Trip to Indianapolis and Pittsburgh!

Earlier this month, right after Sophia's birthday, we drove out to Indianapolis to visit David's parents for about a week and a half.  We love visiting Indy -- the kids love hanging out with their grandparents, the grandparents love taking care of us, and David and I get to relax and be refreshed!

We've made the long drive out to Indy often enough now that Joshua knows he gets to go through a bunch of tunnels on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  :)  So even though the drive is long and the kids do get antsy at several points along the way, it's becoming slightly easier to make the trip, with Sophia being weaned and old enough to make it longer between stops, and Joshua waiting eagerly for the super fun dark tunnels!  I tried to get some of Joshua's eager anticipation on video -- he's a bit self-conscious here since he knows I have the phone out, so just multiply this glee by about a thousand to imagine what he was like for all the other tunnels we drove through.  :)


And when we got to Grandma and Grandpa's, even though we arrived after 11pm, Joshua made a beeline for the toys (he remembered the "big airplanes" and "different trucks" and had been requesting them for days before the trip), and Sophia was actually okay with being held by her grandparents.  The kids really do know and love their grandparents, and we all had such fun being taken care of by them!






Halfway through our time in Indy, David and I actually got away for a couple days, leaving the kids with their grandparents.  We were only about half an hour away, in downtown Indianapolis, but it was our first overnight trip away together since Joshua was born, so we figured we'd start small.  We stayed in a lovely hotel in the heart of the downtown area, ate out at nice restaurants, and generally relived our yuppy DINK youth.  ;)  Though we kept saying the whole time that we have no idea how we spent our time before the kids arrived...


It really was a win-win-win -- Joshua and Sophia had a blast with their grandparents (who took them to the zoo!  And gave them focused attention!), the grandparents really loved having the opportunity to spend so much time with the kids, and we had a lovely couple days away.  We hope to do this every year!


One of the other reasons why we made this trip when we did is because there was a family reunion in mid-August -- David's grandmother turned 90, so everyone was gathering in Pittsburgh to celebrate.  It was so wonderful to see everyone, especially now that there are more babies!  :)

Sophia really got a kick out of our hotel room bed...  I got her ready first and then gave her Cheerios to keep her occupied while the rest of us got ready.  And then promptly got distracted by how cute she looked in her pretty little dress, and took a ton of pictures!



And just a few of the photos from the birthday gathering, which was held in the community room at the Reformed Presbyterian home, where Great-Grandma relocated earlier this year.  I'm afraid the pictures I took are very kid-centric -- but what can I say, the four youngest family members are undoubtedly the cutest, so there you have it.  :)





And this one just because I love the suspicious side-eye Sophia's giving her second cousin, Adrienne.  :)


And a big family group photo!


(With just one outtake: I got Joshua to look at the camera and smile by telling him to look for the blinking yellow light, but it backfired when he decided to run straight for it!)


We're so thankful we had the chance to spend time with so many loved ones on this trip.  Our kids can't wait for the next family vacation!

Christmas in Indy!

[Backdating this post since it's now been a month since Christmas...  This one's a long one, with tons of photos, so I hope that helps make up for the long radio silence!]

We had such a wonderful time with family out in Indianapolis this Christmas!  We've seen enough of Grandma and Grandpa (and Uncle Iain and Aunt Erin!) that the kids are now completely comfortable with them, which makes for an even nicer and more relaxing vacation.  Joshua in particular absolutely loves hanging out with his grandparents -- they shower him with more focused attention than he generally gets from his poor, tired parents on a daily basis.  ;)  And they have different toys!  And books!  And an old helium birthday balloon!!







Christmas day was so much fun this year.  Joshua really got into the opening of presents (so much so that he woke up on the 26th and asked hopefully to open more presents...), and he loved all the very thoughtful and fun gifts he received!  Iain and Erin found these brightly colored silicone coasters, designed to wrap around the bottom of the glass and distinguish it from others' glasses.  Technically, I think they were a gift to me and David, but Joshua saw them and immediately claimed the colorful circles as his own.  :)  As Iain predicted he would!  They also got him a set of building squares (again, symmetrical and brightly colored), and he was fascinated by how they fit together into different configurations.




(You can see he also received a set of stickers from Grandma, one of which was promptly affixed to the front of his sweater!)

But I'm afraid everything else immediately paled into insignificance when he opened his big! red!! FIRE TRUCK!!! from Grandma and Grandpa.  :)  A button on top makes the lights flash and the siren play (thankfully, not too loudly or long), and there's a crane ladder and a rubber hose and two little firefighters to drive the truck.  Joshua was utterly transfixed, and played with nothing else for the rest of the morning.







Where was Sophia during all this?  Fast asleep upstairs, I'm afraid...  But she made out like a bandit with cute and fun presents from everyone, all of which Joshua delighted in helping me open.  :)  And once Sophia woke up, we had a fun little Christmas photo shoot with the kids!  Where I managed to get a photo with both kids looking at me and looking happy!



Most of the other shots I got looked more like this:





Though that last one really melts my heart!

OK, gotta pick up speed and get through the rest of this photo dump recap...

Joshua got his first real playing in the snow experience while we were out in Indy!  There was a massive snowstorm just after Christmas, so David and Iain went out to shovel out the driveway before the snow got piled up too high.  And Joshua went to help!  :)









And to wrap things up, a series of Sophia on various relatives!  :)












All four of us had such a wonderful time over Christmas.  And we can't wait until the next time we get to hang out with family!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all the wonder and joy of Christmas!

[Confession: there may have been a helium balloon that escaped up to the cathedral ceiling just before I took that photo of Joshua...]

To Indy for Christmas!

This latest blog burst was made possible by the fact that we're at Grandma and Grandpa's in Indianapolis now for Christmas.  :)  It's wonderful being taken care of, and having so many willing and eager babysitters...

We decided to try flying out to Indy this time around, after having driven out here when escaping from Hurricane Sandy.  Driving for 14.5 hours each way, stopping at iffy turnpike rest areas to feed the kids, and losing two whole days of proper napping and sleeping didn't seem worth it, especially when compared to a two-hour flight with just an hour or two of transit time on each end.  Seems like a no-brainer, right?

We booked flights based on the kids' nap schedules, in the hopes that both of them would manage to fall asleep for much if not all of the flight.  And things seemed to be going exactly as we had hoped -- we made it through airport security fairly easily (or as easily as you can with a toddler in a stroller, a baby in a Beco carrier, and three small carry-on bags), and boarded the plane.  Sophia fell asleep on me almost right away, and Joshua happily bounced in his very own seat next to me (his first time on a plane not as a lap infant!), and listened to me wide-eyed as I explained that we would be zooming up into the sky shortly.

We taxied, and taxied, and taxied.  Every time the engines started revving up a bit, I would remind Joshua that we would be zooming up into the sky soon -- he does much better with new experiences if we prepare him properly for them.  So I got super excited and told him how fun it would be to fly up in the sky.  But each time, the plane swung around for another loop and continued taxiing on the ground.

Eventually, Joshua got tired and fell asleep on me.  And that's when the captain came on over the PA and told us that there was some "maintenance issue" that needed to be checked out, and that we would have to go back to the gate for the crew to take a look.  The kids slept peacefully on while we waited for the crew to do a "quick fix," and then we set off to the runway once more.





And we taxied, and taxied, and taxied some more.  Finally, the captain came on and said that the "quick fix" wasn't holding, and we would have to go back to the gate and deplane.

Joshua woke up then, and I think he was disoriented and uncomfortable, so he started wailing.  And then Sophia woke up.  (The sad thing is that if we had taken off on schedule, the kids would have been asleep for almost the entire flight -- so our planning would have worked out...)  It was almost time for Sophia to nurse again, so I switched seats with David (he was across the aisle with no one next to him), so he could try to calm Joshua down while I tried to feed Sophia.  But Sophia wasn't having it -- she hates being under the nursing cover, and I think she was feeling a little residual stress from me.  And then Joshua, still wailing, decided he wanted to be next to me again, so he ducked across the aisle.  With both kids screaming in my ears, I asked David to take Sophia to give one of my ears a break -- and Sophia immediately quieted in his arms.  When we deplaned at the terminal several minutes later, many of our fellow passengers congratulated David for his good work as a father.  :)  And Joshua was placated with videos on my phone, and then by a gift of apple juice from one of the stewards.

Back at the terminal, I fed Sophia in a family restroom and David grabbed us a quick bite to eat, including another bottle of juice for Joshua.



And then after about an hour of waiting, we finally reboarded the plane -- after many assurances that the maintenance issue was resolved and that that system had plenty of redundancies.  The kids both did beautifully on the plane the second time around -- Sophia was tired enough to sleep the whole way, and Joshua was plied with many snacks and games on my phone.  And we finally landed safely in Indianapolis, a mere four hours behind schedule...

All told, it was still probably better than driving with the kids.  And that kind of delay is unusual in our experience.  But we're hoping and praying that our return flight will be much, much less eventful!