Oh Hi! We Were Out Of Town

Avery had to go through the additional screening at the Lexington Airport yesterday. I hope you all feel safer now! Your Homeland Security Department at work for you.

On a lighter note, we had a fantastic time on our weekend trip to visit friends in Kentucky and Cincinnati. It was even worth the total lack of sleep we all got thanks to Jack battling some stomach troubles (due to teething!) and Avery learning to sleep in a new bed. I think Matt and I got a combined 4 hours of sleep on Thursday night, which wasn't a lot of fun for us since we had been up since 4:30am to make our 7am flight. I seriously think that the airlines increase the price of tickets by at least $100 for the flights that aren't early in the morning or right during nap time. Especially when you have to enter the criteria that you are traveling with 2 kids under 4. Brilliant scam, though. Wish I had thought of it.

I am just going to start with the weather because Oh My Goodness, you guys! I had no idea that there was an area of the country that had temperatures below 100 degrees every day. It was in the 80s there! And low humidity! I couldn't believe how wonderful and refreshing it was to be out of the oppressive heat. Matt and I even had a picnic lunch on Sunday and felt...dare I say it...a little chilly! It was such a wonderful experience. We missed the nice weather immediately upon landing in Austin when it was already in the mid 90s at 11am.

In most places Labor Day signifies the end of Summer but here in Austin it is more like Groundhogs Day: it normally means only 6 more weeks of 100 degree temperatures. If we are lucky.

Of course, we didn't go just for the weather. We actually went to visit some great friends and to see Matt's parents. We met babies and marveled at big kids that were babies when we moved away almost 6 years ago. It was amazing to see the transformations of our friends who are almost all married now and have children running around all over. We kept laughing about how our get-togethers used to be a lot less complicated when we didn't have to worry about all those kids hanging around us.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. More to come in a later post. After I get some sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.

Jack at the airport on Thursday. Bright and early but still in a great mood. He was perfect on the flights there. I actually have nothing to blog about related to the kids behavior on the flights. I believe this is God's way of paying me back for the AWFUL way that Avery acted on our earlier flight this summer.
Alaina, Jack, Avery and Lilly. Getting 4 kids to all look at the camera at the same time is tough. But even tougher is getting 5 kids in one picture. Poor Norah isn't even in the shot. 10 month olds just totally have minds of their own.
This is one of my favorites because that is my extremely conservative friend, Joe and his wife Christy. Matt banned me from talking politics with Joe even though it is one of my favorite things to do. Since I wasn't allowed to say anything I made sure to dress Jack in his Barack Obama t-shirt. Technically, I followed the rules.
I love this one because Jack is totally giving Jaden the "stink eye" in this shot. Clearly Jack is still angry about the loss to the Irish in 1995. I know I am. Ruined a perfectly good Saturday in September.

This is a shot of almost all of our gang of friends with their kids. We have a picture of these exact people at our wedding reception. At the time there were only 2 kids in the group. Now there are 12...I think. Amazing. (also, I love that Michelle is totally hiding behind me in this picture. I am on to you, Michelle. I know your game!)

More to come...