Thursday, August 19, 2010

Dentist

Conner went to the dentist for the first time at the beginning of the summer. Um... a 1 year old going to the dentist? I thought the same thing. But my best friend Kalli is a dental assistant at a pediatric dental office and informed me that you need to bring them in 6 months after they get their first tooth. Since Conner didnt get teeth til 11 months, that meant 17 months! I tell her what to do with her hair and she listens, she tells me what to do with our teeth, and we listen. Conner loved it. All they did was brush his teeth and look in his mouth, it's basically to get them use to the dentist and sitting in the chair. Kalli is awesome with the kids there, if any of you have children go to Children's Landing Pediatric Dentistry over by Jordan Landing.
A play house in the waiting room. It has a kitchen, some books, toys, puzzles and video games.

Playing in the chair

He pretty much owned the place, Kalli let him do WHATEVER he wanted.


Getting his teeth cleaned, he loved it. I think it tickled.

Monday, August 16, 2010

I was lucky enough to go visit my sister in Illinois, after she had her baby. I went out in July and stayed for a week, and then her, and her kids flew back to utah with me. While I was there we hung out, ate junk food, held sweet baby claire, and I was able to go to Katelyn's dance class. Conner and I had a lot of fun out there, until it was time to go home.... before I tell you that story here are a couple pictures.
Katelyn and Claire. Lindsey made this dress for Katelyn's doll and it happened to fit Claire, how cute are they?
At Katelyn's dance class, how cute is she? Of course she was the best one there.. I'm not biased.
Now onto the story of our trip home... Where do I begin. Our flight home was on Thursday July 15th at 6:50 from St Louis airport Lindsey lives in a really small town and St Louis is the closest airport, its about 1 hour 45 min away. We planned to leave at 2:30, that way we would get there no later than 4:30, 2 hours 20 min before our flight left. Her husband Bryan was driving us to the airport, but was not coming with us, he had to stay for school and work. We were on the road for about 15 min and realized Bryan left his phone at home, but we kept going. About 10 min later we came to a dead stop on the freeway. There had been some construction there recently and we figure it was that or a small fender bender and we could get off the freeway at the next exit. An hour and a half later, we had moved about 1/2 mile to a utility turn-a-round, so we used it. All this time we were trying to call the airline to see if there was a later flight we could switch too, the only flight after ours was at 6:55... who does that? 5 min apart! So we kept driving hoping we would make it on time. All of the roads towards St. Louis were packed! We finally got to another part of the freeway after we'd been driving for 2 hours and only driven 30 miles, fun huh? We kept calling delta trying to figure something out, they wanted us to pay 300 a ticket to fly out the next day.. no thanks.. mind you my sister just had a baby so her hormones were a little off, she was upset to say the least. At this point me, Linds, Bryan, and Tim and my Parents on the phone, are racking our brain for ideas. And were still on our way to St. Louis, because we figure that I have to at least get home from there. And I was suppose to work the next day, had a full day of appointments. So were calling everyone we know that works for delta to see if they can help us out.. no such luck.
We came up with every idea possible:
-Bryan drives us out there. 21 hours. But does he drive back? Or does he fly back? He was suppose to be coming out the second week in August, so if he flew back how would their get their van back? would they drive it and forget about their flights home? Lindsey didnt want Bryan drivng back 21 hours by himself, so driving their car there was out. Also, Bryan had a job interview the next day, and didnt want to miss it, but also didnt have his phone with the number in it to call And he didnt want to leave us there alone.
-Side note: I'm getting so angry just writing this!
-Buy tickets on delta? hmmm.. 1200 more dollars for a one way flight. no thanks!
-Tim's dad is a retired pilot and has some buddy passes we can use. There arent enough to get us to Salt Lake since its not a hub airport, but we can get to denver. Tim will drive there and drive us home.-this is the option we go with.
It was 9 pm at night, the flight was at 6 am the next day and had 10 seats open, so things looked good. We stayed in an airport hotel, we didnt want to pay for two rooms because it was really expensive, so me, Conner, Lindsey, Bryan, Cody, Katelyn and Claire all shared a room. I didnt think Conner would go to sleep if he could see us, so we put the hotels crib in the closet indent and tied a blanket over the bar as a curtain, but he fell asleep! YAY!
We went to set up an airport shuttle the next morning with the hotel, our flight was at 6 am and they said that the airport is really slow then because most people go on the 8 am flights. So we only needed to be there 1 hour and 15 min early, their an airport hotel so they know their stuff. So the shuttle was scheduled for 4:30, get at the airport at 4:45. So Linds and I get up at 4 to get our suitcases and car seats down to the shuttle in time and grab our kids out of bed in their jammies. We get to the airport and skycap is closed... Lindsey and me, 4 kids, 2 huge bags to check, 1 carry on suitcase, 3 backpacks for the airplane with activities for the kids, 3 car seats(luckily we didnt have all of them, we had extras in utah), 2 diaper bags, 2 purses, a double stroller and an umbrella stroller... trudge through the airport, we looked everywhere for those guys with the carts to help us and couldnt fine one... and the airport was packed!!! stupid hotel. Luckily if you fly buddy passes you get to go in the first class line for tickets, so we get our tickets and go to security, packed! We barely make it to the gate in time, give the flight attendants our buddy passes(so she can give us our seat assignments), and she says, this flight is oversold... What?!?!?!?! within 9 hours, night hours mind you, you sold 11 seats?
Bonus: they put our bags on the plane, the one we didnt get on.... they stop the plane and get the bags off, tell us to pick them up at baggage claim.
What do we do now?
-Me and Lindsey rent a van and drive it home(need a van, 6 people).... All vans sold out in St. Louis, great!~
-My parents call and say, your not driving, were buying you plane tickets.
Its 6 am and our flight home leaves at 6:15 pm. What are we going to do for 12 hours? Well the first 2 were spent waiting for our bags at baggage claim, aksing a million times where they were. Bryan was on his way home for his interview, so we had no car. We talked the hotel into letting us stay until 3pm. We go back to the hotel and take a nap, wake up at 10:30, considering we were up at 4, its lunch time! Luckily there was a Jack in the Box in the same parking lot, walk over there. Afterwards, let the kids run around in the grass area of the hoeal, as their saying, why are playing here its dumb.. agreed. Go back to the room take another nap. Leave the hotel at 3 for the airport. Get our tickets, get through security and still have 2 hours til our flight. Get dinner and find an empty terminal for the kids to play in. Conner was horrible, he was everywhere and into everything, I wont even get into all of that. I was crying before we boarded the flight. We get on the flight, 3 1/2 hours to phoenix.... Conner was bad, really bad. An hour layover, and 1 1/2 hours to Salt Lake. Luckily all 4 kids slept on that flight.
When I got home I told Tim that I wasnt going to be a mom for the next two days... No diapers, no feedings, no nothing.... And he agreed...
I wont be flying with Conner anywhere for a while..
Does this stuff really happen? yeah.. it does.

Conner in the hotel crib.


The curtain