On Tuesday we went to the Lakeview Museum of Arts & Sciences. There were a lot of interesting pieces of art. Alex had a fun time playing in the science section.
After the museum, we headed out to the Luthy Botanical Garden.
On Wednesday Alex and I went to my parent's house. Gabe's parents met my Dad half way and Alex and I switched cars.
Alex liked playing the piano.
On Saturday morning we left early to catch our flight back.
We are back in Arizona and now we have to unpack!
We left my parents house around 12:30 p.m. to head for St. Louis. After driving to the airport, returning our rental car, checking in with the airlines, going through security, and finding our gate, we had a couple of hours before our flight. One nice thing about traveling with a baby is priority seating. We arrived at the Tucson airport around 11:30 p.m. The luggage arrived around midnight and we were home around 12:30 a.m. After bringing everything inside I managed to take a bath around 2:00 a.m. I think we finally went to sleep around 3:30 a.m.
Alex on the airplane.
Speedramp into the wall at the airport in St. Louis.
We picked the dogs up from the kennel today. They are happy to be back home.
We are really hoping that Alex does not get sick. Maddex (Brandi - my niece's baby) is in the hospital. He is dehydrated, has pneumonia, strep throat, and if that isn't enough he also has an ear infection. Maddex is only 7 months old. Please say a prayer for his quick recovery.
Well, we have quite a few things to do today (we aren't going to get them all accomplished).
Monday, Gabe, Alex, my mom, and I went to Indianapolis to see my Grandma. We stayed for a few hours and had food from Taco Bell. My Grandma really likes Taco Bell, so when Gabe and I go up to see her we always have food from there. We made it back to my parent's house pretty late (around 11:00 p.m.). I managed to read about half of the new James Patterson book Cross Country. Gabe gave it to me for Christmas. So, I used the light function on the Itzbeen to read the first portion of the book. Maybe I will get a chance to finish it before we go back. I have quite a few books to read. I read The Tales of Beedle the Bard while driving from Peoria to my Parent's house. It makes me miss Harry Potter. After I catch up with the Twilight series, I might read the Harry Potter series again. Oh, it looks like they are going to make a movie out of New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series. I still haven't seen the first movie yet.
We were going to get our eyes examined yesterday, but my old eye doctor was off. So, we stayed home and relaxed. My brother and his wife came up for a little while.
Since my eye doctor was off yesterday, we decided to go today. Both Gabe and I had our eyes examined. Alex came along to watch. We wanted to get our hair cut, but we barely had time for our eye exams. We had an appointment with a photographer for my entire family to have a group picture and then everyone could have whatever combination of photographs that they wanted. However, even more people are sick, so it was canceled. No picture this year :(
There is always next year.
Our New Year's Eve plans were canceled since the picture was canceled. People were supposed to come over and eat/play cards/play games, but since everyone was sick it ended up being Gabe, my mom, my Dad, Alex, and me. I really hope that Alex doesn't catch whatever is going around. Luckily, my parents, Gabe, and I seem to be avoiding it so far...hopefully I did not just jinx us.
Yesterday, Gabe, my parents, Alex, and I went to lunch at 17th Street Bar & Grill. My mom had a few things to pick up in a town about a half an hour from where they live. She had a baby shower for some of our family members and friends. So, today we saw quite a few of my family members and a lot of them met Alex for the first time. We had a really yummy cake and cookies.
Alex cookies
Diaper cake that Brandi made.
Gabe & Alex at the shower.
We came back to my parent's house and watched the Gridiron Gang. It is about a probation officer that decides to start a football team the inmates of the juvenile detention center. Some were in rival gangs. They all had to play together as a team. It was a great movie.
On Christmas Eve we headed down to my parent's house. We celebrated my Dad's birthday at my brother's house. My sister and sister-in-law made dinner. Afterward we came back to my parent's house.
Christmas morning people came up for breakfast and we opened our ornament exchange gifts. My brother didn't come up for Christmas this year due to a severe illness that started after we left his house on Christmas Eve. I spoke with him today and he is still sick. We opened presents on Christmas Day and everyone went home. When people came back for dinner, Brandi's husband (Doug) did not come back up. He stayed home sick. While eating dinner Shane's son started throwing up. I am hoping that Alex does not get sick. It seems that everyone has whatever is currently going around. My Uncle Marty and his family also stopped by last night.
This morning my cousin, Kara Beth stopped by to see Alex. Gabe and I have been relaxing. The weather here is nicer than the weather was up north.
Alex's eye is much better. Unfortunately he does not like the eye drop in his eye every three hours.
We dropped the dogs off at the kennel on Friday and we flew out to St. Louis on Saturday. Alex ended up with half of my suit case and part of Gabe's suit case. So, when we arrived at the airport we had two large suit cases, a medium suit case (that Gabe emptied and packed into the other bags), a car seat, a diaper bag, two carry ons, and a baby. We could barely carry it all. It is a really good thing that Gabe left the medium suit case in the truck.
We flew Frontier Airlines and they were all very nice. The lady at the check in counter said we could check any baby items for free and to keep it in mind for our next trip. It is nice in thought, but I don't think that it is that practical to pack any more stuff around. Going through security was much easier than I had anticipated. The TSA worker was very helpful and came over to help me through security. I sort of think he saw me and thought "oh great, she is really going to slow things down." :)
Alex was great on the airplane. He slept the entire time we were flying. I hope that he is just as great on the trip home.
We stopped at Sam's to pick up some diapers before arriving at his parent's house. The weather here definitely reminds me of winter. There is snow on the ground and ice on the trees. The roads were basically fine though.
Ice and snow
On Sunday, Aaron came to Peoria. Originally we were going to go to Chicago to the German Village, but the weather was too bad to take Alex. Instead, Aaron came to see us. We went to Folepi's Village and saw the Festival of Lights floats. Luckily the village was inside and we were able to see the floats from the comfort of our heated car.
The cacti followed us to Illinois!
Aaron, Gabe, and I came back and we all had dinner. Aaron had to leave since he had a long drive back to Chicago and he had to work on Monday. Laura (Gabe's sister) and Nate (Laura's boyfriend) came over we opened our Christmas presents and watched old family videos. Gabe and I also wrapped all of the presents on Sunday morning. It was like a little Christmas for us too, since most of the packages had been shipped to his parent's house months ago.
On Monday, I watched while Gabe, Duane (Gabe's dad), Troy (Gabe's brother), and Shari (Gabe's sister-in-law) all played Settlers of Catan. The Gabe was put on hold around 5:00 p.m. Gabe, Duane, and I went to a military supply store to buy some MRE's for my brother for Christmas. We had ordered some from a site on the internet, but I was really disappointed in them. They were only the entrees and not the complete meal that I was expecting. It is all fixed now (I still need to wrap them though). We stopped by Laura and Nate's place on the way back and then we headed to Sam's to pick up some chickens for dinner. After dinner, the game playing resumed.
Today has been pretty laid back. Troy, Shari, and Sophie (Troy & Shari's daughter) headed back to their home. I think we are going to watch a movie tonight. The snow is much nicer when you can enjoy it from the comfort of a heated house. Gabe and I also need to pack. We are going to leave tomorrow and head south to Southern Illinois to see my family.
I think that we are crazy for coming here for Christmas. We should have had people come to sunny Arizona instead!
P.S. I will most likely add pictures in early January.
I decided that I wanted to have a cheeseball for our festivities tomorrow...well, actually today since it is almost 1:00 a.m. Man, I need to get to bed...I have to work tomorrow. Back to my story. We could not find a cheeseball at any of the stores that we went to. So, while we were at the grocery store I had to call my mom to ask her how to make her cheeseball. I refuse to believe that the stores do not carry cheeseballs in the Chicagoland area. Instead, I have decided that there was a run on them and everyone was simply sold out.
Gabe and I are on the train on our way back to Chicago. We went out to eat at Leonard's for prime rib before leaving. So far the train ride has been pretty uneventful. The most exciting thing occurred when we were passing through a town and someone threw a rock. As you can imagine it just bounced right off and we kept moving. We purchased business class fare instead of coach and I must say that the few extra dollars were well spent. I am going to surf the net some now, after all, it is a 5 1/2 hour train ride.
Today there wasn't a whole lot the schedule. My mom wanted to take Gabe to a restaurant called Leonard's a few towns over. She really wanted him to try the prime rib. I must say that I used to get it quite frequently and it is pretty good. I forget how inexpensive things are compared to Chicago. Both Gabe and I were quickly reminded when we looked at the menu. I couldn't decide if I wanted the pork tenderloin sandwich or the salad bar. I decided to get them both since the sandwich was only $2.50 and the salad bar was $3 and some change. Then we went shopping the next town over and I purchased a few items of clothing for clinic. I really appreciate a good sleeveless top. I believe that they heat the exam rooms in the summer.
We left Chicago around 5:00 p.m. Since it is Memorial Day weekend there is a bit more traffic than normal. Gabe said that he heard a report that this would be the busiest travel day ever. Well, we started to leave and decided to wait a few hours since the way that we take to get to my parents had a travel time of an hour and twenty minutes for three miles. I could run it faster than that! We arrived at their house around midnight and my dad was on his way to bed as we walked in. Both Elsa and Clara were pretty excited to see us. We are going to bed.
We had Easter Dinner a day early since Gabe and I will be leaving to go back to Chicago tomorrow. Due to the lack of kitchen facilities, we grilled and it was good. We also picked up a few items from the deli that did not require cooking (i.e., potato salad, macaroni salad, baked beans, chips, etc.). We actually managed to dirty very few dishes, which turns out to be a handy thing when you don't have a kitchen sink. Before dinner we cleaned up my Dad's truck. If optometry school doesn't work out I could always have a career in the car cleaning industry.
We went to my parents for Easter. The drive was long. It was made a bit shorter by the fact that Gabe drove instead of me. It was well after midnight before we pulled in, and everyone was in bed. Both Gabe and I managed to avoid waking up my parents, but Elsa (my dog) didn't. She jumped right into bed next to my mom and woke her up. Just a little side note: the thing that gets me about my dogs is that they will wake me up in the morning and jump/quietly bark until I get out of the bed and then they both go back to sleep. Anyway, today Gabe and I went for a run, went to the deli and purchased items for lunch meat sandwiches, and then we worked on the pool area (i.e., pulling weeds, potting flowers, etc.). It was actually a productive and relaxing day. We then went out to dinner at the new Italian Restaurant the next town over. It was pretty good, but I give it a year. Most of the restaurants in that location don't last more than a few years. So, you are probably wondering why we are eating lunch meat and out at restaurants since my mom enjoys cooking. My mom is having her kitchen redone. She currently has no water, stove, microwave, or basically anything that you need to cook. She does however have a fridge, hence the lunch meat. I am not sure what we will do tomorrow.