Along for the Ride

Since we arrived back from our Thanksgiving away, we've had quite a bit of snow here in Michigan. Now, I really do think that it's snowing abnormally early this year - and I'm not sure I'm so excited about it. Addison, on the other hand, is SUPER excited about the "NO". That would be Addison's version of snow - silent 's' and no 'w'... not to be confused with "NO" which is Addison for "nose" even though in her world both the facial feature and the precipitation cause her to say "no" and point to her nose. Go figure. AND of course there is also "NO" meaning, 'no way' - no way am I going to eat that, no way are you going to change my diaper, no way am I going inside and no way am I taking my boots/hat/gloves off. This girl really loves the snow!

Last Sunday, we all loaded up in the car with a couple sleds and headed off to Wilcox Park to do a little sledding. The hill is small and perfect for an 17 month old and sufficient for our dog - who thinks chasing us down the hill is about as good as going for a swim in the lake. I expected we'd be there for a half hours or so and that Addison would have her fill after a few rides and want to go home. Nope, a good hour of sledding and she was still appalled when we took her out of the sled to head home.

Now that the cold and snow has taken over the outdoors. It is simply unappealing at best for me to muster up the ambition to get out there and do anything. The fact that Addison loves being out there helps matters, but I think I still fall short of her expectations. For example, yesterday, Addison insisted on wearing her hat and mittens for a good 2 hours in the middle of the afternoon. I'm certain she would have tried to put her boots on as well if she had been able to find them. It was definitely more than a strong hint that she wanted to go outside and play. I wasn't going for it though, so then she rummaged through my pots, pans and bowls...got out the largest one and tried to climb into it. Dan thinks she was trying to tell me she wanted to go sledding, but I think it's just a phase she's in since she tries to climb into everything: her toy box, her little lunchbox, my oven drawer, the laundry baskets. Whatever it is, she makes a good case for getting me outdoors.

Thanksgiving (posted a few days late)

Back in July Michelle found a great price on airline tickets to California for Thanksgiving. The travel times were not awful, but not that great. To get that rate we had to fly out on Sunday the 23rd and return on Friday the 28th. The flight out was a decent flight, Grand Rapids to Detroit, a two hour lay-over which gave us enough time to get some breakfast and feed Addison. Then the long flight to San Francisco. Addison did really well. She slept about 1-1/2 hours on the second flight. Michelle’s dad picked us up at the airport and we got in the car for 1-1/2 hour ride to the house. Addison was charming her Grandpa the whole way home.

Time with the family seemed to go by so fast. Thanksgiving Day was great. Great food, as expected and plenty of football. I was even given the assignment of brining the Turkey and prepping it for the roast, which is quite a privilege considering how much Michelle's family likes to be in the kitchen, and I must say it turned out pretty good.

Before you knew it we were packing up to head back home. We were expecting a very trying day on the way home. We planned to wake up around 3 am to leave the house for the airport around 3:45. That would put us at the airport around 5 or 5:15 am for our flight at 6:30a.m. We then went to Minneapolis for a 1 hour lay-over, on to Detroit for a 3 hour lay-over, and then arrive to our destination city of Grand Rapids at 8:30 p.m. Everything went as expected other than the fact that we expected Addison to fall back asleep after we moved her from her bed to the car at 3:40 a.m. But she managed to stay awake until we got to the airport at which time we loader her in her stroller and headed to ticketing, then off to security, and on to the departure gate. She stayed awake through our first flight, a lay-over and the majority of the second flight. She actually fell asleep after we landed while we were taxiing to the gate. We successfully transferred her to her stroller and we were able to get a bite to eat before she woke up. Then we were fortunate to find room on an earlier flight to Grand Rapids, the only draw back was that our checked luggage could not be moved onto the earlier flight. But we were heading home now so everything we really needed was there, we could get Addison home and one of us would go back to the airport later that night to get our luggage. Addison was a doll the entire flight, until about the last ten minutes of the leg into Grand Rapids, and even then she wasn’t too out of hand because all the people around us thought she was really good. She was just whining to us, it hadn’t reached an all-out cry yet. We got off the flight and were actually back at the house around 7:45. Addison was in her own bed by 8:15 p.m. I had to go back to the airport to get our luggage which came on our scheduled flight (which was delayed about an hour and thirty minutes), we were so glad we changed our flight because Addison would have been a handful if we did not get home until 10:30 p.m.

(Addison with her cousin Garrett)