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We're home now, after a nearly-two-week trip through the midwest (Oregon to Wisconsin to Ohio and home). Drew got to meet his great-grandmothers and a whole bunch of aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as visiting his grandparents (whom he's met before). Wisconsin for Scott's family, Ohio for mine.
First, I am pleased to report that Drew flies well. On most of the flights - and granted, every day we flew the first flight was early, so we were up before we usually are, so we were all tired - he fell asleep as we started the acceleration for takeoff, before the wheels actually cleared the ground. On the shorter flights he often slept through. On one of the ones where he was awake for the landing, I played "kiss up the arms to the face" with him and he giggled hysterically the whole way down. (I'd caught the hysterical edge, and I figured we would all enjoy hysterical giggles more than hysterical tears.) He didn't appear to have much ear trouble, although he may have had some during the descent into Portland - he started getting upset about the time my ears started reacting too - but if so it was quickly averted by Scott getting him to chew on a link ring, and he did fine. He was getting hungry by then too, so it may not have been the ears at all.
It was wonderful to watch him with his family, especially those (most!) that hadn't met him before. With very few exceptions, he was ready to be handed off to anyone, cuddled, bounced, talked at, whatever. He happily played with their teeth, shirt buttons, necklaces, sparklies on their shirts, and whatever else he could think of that they would let him get away with.
We got repeated comments on what a happy baby we had (from family, but also from strangers - fellow passengers on planes, people in restaurants, etc.). We do, and we know how lucky we are.
The trip wasn't just a joy because of Drew, although certainly he was a lot of the focus of the trip, since we were kinda taking him back to be introduced. It was SO GOOD to see everyone again, at both stops. The US needs to be folded and spindled a bit until Oregon is closer to Wisconsin and Ohio, really. That's all there is to it. Because it's hard to get back there anywhere near often enough, and there's too many wonderful people we seldom see as a consequence.
Not that we saw all of them on this trip. Both stops included some people who weren't able to visit with us due to illness at the time of the trip (bah!); one family was on vacation in Ohio. (Also, in Ohio, we arrived to discover the newest little member of the family had just been born - and she is TOO cute. That was a really sweet bonus to the trip.)
Our family, all branches, are incredible cooks. I really need to learn to be a better cook. I don't enjoy cooking for its own sake...but as this trip reminded me, I enjoy the results very much. I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of well-fed Laura several times.
The last night of the trip we stayed in Fort Wayne (since we were flying out at 6 the next morning), and we treated ourselves to a wonderful Italian meal at the Casa Ristorante (which happened to be near our hotel, and had a 5-star on Yelp - admittedly only from one rating). It deserved that 5-star rating. It was incredible. But it was not, fancy-factor aside, all that much better than what I'd been eating the whole trip (and in fact, in the dessert department, only managed to tie a certain raspberry pie). I would, however, go back - especially for the lentil soup. I got a cup of it, and in retrospect I think I might have skipped the tilapia entree (which was good!) in favor of 2-3 bowls of the lentil soup. I wish I knew what the spices were. I can pick out major food elements, but spices not so much so. Hmmm.
I was going to write a more detailed trip, but trying to distill the joy of all this down into details - how do you pick the details? There are too many wonderful moments to cover them all, but to leave one out would be wrong. I'll let the photos speak for a lot of them, although I'm sure there are others that weren't caught on camera.
It's good to be home, however. Most of the myriad things that needed doing after getting back are done, and I'm relaxed and settled in and mostly back in this time zone. This is good, because tomorrow I return to work.
One of the things that remains to do is uploading photo and video. I've started the process, but there's still a lot of processing to be done. (Something about having over 13 GB of stuff will do that to you!) Some of those photos will be linked here but the ones of Drew will be linked in his journal (if you have it friended and it friends you),![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arstrasz (or, if you're reading this and routinely get my emails about him, also in those).
First, I am pleased to report that Drew flies well. On most of the flights - and granted, every day we flew the first flight was early, so we were up before we usually are, so we were all tired - he fell asleep as we started the acceleration for takeoff, before the wheels actually cleared the ground. On the shorter flights he often slept through. On one of the ones where he was awake for the landing, I played "kiss up the arms to the face" with him and he giggled hysterically the whole way down. (I'd caught the hysterical edge, and I figured we would all enjoy hysterical giggles more than hysterical tears.) He didn't appear to have much ear trouble, although he may have had some during the descent into Portland - he started getting upset about the time my ears started reacting too - but if so it was quickly averted by Scott getting him to chew on a link ring, and he did fine. He was getting hungry by then too, so it may not have been the ears at all.
It was wonderful to watch him with his family, especially those (most!) that hadn't met him before. With very few exceptions, he was ready to be handed off to anyone, cuddled, bounced, talked at, whatever. He happily played with their teeth, shirt buttons, necklaces, sparklies on their shirts, and whatever else he could think of that they would let him get away with.
We got repeated comments on what a happy baby we had (from family, but also from strangers - fellow passengers on planes, people in restaurants, etc.). We do, and we know how lucky we are.
The trip wasn't just a joy because of Drew, although certainly he was a lot of the focus of the trip, since we were kinda taking him back to be introduced. It was SO GOOD to see everyone again, at both stops. The US needs to be folded and spindled a bit until Oregon is closer to Wisconsin and Ohio, really. That's all there is to it. Because it's hard to get back there anywhere near often enough, and there's too many wonderful people we seldom see as a consequence.
Not that we saw all of them on this trip. Both stops included some people who weren't able to visit with us due to illness at the time of the trip (bah!); one family was on vacation in Ohio. (Also, in Ohio, we arrived to discover the newest little member of the family had just been born - and she is TOO cute. That was a really sweet bonus to the trip.)
Our family, all branches, are incredible cooks. I really need to learn to be a better cook. I don't enjoy cooking for its own sake...but as this trip reminded me, I enjoy the results very much. I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of well-fed Laura several times.
The last night of the trip we stayed in Fort Wayne (since we were flying out at 6 the next morning), and we treated ourselves to a wonderful Italian meal at the Casa Ristorante (which happened to be near our hotel, and had a 5-star on Yelp - admittedly only from one rating). It deserved that 5-star rating. It was incredible. But it was not, fancy-factor aside, all that much better than what I'd been eating the whole trip (and in fact, in the dessert department, only managed to tie a certain raspberry pie). I would, however, go back - especially for the lentil soup. I got a cup of it, and in retrospect I think I might have skipped the tilapia entree (which was good!) in favor of 2-3 bowls of the lentil soup. I wish I knew what the spices were. I can pick out major food elements, but spices not so much so. Hmmm.
I was going to write a more detailed trip, but trying to distill the joy of all this down into details - how do you pick the details? There are too many wonderful moments to cover them all, but to leave one out would be wrong. I'll let the photos speak for a lot of them, although I'm sure there are others that weren't caught on camera.
It's good to be home, however. Most of the myriad things that needed doing after getting back are done, and I'm relaxed and settled in and mostly back in this time zone. This is good, because tomorrow I return to work.
One of the things that remains to do is uploading photo and video. I've started the process, but there's still a lot of processing to be done. (Something about having over 13 GB of stuff will do that to you!) Some of those photos will be linked here but the ones of Drew will be linked in his journal (if you have it friended and it friends you),
arstrasz (or, if you're reading this and routinely get my emails about him, also in those).
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I like landscape/scenery shots.
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