I do love the holidays and am sad to see them end. The alarm this morning was a sad jolt back to reality. Thankfully Miss Lucy slept until almost 7 which allowed both Jas and I to wake up slowly and ease back into the routine.
Our Christmas holiday was spent in Denver with Jason's parents. It sucked not being with my own family but circumstances were going to make that not a reality even if we were here in Seattle. We decided to take advantage of Lucy's mobility and lack of long term memory to take our party to Denver. Next year we will be home and all relatives will be invited to join us.
Actually, we decided to throw a cocktail party on December 22nd. Mark your calendars, we'll be dressing up and serving appetizers. We'll be inviting family and friends, so don't make other plans. Christmas day next year will likely be just us, and both sets of parents.
To get to Denver a family must either fly or drive. Since a driving vacation to Denver is a summer activity and one we won't put Lucy through until she's forward facing in the car so we can lull her to sleep with the on-board DVD player, we flew. Don't worry about that DVD thing though, she won't be watching Hannah Montana for 3 days straight, it will be PBS shows like Year in the life of a beaver pond, or Discovery Earth. Flying with an infant is an adventure that I'm happy to have had a partner to share it with. The airlines kindly let you hold an infant on your lap until they are 2 years old and it costs you nothing. Well, nothing but personal space and worry for the people around you.
Lucy did very well on both flights. The outbound flight she slept almost the entire way and on the return flight she was awake but mostly happy. We did ply her with Cheerios and other treats to keep her occupied, but I don't think we were wrong.
We decided a couple things though... unless the cost is horrific we'll be buying her a seat from now on and she's uninvited to our upcoming Maui vacation. Thank you to Grandma Susie and Papa John for coming out and keeping our girl company, as she's a tad bit too young to stay alone. I feel some guilt about leaving her behind but am also pretty excited about a week in Maui with my fella and no schedule to keep. Instead of dinners on the lanai while the Peanut sleeps, now we can go out to dinner and maybe even a luau! Walks on the beach at night and maybe even some skinny dipping. Well neither of us are skinny, so technically it could be "tubby dipping" but you get the idea.
Ok, I hope that didn't give you a visual. Let's get back to the holidays. For the first time a trip to Denver did not include a neighborhood wide party to celebrate some nonsense like an engagement, pregnancy or birth and we were mostly free to do what we wanted. What we wanted to do was shop. I mean, isn't that what people do who are limited to certain amounts of luggage and have yet to open the piles of presents under the tree?
I think the purchase of a big and fluffy bathrobe was entirely reasonable and the winter coat with the liner was super practical. Heck, if I had to I was willing to wear all three on the plane. I actually am in love with both items and found a way to make room. We actually had almost 6 pounds of leeway with our bags (4 free bags of 50 pounds) so we had room for at least another pair of jeans or something equally important.
After all the shopping we also kept ourselves busy by frequenting our favorite breakfast and lunch joints. Lucy doesn't do dinner out, so it's up early for eggs at Sam's #3. We did get out twice for dinner. Once with the family and an alternate grandma was brought in to sit with Lucy. The other night, she was home with the real deals. Both evenings were lovely, it is a bit strange to be out past 7pm in the evening.
While in Denver, Lucy attended her first Catholic Mass. She did pretty well considering the late (for her) hour and the hot hot temperature in the room. (We weren't early enough to be in the Churchy church part of the building.) Papa John (not the pizza king) proudly paraded her through the room sharing his mild joy and adoration for our little girl. She likes to see all the people so it was a great form of entertainment before all the talking began.
Lucy was somewhat unimpressed with the Christmas morning activities and had to take a nap between the stockings and the opening of the gifts. She likes the paper, or to be more specific likes to eat the paper. The new toys and all the beautiful outfits she got were not really her concern.
We were in Denver a week and it flew by very fast. We arrived home Thursday and then enjoyed four full days of a home vacation. We planned and prepped for a New Year's Eve celebration, de-Christmased and spend a day on the couch watching movies.
Today it was back to life day. Lucy went to school at 7:30, I hit the gym for the first time in for ever and there is laundry production happening. I'm logged on to work and have resolved the emergencies that did not occur while I was out and am making my long to do list to keep myself on track this year.
This long post is not really on the plan, but I needed to catch you up so I could get back to complaining about customer service or politics.
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