About a month ago we received an invitation in the mail to Michelle’s nephew Garrett’s 1st birthday party in California. What’s the likelihood that a family of three in Michigan, one of which is 8 months old, is going to make the trek to California for a 1st birthday party? Normally, I’d say not too likely, that kid is never going to remember it; But not this time. As it turns out, about a week after we received the invite, my boss asked me if I could go to California to install some new parts on a test unit at a customer’s facility which just happens to be 9.8 miles from Michelle’s parent’s home. Michelle checked the availability of frequent flyer tickets and landed herself a ticket that would get her and Addison there with no charge (only 37,500 miles – still leaving a balance of over 200,000 in Michelle’s account). So it’s in the books, Michelle and Addison left on Wednesday of last week, and I headed out on Friday morning. Addison got as much quality time the with Michelle’s family as possible in 5 days. Addison and Garret had their own little crawling race. Addison faired pretty well considering she is 2/3 his age, but Garrett won the event. The Jury is still out as to which if them will be walking first. Either way, it’s a consensus amongst the family, that when the two of them see each other again at the Colorado family gathering in late June, they will both be walking/running and we’ll hold a rematch. That’s right, I’m speculating that Addison will be walking by the time she’s 11 months old.
So yesterday was the return flight. Our flight was scheduled to leave Sacramento at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning which meant we needed to leave the house at 6:30 to get to the airport between 7:30 and 8. So we got up around 5am to get ready for our trek. We arrived in Sacramento around 7:30 with plenty of time, and the first flight took off on time, but arrived in Minneapolis about 20 minutes late because of weather. Addison was so excited that she was only able to get in a 45 minute nap during the first 8 hours of her day. And we had just arrived in Minneapolis where one delay led to another. She was not about to sleep now because of all this activity. Our tight 50 minute lay-over turned into a comfortable 2+ hour lay-over, but Addison still had not slept. Now we boarded the plane and the plane headed over to the line of aircraft waiting to be deiced. Michelle was holding off on giving Addy her bottle until we started the accent so the sucking would help make her ears pop. This deicing process was just dragging on and on. We had now been on the plane for over an hour and anticipated a complete melt down at any moment. Wouldn’t you know this is right when the highlight of our day came. Addison was crawling/climbing all over us getting fussy, and the deicing had just begun. She noticed the snow on the window melting as this pink fluid ran down and she began crawling/climbing toward the window. The deicing fluid is applied by a large truck with a man-guided capsule on the end of an extendable boom. When the snow melted off our window Addison had both hands and face pressed up to the glass and right outside our window was this capsule.
So yesterday was the return flight. Our flight was scheduled to leave Sacramento at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning which meant we needed to leave the house at 6:30 to get to the airport between 7:30 and 8. So we got up around 5am to get ready for our trek. We arrived in Sacramento around 7:30 with plenty of time, and the first flight took off on time, but arrived in Minneapolis about 20 minutes late because of weather. Addison was so excited that she was only able to get in a 45 minute nap during the first 8 hours of her day. And we had just arrived in Minneapolis where one delay led to another. She was not about to sleep now because of all this activity. Our tight 50 minute lay-over turned into a comfortable 2+ hour lay-over, but Addison still had not slept. Now we boarded the plane and the plane headed over to the line of aircraft waiting to be deiced. Michelle was holding off on giving Addy her bottle until we started the accent so the sucking would help make her ears pop. This deicing process was just dragging on and on. We had now been on the plane for over an hour and anticipated a complete melt down at any moment. Wouldn’t you know this is right when the highlight of our day came. Addison was crawling/climbing all over us getting fussy, and the deicing had just begun. She noticed the snow on the window melting as this pink fluid ran down and she began crawling/climbing toward the window. The deicing fluid is applied by a large truck with a man-guided capsule on the end of an extendable boom. When the snow melted off our window Addison had both hands and face pressed up to the glass and right outside our window was this capsule.
We could see the man in the capsule smiling and waving to her. She however was mesmerized by the machine and oblivious to the fact there was a person inside the machine. I could see the guy in the capsule talking on his two-way radio to the driver of the truck and motioning him to look at Addison. At which point he moved the truck closer to get a better look and then he too took time to wave at her but she was still only seeing the outside of the truck and not able to comprehend that there was a human inside. Then came this guy in a bright yellow rain suit and florescent orange gloves, he must have been inspecting each and every aircraft for thorough coverage of the deicing fluid. He walked from under the plane beneath our window and as he turned his head up to look in the vicinity of our window he too saw Addison and waved. This is when she started to laugh hysterically, she cackled then pounded on the window. She was waving at him!!! We’ve been trying to teach her to wave at people and have seen signs that perhaps she understood the concept, but at this moment we knew she understood. He would wave back and she would cackle, wave and pound on the window and laugh. As our camera’s were all packed away and phones shut off we could not put the memory into a photo so this is my attempt to keep this memory as vivid as possible and put it into words.
P.S. We should have some new photos on the flickr acount later tonight!
