we are here!

Sorry we've seemingly disappeared!!  Samantha and I flew to Chicago on Wednesday to spend some time with my dad and the rest of my family.  We have been busy busy and hardly had a chance to stop and sit at the computer, let alone post an entry!  We spent Wednesday with my dad and then at my friends house with her family before she left Thursday for her honeymoon.  (They got married back in June but are taking their honeymoon now.)  Thursday was basically a lazy day.  Friday we went downtown with my Aunt Pam and met up with my younger brother Brad and his girlfriend, Katie.  Yesterday we had our church Christmas program featuring me as Mary and Samantha as baby Jesus!!  We did pretty good if I do say so myself.  Today we had church and then an "open house" at my aunt's which, unfortunately, only one person showed up to, lol!!  Oh well.

I will do my very best to post some more for the remainder of our trip.  (We are here until Saturday)  I have been taking tons of pictures as well so I will try to get some of those up too.

we are here!

We made it!  We left Virginia yesterday at 3:00 pm, only an hour later than scheduled.  Granted we DID leave the house at 2:07, only 7 minutes late.  But, we had to stop at Target to pick up our new contacts and then we got Chick-Fil-A for lunch.  As we pulled out of the Target parking lot and got the GPS up and running, I saw that we should pull into Chris' parents house around 8:30.  Sounds nice, right?  We got on the road and maybe 20 minutes in traffic suddenly came to a halt.  That stop quickly added another hour to our arrival time.  Okay, not so bad.  This is also the point where Samantha started crying.  I quickly hopped into the back of the car and found out the problem...the sun was coming in through the back seat and shining right in her face.  We have a shade on the side window but it clips up top so there was no way to attach it in the back.  Chris had a jacket back there, so I resorted to holding it up across the windows!!  My arms got sore rather quickly so then I cupped my hands and put them over her face.  Oh, the things we do for our babies.  Thankfully she then fell asleep and I was able to relax for a little bit.  We hit a little back up in Pennsylvania and then got it really bad again going to cross over the George Washington bridge into Manhattan.  What a horrible bridge.  Traffic sucks and it now costs $12 to go over.  TWELVE DOLLARS!!!  Crazy.  By cheating a little, we cut about an hour of "stuck in traffic" time and got over on the lower level.  Traffic in New York and Connecticut was smooth sailing and we arrived at his parents in Wallingford at 11:30.  Only three extra hours.  Oy!  We quickly ate dinner and then headed to bed.  So part one of the ride officially went well.

Today however is a completely different story.  Samantha decided that napping was not in the game plan.  I got her almost to sleep twice and then attempted to put her down either in the crib or travel swing and she would instantly wake up.  So, she didn't have a nap all morning.  Couple this with any of Chris' six brothers and sisters (plus their respective husbands/wives/significant others) plus nieces and nephews coming in and out and poking and prodding at Samantha, and well, you can imagine how the afternoon went.  I finally decided to put her in the Ergo and just walk around.  Thank goodness for the Ergo.  She ended up falling asleep for a little while which was nice, but even when she woke up she was still really cranky.  So overall, it was a really long day and I am praying tomorrow goes better.  We'll hope she gets a good night sleep and tomorrow is a new day.  Keep your fingers crossed!

and we're off

Chris, Samantha and I are headed to Connecticut for the Columbus weekend to visit Chris's family. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the trip goes smoothly and we all arrive in one piece. Samantha has only been to Connecticut once and that trip is certainly one I'll never forget.

Back in June or July my sister-in-law Eileen posted on facebook that she was going to the Britney Spears concert in Hartford the first week of August. I jokingly said that I wanted to come too and much to my surprise, Chris actually said I could go. So began my trip planning. Chris works a rotating schedule and has crazy days off, so him coming up with us was out of the question. I decided to leave around 9:00am on Monday morning. The first 45 minutes was smooth sailing: Sam was sleeping, I was listening to my favorite talk show, and I was getting excited for the concert the next day. Then Sam woke up...and started SCREAMING. I had hardly crossed the border into Maryland when we had to pull over so I could attempt to calm her down. We stopped for almost an hour while I just walked back and forth over and over again. As soon as I would attempt to put her back in her car seat, cue the screaming. I finally gave up and just continued on my way. To make a long story short, we finally arrived around 4:30pm.

I had the concert Tuesday night and then Wednesday we had planned a family get together since the majority of his family hadn't yet met her. I was supposed to leave Thursday morning. Of course by Thursday, I was NOT ready to attempt the drive again so I decided to stay until Friday. Friday morning, I got up bright and early at 4:30 and headed out. Thankfully, Samantha slept straight through until Baltimore and hardly made a peep the remaining hour and a half until we got home.

This trip, we were hoping to have similar results. We were going to leave last night around 6:00pm after Chris got home from work. Chris is a seasonal employee at H&R block and each year they need to take classes to remain up to date with the current tax information. Class this week was to be on Monday and Wednesday. However, when he showed up for class on Monday, the instructor said class would also be held on Friday. What?! So right now, Chris is at class and once he gets home he's going to wash the car (really? As if the car isn't going to get dirty on the drive up there!) and then we'll head out about 2:00. Naps have been hit or miss lately so I'm not really sure what to expect. But at least there will be two of us, so hopefully the trip goes a little more smoothly.