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After a nightmarish day of flight delays and spending 4 hours wandering Houston airport with the boys, plus then spending over an hour sitting on an airplane waiting to take off, we successfully made it home late Sunday night. Oh, yes, we'd had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to be sure we made it to the airport in time for our 8 a.m. flight, which ended up being an 11:40 a.m. flight, and then the flight from Houston was delayed - repeatedly - and our 12:30 arrival home ended up being at nearly 10 p.m.

We had a mostly fun and eventful stay in Missouri, with a very full schedule. The only real downside - and a big one it was and is - was whatever cold or other virus we all managed to pick up while we were there, which left the boys with a low grade fever and general ickies for a few days, my mom with a pretty serious illness which kept her from work for 2 nights, and me with a nagging cough and stuffy head and headache here over a week after the fever first hit.

Well, the lack of sleep - none of us slept well while we were gone - is a bit of a downside, too, and probably another reason I'm still trying to recover from what for the boys was a rather minor illness.

We spent time at the Knob Noster fair, where Guthrie had a blast going on lots of rides and eating lots of junk food, we saw lots of old friends, went to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Baldwin City, Kansas, and spent some time at KMOS (the local PBS affiliate) Kids Day, where the kids got to see Clifford, Curious George, and Jay Jay the Jet Plane. .

We are glad to be home now, and trying to get settled back in. I feel like there is a ton of work I must do, and feel the need to have it all done RIGHT NOW, and Turner is still being a velcro baby and needing to be held about 23 1/2 hours a day., I'm trying though. And Guthrie is helping me type this post, so any extra "dots" or commas can be blamed on him.

Today is Eric's birthday, which he had forgotten about until we started singing to him this morning. I even had to remind him how old he is. If Turner ever goes down for his nap, Guthrie and I are going to get to work on a chocolate cake topped with strawberries, at Guthrie's choosing.

Made it!

Arrived safely in Missouri this afternoon, after completely uneventful traveling. The flights went fine, although the second leg was delayed and arrived about 15 minutes late. The boys were both great on the airplanes, and I managed to keep my fear in check. Even managed to catch the last, oh, two questions of the Cormac McCarthy interview on Oprah. (Apparently it airs again later so I should be able to see the rest tonight)

Getting settled in to my mom's house for our stay, so glad to see Samantha, and Guthrie was obviously thrilled to see Stacia, as he practically attacked her on getting off the airplane.

Travels, travels, lots of travels

Friday morning, my dear husband, who I've come to believe might have gone off his rocker, announced (okay, so he hinted Thursday night) that we were, as soon as he got through with his morning meeting, taking off for the weekend. This wouldn't be such a shock except that he's done this 3 out of the last 4 weekends. And who am I to say no to a weekend away, especially to keep me from spending the entire weekend stressing about the impending travel to Missouri by airplane?

So off we went, about noon on Friday, to Corpus Christi. We are quickly falling in love with the whole Texas Gulf Coast, and Corpus and the surrounding area is filled with fun stuff for kids and adults. There's the beach, obviously, but so much more, which we've only started to explore. We've gone ahead and gotten a membership to the Texas State Aquarium, and love to watch the dolphin show. (The first time we were there, after the show we sat looking out at the bay and watching wild dolphins following a big ship.) We haven't done the USS Lexington, a retired aircraft carrier, yet, but will when the boys are old enough to care. And we bought our annual parking pass for Port Aransas, with its beautiful beaches.

Guthrie just loves the swimming pools, which was great because the beaches were so covered in seaweed this weekend that it was hard to play in the water too much. And we saw our first jellyfish, which I must admit was a little creepy for me, having grown up landlocked.

One of the highlights for me was heading up to Goose Island State Park, to see the "Big Tree." Eric wasn't nearly as impressed as I was, but I thought seeing a 1,000+ year old tree was pretty cool.

Guthrie enjoyed taking the ferry up to Rockport, and I'd never been on one either. Turner just screamed. Surprised?

And to further show that kids really are amused by the smallest things, Guthrie thought the surf shop was the coolest ever. I figured he'd get scared walking through a shark's mouth, but no, he said it was a nice shark, and he even touched its tooth on the way out.

And now, I am all packed for our adventure tomorrow, and I think we're ready to go. I'm hoping there won't be any meltdowns and I have prepared Guthrie enough for all of the details of flying (going through security, the layover in Dallas), but there is always something that comes up that I will have forgotten. If you feel so inclined, just glance up at the skies sometime between 7:30 and 12:30 central time tomorrow to send me good vibes for safe and fearless air travel.