South by Southwest

Ok - back on the ol' blogging horse! I've been MIA for awhile due to a series of trips, visits and other miscellaneous happenings including the slow sad demise of my trusty ol' Lappy. Poor thing has gone blind, and I've been reduced to logging into the machine remotely via Live Mesh. (Which incidentally has been a very cool and helpful app. I highly recommend it!) The new laptop has been ordered and will hopefully be here in about 2 weeks - YAY!! The old machine had a good run of it tho - lasted nearly 4 years, and I worked that thing to the bone! Anywho - time to play catch up. :)

Over the weekend of Nov 8th, Caiden and I flew down to AZ to visit my sister Tara and her family. This was the first time I was flying solo with Caiden, and I was SO wooried he'd act up and we'd be "those people" on the flight. You know the ones - the kid who is screaming his head off and earning malicious glares from all of the passengers. Well, I needn't have worried one bit because Caiden was an absolute angel! He slept for about 1/3 of the way on the flight down and played contentedly on my lap for the remainder of the trip. Flying Southwest Airlines was particularly nice as I was able to bring along his playpen, car seat and diaper bag and not have to pay for any of it!

Tara and Dave greeted us at the airport. I was SO excited to see them!! I hadn't seen either of them since they were here back in July. Caiden immediately went into Tara's waiting arms, and he was gracious enough to try and share his pacifier with her. :) After collecting all of my luggage (man - traveling with baby equates to carrying a TON of stuff!!), we piled into the car and drove up north to Anthem. We got to see their new house which features a very nice layout and lovely view in the backyard with a huge shaded patio! The evening was spent hanging out and relaxing. Caiden also discovered a new playmate in Christian. He just could not take his eyes off of him! Christian was playing peek-a-boo with him and getting him to laugh and giggle. It was so cute!

We spent most of Sunday hanging out at the house which was more than fine by me as I was just happy to be there and see the family. Incidentally - I can't believe how quickly Christina and Christian (my niece and nephew) are growing up!! I introduced them to the divine deliciousness that is the Oreo truffle and by the end of our stay, I think I had them good and addicted! :D I also gave Christina one of her bday gifts early - her own copy of Give Me the Brain. This is a ridiculously fun card game that we played during their Seattle visit in July. It must've been a lucky deck of cards cuz I managed to win the first 5 hands! There were several rematches during our stay and alas, my winning streak was short lived.

On Monday Tara and the kids ditched school, er I mean, were home sick, and we spent the day shopping and doing some more relaxing. Caiden got so much lovin' from his aunt, uncle and cousins! Oh - and did I mention that one of the dogs, Amber, claimed Caiden as her pup? This big, goofy, lovey Rottweiler could not resist any opportunity to lick Caiden to pieces. She particularly liked his toes! Here's the link to photos.

Tara, Caiden and Christina

Caiden showing Christina who is boss - pulling her hair!

Tuesday came all too fast and before I knew it, we were bundling Caiden and all of our luggage back into the car. :( We got back to the airport and thru check in and security all in perfect time. I got to the gate just in time to find my spot in line, and we were boarding within minutes. We lucked out and managed to have an empty seat next to us during the flight. And would you believe he slept from take off until about 45 min before we landed?!? I was SO lucky!!!! (And relieved!) I actually had people telling me how impressed they were by his good behavior. WOW! All that worrying for nothing. Altho, something tells me we're not going to be quite so lucky on the flight to Chicago for Christmas! Keep your fingers crossed for us!