around and talking to everybody she could get to talk back to her. She even climbed up into the department head's lap (Dr. Currier) and played some little silly games with him. She bounced around from lap to lap. The meal they served was really delicious too. The first course was a salad, and I've never seen Violet dig into a salad before like I saw her eat it that night. It was a regular lettuce salad with ranch dressing and other things, crunchy little chips, some nuts, I don't even remember what was all on it since I was busy feeding Calvin, but she kept taking huge bites, she almost cleared her salad plate. I didn't know she even liked lettuce. She's always turned her nose up at salads like that. I guess I should start making those more often. :) The night was fun. All the graduating residents did goofy things on a slide show, comparing their professors to famous celebrities and saying what great teachers they are and the individual things they did to progress their studies in the program. The 2nd year students put together a slide show for the graduates, funny pics and songs. The night ended with a yummy chocolate fudge torte cake thing, I don't even know what it was. It wasn't a cheesecake, but it looked like one. It was really late by the time it was over. Calvin was glossy-eyed and just wanted to sit in his stroller and be wrapped up by his blankie and hold his kitty. Violet remained social until the moment we left, and then by the time we got to our hotel room, she was a crying mess. Saturday we spent with family again, we met for lunch together at a BBQ place with Rachel's friends and our family. Dinner was a different place. I got a chance to get away with Rachel for a short time and drive around to look at some pretty neat Christmas light displays. The hot thing this year is to use LED Christmas lights and wrap them around every square inch of the tree trunk and all the branches. All the rich neighborhoods had fabulous light displays. Sunday was our day to travel to Texas. Since we were so close to Dallas (where Dave's sister Lisa lives), we thought we'd take a couple extra days and visit them. We scheduled our flights to return home from OK to IA on Wednesday, so we drive in the rental car to Dallas and back. Sunday morning Rachel took us to the church she called her own for the last 2 1/2 years. It was neat to visit them and get to know the people who have been there for her and encouraged her while she was all by herself in OK. We checked out of the hotel when it was over, got lunch at Jimmy John's with Rachel, and said our goodbyes and took off for Dallas. The kids were so tired. The drive was three hours long and both of them slept the entire way. We didn't stop once. We arrived at StenErik and Lisa's apartment around 5:30 pm, and they were all happy to see us. Their apartment is pretty small. Their girls slept on the floor in the living room and they let us sleep in their room for the three days we were there. Violet told her Aunt Lisa "I am so glad I came back, I told you I would come back because I love you!" We didn't really have a schedule for the next three days. I was really hoping to relax and catch up on much needed sleep, but some how that didn't happen. It was too easy to stay up late and talk to Sten and Lisa since we rarely get 1-1 time to talk to them. The kids didn't sleep that well. Calvin learned how to climb out of the pack and play crib he was sleeping in (he could also climb out of the crib he slept in at the hotel, which made for unexpected visits from Calvin in the middle of the night), so he was one of the biggest challenges. We would put him down for a nap or bed, and he'd crawl right out and go play with Violet who was trying to sleep on the couch. Ugh...that kid. I think we had to put him back in his bed multiple times before he actually went to sleep. One night he threw his paci out of the crib and around 2 am he woke up and started screaming for it. The kid can't get to sleep with out that darn paci. Dave and I were searching for his paci at 2 am with the light of our cell phones. Finally I found it tucked underneath a dresser next to his crib. The best part of the trip to Texas was connecting on a more personal level with Lisa. We worked together to de-clutter their apartment and get rid of things they didn't use or didn't need. Her girls, Violet and Calvin also had a blast together. At any given moment, someone was always cuddling with someone on the couch, giving hugs, playing, running around, and just having fun. Violet is almost 4 (Jan 20 is her birthday!), she comprehends everything and can communicate extremely well, so she just seemed like an older kid blending in with what her older cousins were doing, not like a younger toddler who didn't get anything. Calvin played that role instead. He really fell in love with Emma. He was immediately comfortable with Emma holding and comforting him, which was weird. He doesn't warm up to people that quickly. Nice to see, though. Kristina is 11, Emma is 10, and Anja is 8. I found Anja and Violet up in their loft coloring in Violet's coloring book a lot of the time. This week was finals week for Sten (bad timing on our part), so he was often writing papers and studying and at class. We had "Christmas dinner" together with their family the last night we were there, on Tues. Lisa baked a ham, and we made three-cheese garlic scalloped potatoes, and ate green beans. It was so delicious! Our trip home went much better. The drive back to the airport on Wednesday was at a great nap time for the kids. They slept, I took a nap, and Dave (although he was really tired) drove to the airport. We got our rental car checked in, and boarded our flight. The next two flights went much smoother than the first two on our way there. Calvin was comfy in his seat and calm for the entirety of the flights. He slept the last one. Violet sat next to me on the last flight from MN to IA and she was so cheerful, saying silly things, playing impromptu games she could make up in her mind, and we both had fun drawing on our styrofoam cups that the flight attendant gave us when she passed out water. We were greeted in IA with 5 degree weather and a thick layer of ice on our windshield. Not so cool when we forgot to put our ice scrapers in the van. We had to let the defroster fun for about 15 min in the parking lot so we could see well enough to drive. Calvin was mad he had to wake up, so he cried pretty much the whole drive home. We stuck them in bed as soon as we got home. The house was soooo cold too. We turned our heat down to 50 when we were gone, so it took Violet awhile to get warm in her fleece jammies and tucked into bed. I layered on an extra blanket on her bed. Calvin was so happy to be back in bed. Violet took awhile to get to sleep. She must have been overstimulated. I think she fell asleep around midnight. The poor girl, I had to wake her up and take her to preschool the next morning. Any other day I would have just let her sleep in and skip it, but she was assigned to bring snacks for her class that day. And "snack day" is a BIG deal to her. In her class, whoever brings the snack that day also gets to be the leader in the front of the line when the class goes places together, like to the gym to play and run around, or to any other place with in the facility. She also got to select the weather on the board, write what day it was on the calendar, all sorts of very special things. Last time she got to bring the snack, she talked about that day for WEEKS. She loves being the leader, so I knew this day would be one to not miss. I woke her up at 8 am, and she just snuggled with me for a few minutes trying to wake up. I told her what that day was and how special it would be, and she perked up enough for me to get her dressed and get her to eat a bowl of cereal. Since we had just gotten home the night before really late, I had nothing planned for the snacks that she was to share with her class. We made a quick run to the store before I took her, and she wanted to bring yogurt tubes, cookies and grape juice. We got exactly that, and she happily brought along her snacks when I dropped her off a few minutes later. The teacher said she did pretty good that day, and didn't seem that tired. I was happy to hear that. They both slept good three hour naps Thursday afternoon, which was their attempt at catching up on much needed sleep. That night both kids spent about an hour in the bathtub. They were so happy to be home, and both got to bed at 8:30-8:45...a great time. Dave and I actually got a little time to sit and relax that night, even though my list of things to do was enormous. Laundry, catching up on bills, updating the budget software with all our transactions the last week, grocery shopping, filing papers, etc...the list goes on and on. So far I've gotten the laundry all sorted, washed, dried, and put away and updated the budget software but my list is still long. I knew I would forget a lot of the trip the longer I waited, so I blogged today during nap time. Violet just woke up and is snuggling in my lap so I should get off the computer. Thanks for reading my long account!