our vacation to NC

so here is the blog my mom has been waiting for! 

wednesday morning momby came over and we all piled into the car and drove to the airport to go to NC to see my parents. our flight was so easy. just checked in, boarded, flew, and got picked up. we even had an empty seat next to us so elenora could crawl around a bit. mostly we read "little bear" books (i got a new one about little bear's visit to his grandmother and grandfather's house) and put stickers in a notebook. and ate snacks. she was so good. as everyone boarded the airplane and walked past our seat she looked up at them and said "hi honey!" to each person. made everyone smile. also, when we were sitting at our gate, ella saw a baby crawling and she said "not a baby anymore." and i said "you're not a baby anymore?" and she said "no" and i said "what are you?" and she said "cutie."

we arrived by noon and my mom picked us up. elenora is usually shy about going to people she hasn't seen in awhile, but she went right to my mom. they really have a special connection. mom took us by her church on the way to her house, and we went inside. elenora walked through saying "humongous church!" think crystal cathedral. i've never seen a place this big.

ella didn't get her nap started until about 2 something, so she slept until 4 something. then we went on a tour of the wycliffe campus and stopped by my dad's work to say hi. it was so hot outside, and muggy, so we decided to go swimming. there was a baby pool with about 2 feet of water in it, and elenora just loved walking around in there and floating on her back.

thursday morning while i dressed elenora she said "ella has a belly button." and then she said "mommy has a belly button." and then she said "does mimi have a belly button?" and i said "ask her." and so she asked my mom and my mom showed her, and then ella asked "does poppy have a belly button?" and my mom said yes, and ella said "everybody has a belly button!" and then she said "even lorien has a belly button!" and then she said "even aunt dawn has a belly button!"

we took a walk around my mom's campus to meet her coworkers and see where she works. as we walked around my mom found a feather and handed it to elenora and ella said "soft. comes from a bird." then we went through a museum and then met up with a group of teenagers that was touring the campus to watch a presentation about what my mom does. at one point the teens started laughing and ella said "everybody's laughing!" and she started laughing too. we walked through the cafeteria, which had flags of every nation hanging from the ceiling, and ella said "so many flags." and my mom asked her if she could find the american flag. ella looked around and then pointed to a far part of the room and said "there it is!"

some lady sitting a bit away from us said "that is amazing. how old is she?"

during ella's nap my mom took me to cvs and while we were gone ella woke up and my dad got her up. she and her poppy haven't had a lot of time to bond, so when he called us elenora was crying pretty hard. i felt so badly that i had left her. but when i got back my dad had taken elenora outside to a pond and she and he were very happy together. i know it made him feel good to be able to make her feel better. and later that evening when he came home for dinner she smiled really big and was much more at ease with him.

friday my dad took off time from work and he and my mom took us to a nature center. it was the perfect, low-key place to take ella. the first thing we saw when we walked in was a lot of chicks running around in a cage. and then we saw little mice, and live owls, and all kinds of different animals. there was a butterfly pavilion to walk through and a children's play area with a small waterfall and pool to play with rubber frogs in. it was really a lot of fun, and we got ella back in time for her nap.

friday afternoon we again went swimming, and then after dinner we went to an ice cream social behind my parents' apartment.

the best part of the whole trip was having my own mother around to take care of me. i never get taken care of, so it was a true vacation. i really appreciate it mom.

something else that was really neat was seeing how at ease ella was in my parents' home. she was such a sweetheart and didn't even ever cry about going to bed. she was a snuggler and was so sweet to everyone. when mom and i would be cooking, ella would come to the kitchen door and say "sing uncle joe" and we would sing it. and she would dance. and then she'd say "sing another song." and we'd ask her which one. and she'd say "sing ella bella bee song." and we'd sing it, and she'd dance. my mom is good about getting right into songs with elenora and doing hand motions that ella would try to imitate. we had such fun.

saturday's flight was not so great. the check in kiosks were on the fritz and by the time i got to the front of the line to check in they told me i was too late to check in for my flight. i was so angry, since i still had a half hour before my flight had to leave, and i'd been there for over a half hour already waiting to check in. the man said "they've booked you on another flight." and i said "how is that possible?" and he said "the other flight is full." and i said "how is that possible, since i have a ticket and i'm here, and there's still time for me to get on that plane?" and he just shrugged his shoulders and my blood pressure went through the roof and i said "it's not right of them to just give my plane ticket away." and he just shrugged his shoulders again. i was supposed to sit in a window seat and arrive in boston by noon. instead, we were placed in the middle seat on a flight that arrived close to 2 pm. by the time j. picked us up and we stopped for lunch and went home, it was 4 pm and ella hadn't napped at all. so we just kept her up a little bit more and put her to bed early. i also crawled into bed at 6 pm to take a nap.

i slept until the next morning.