Angels were definitely watching over Audrey and I today. We were in an awful car accident but are both doing fine.
I went in to work today to do a couple of evals. Audrey went and hung out with Daddy while I went it. Afterwards I went and picked her up and headed home. We were just about home, just a few miles away when it happened. We were driving south on Wasatch just a little bit past La Caille restaurant. There was a guy in a white Lincoln Continental driving the other direction. Per the police officer and paramedics on the scene it is suspected he had a heart attack or he was having diabetic sugar issues. He apparently blacked out at the wheel. He totally swerved and came high speed at us. I tried to swerve out of the way but didn't succeed. He hit us, essentially t-boned us, on the driver side. The driver's side is also the side of the car that Audrey is on. We were spun and flipped and landed on the top of the car. The passenger front window broke and I was able to climb out. Mario, another driver who stopped, got Audrey out of the car for me. She was hanging upside down, but still securely in her seat. We were both taken by ambulance to the hospital. Audrey has a scratch on her chin but other than that seems just fine. I hurt, just about everywhere, but also don't seem to have any major injuries. We are very thankful to be safe.
The civic however, has seen it's day. We will now be in the market for a new car. :O(
Driver's side of the car, where he hit. This is also the side that Audrey was sitting in her carseat.
Did I mention....she ONLY had a scratch on her chin?!
The title is what describes our weekend. We didn't really DO anything, but it was very busy.
Friday night we had a family date night. It was a lot of fun. We went downtown to the Gateway. We had dinner at Happy Sumo. They actually have a great little kid's meal that Colin enjoyed. Then we took Colin down to the fountains to play in the water. He wasn't too impressed. He really liked watching the water, but didn't really like the "wet" and "splashed" part. Paul was able to get him in it some but not too much. After that we went and got frozen yogurts. It was a great night. However, I didn't realize the camera battery was dead so I have no pictures.
On Saturday morning I went into work. My first day of work. I only had to go in for a couple of hours but it was still so hard to leave. It wasn't too bad though. I half felt like I had just left last week, and half felt like I hadn't been there in forever. They hired two more Heathers while I was gone. So now there will be four of us. I am on call for evals the rest of the week but hope I don't have to go in too much.
The rest of the weekend was spent getting ready for our company that comes this week. Paul had a ton to do but I had done a most of my stuff during the week and only had a few things left. I planted some flowers in our planters on the front step. They had just been growing weeds and I realized this week how bad they were looking. I also started putting together a meal plan for the week, and therefore a grocery list, to be followed by lots of grocery shopping. And then we got a few errands out of the way Sunday afternoon.
I had been looking for popsicle molds for weeks. I have given Colin freezy pops a couple of times because we have them at the house. He loved them but I decided I really don't want him having them because there is nothing about them that is good for him. So, I desperately wanted to make Colin some healthier popsicles but I couldn't find the molds anywhere. Finally I thought that maybe Bed Bath and Beyond would have them so I sent Paul to find some. And they did! I'm so excited. I made him 2 popsicles out of yogurt, and two out of this fruit/veggie juice that I buy him.
The flowers I planted
Enjoying the nice weather outside
Colin really liked his popsicle. I gave him the fruit/veggie juice one. I tasted it and it wasn't very good. I hadn't tasted the juice yet. But he loved it! He understood using the straw to drink out the bottom but he didn't understand not to tip the bottom and he still made quite a mess out of it.
I feel like this blog favors one child over the other. That's not true but right now Colin is much more interesting than Audrey so there are a lot more videos of him. However, she is getting so much more interactive. She has started wiggling all over the place. She is now finding her hands and she chews on them all the time. She'll also swat at the toys on the bar over the bouncer when she is in it. It is so much fun seeing her be more aware and "exploring" her surroundings some.
Here she is wiggling all over as she "plays" with the sock monkey.
On Sunday afternoon we headed to Buffalo to visit Paul's family. My mom drove us halfway, then Paul's dad met us and drove us the rest of the way. However, I offered to drive the first half so my mom could sit in the back with the kids. That was a mistake. It rained the whole way and we had some really bad fog with awful visibility. I hated driving. Then after we made the switch to Paul's dad's car he missed a turn and we took a nice drive through Rochester. The trip that should have taken under 2 1/2 hrs took 4 due to the weather, switching cars(loading carseats) and a detour. It was alright though, the kids were good.
Sunday night in Buffalo Paul's dad's side of the family all came over for a visit. It was really nice to see everyone. We love that our families makes a point to get together when we are in town.
On Monday afternoon we went to lunch with my brother Adam. We decided to go to Dave and Buster's because we had never been. We had a nice visit. Colin liked "playing" with all the games however we didn't spend a dime. He would just sit on them and push the buttons.
On Monday night we went over to Paul's Grandma's house to visit with all his mom's family. Here are a couple pictures with his grandma.
Colin had a lot of fun playing with Dylan and Jordan. The played mini lacrosse in the basement and drew all over the dry erase walls. They played with balls, bean bags and some of the boys' old toys. Colin really enjoys being around kids of any age because they tend to have more energy to keep up with him.
Here he is enjoying Dylan's guitar playing
The boys got out this beanbag and Colin loved it.
He loved Grandpa's truck. I think he spent more time outside in that "big truck" than he spent inside while we were there
On Tuesday we went to Niagra Falls. It was a beautiful day, the best weather we had the whole trip. It was nice and warm but not nearly as humid as it had been.
Colin excited to see the falls
Here are some pictures from the falls
Colin was so tired on the ride home he fell asleep in the middle of eating.
Tuesday night we went out to dinner to Sean Patrick's. It was good and we had a yummy brownie sundae for dessert. On the way home we stopped at Target and Grandpa had to buy Colin 2 trucks: a little one to take with him, and a big dodge that he is going to send out to him. He loved the big truck. Even after we got home he was asking for it.
Here he is dancing to the music from the Dodge truck.
Audrey took a bath in the kitchen sink. I didn't manage to keep her modest in the picture while in the bath so I'm not going to post it. However, here she is all cozied up in the towel afterwards.
We were hopeful that we would have a better trip home than getting to Buffalo. We had to fly to NY and then from NY to Salt Lake. In NY we got off the plane outside. Colin did not like the noise from the plane as they waited for our gate-checked bags.
That was a long flight from NY to Salt Lake. We ended up stuck in window seats and that was not fun since we each had lap children. I had Colin for just a little bit of the trip and I thought I was going to have a panic attack from feeling so claustrophobic. It was hard being next to the window with a toddler on your lap. It was also tough when you had to get to the bathroom to change diapers. I will never make the mistake again of selecting a window seat with a lap child(although it was our only option on this flight). However, we made it home, with no major complications. Colin had a couple meltdowns that lasted just a few minutes but they were no biggie. Dad picked us up from the airport and we got home and got the kids to bed. Colin went right back to his old schedule immediately.
We had a great trip home despite the difficulties of getting there and back. We are very happy we went, but also very happy to be home.
We had decided that when we went to NY we were going to take the opportunity to leave the kids with my mom and go away for the night. We ended up getting a room at the Harbor Hotel in Watkins Glen. It is right on the lake and we had a lakeside room with a balcony. After our rough trip getting to NY, it was a much needed break. We had a casual dinner at the bar with half price appetizers and drinks. I couldn't believe the size of my glass of wine that only cost me $3. You don't get drinks that size in Utah. I had a cabernet from Glenora and really liked it. Paul had a local heffeweisen that was on tap and he really liked that too. After dinner we went out for ice cream. There are so many ice cream shops at home. We don't have that here in Utah either. We went to bed early and got 12 hrs of sleep. It was wonderful, and much needed. In the morning we got up, worked out in the gym, and headed back to my mom's. We weren't away long but I was missing the kids. And, I didn't want to spend too long away. We were in NY to visit family and our trip was already shortened by the missed flight.
We got back to my mom's house on Friday early afternoon. My mom and Howard had done well with the kids overnight. They didn't have any issues. They both slept pretty well and ate well. I don't think they missed us at all. Colin had a lot of fun there. He loved hiking in the yard, playing on the swing, and playing in the water. They threw rocks, searched for frogs, and sent rubber duckies down the river. He rode on the lawnmower and "sat" on the four wheeler. (He won't be riding that any time soon).
Riding the Lawnmower
Rubber Ducky in the Creek
On Friday afternoon we spent some time outside, had pizza from Jerlando's(Paul has to have it every time we're in town) and then we went to my grandma's for a visit.
Enjoying the nice weather out on the swing
That night Sam and Lauren came up and stayed the night. Colin had a lot of fun playing with them. Lauren carried him around all over and definitely kept him occupied when she was around.
Sam and Audrey
On Saturday morning we went to Eldridge park only to find that it wasn't open yet. We decided not to wait around for it because it was REALLY hot and humid and I had forgotten to bring Colin's sunscreen. We went to Carter's lacrosse game for a little bit and then went to Friendly's for lunch and ice cream.
On the playground after Carter's game
Ice Cream Sundae at Friendly's
That afternoon my mom's family all came over for a picnic. It was so nice to get to see everyone and so they could meet Audrey. We had a lot of very yummy food. We ended up getting rained on but it was late when people were getting ready to leave anyways. I somehow didn't really get any pictures. It was just really busy.
(Ok....so I am a little behind on posting these posts about our trip to NY. I was no longer able to upload videos to blogger and I couldn't figure out why. I kept trying to figure out what was wrong with no luck. Finally I just decided to upload them to youtube instead. So now I have my videos! Yeah, I'm very excited!!!)
Here is my post about our flight to NY.
We are back in Utah so we successfully made it to NY and back. However, it was a crazy trip. I am going to break it up into a few posts because I have so many pictures and videos to put up. This post will be about the trip there. It started out on Wednesday morning at about 7am when the kids got up. We got them up, breakfast, we got showers, they each got baths, and we loaded the car. Our goal was to leave the house at 9am for an 11am flight. We actually beat our goal and left a little early. We decided to curb check because there was a line inside. It was so easy. Security is crazy when you have two little ones, a stroller, and a carseat. They usher us through the "green circle" line which is for "beginners" or families. It actually makes it easier because we don't have to wait in line as long since we take so long. In the Airport
The first flight was to Phoenix and it was nice. We had isle seats across from each other and neither of us had anyone sitting next to us. On the flight to Phoenix
We wished this could have been the case on one of our longer flights instead though but we were happy to start the flight out on a good note. We got to Phoenix and both the kids were sleeping. I ate and we used the internet since they have free WiFi there. I couldn't believe how easy the trip was feeling as we sat on that layover with two sleeping kids and surfing the internet. Little did I know what we were in for. On the second flight we also had isle seats across from each other. However, there were people sitting next to each of us. We had very nice people next to us though. They would pick things up off the floor for us or hold things. The lady next to Paul played with Colin a ton and even held Audrey for a minute. It made it so much easier having such helpful people around us. Not too far into the flight we realized it might be bad. There was a call for "is anyone a dr?" There was a lady who was in distress. We don't actually know what was going on with her though. We started to think about what would happen if we had to land somewhere else. However, that didn't happen. They stabilized her and we continued to fly. Later in the flight she began to have more issues and we ended up landing in Kansas City. The pilot assured us it would be a quick turn around and we would be on our way. We had about an hr and a half layover in Detroit so we began to wonder if we would make our connection. We ended up sitting on the runway in Kansas City for 2 hrs. They had issues replacing the used oxygen tanks and it took them 2 hrs to figure it out. It was miserable. It was hot and the isle filled with people waiting to use the bathroom. The kids did great through it all. Everyone who walked by commented on how beautiful Audrey is and all her hair. Colin continued to play with Paul and the lady sitting next to them. We got meals from the flight attendants so Colin could have some food. He really enjoyed the fruit, cracker, cheese plate and I ate a sandwich. We finally arrived in Detroit at 11pm. We were supposed to be to Elmira at 11 so we obviously missed our connection. They directed us to the Delta help desk which was halfway down terminal A. We were able to use the computer to print up vouchers for food and hotel for the night and we were booked on a flight out at 1030am. The hotel they had us booked at was a Best Western and it had a bus to come pick us up. We started to head outside when Paul decided he wanted to check out the Westin at the airport and maybe just stay there. It ended up being more out of the way than I thought and I told him to never-mind we'd just go where they were paying for it.
We got to the hotel and checked into two adjoining rooms. We had to buy diapers at 10 for $10, travel mouthwash for $2.50 and travel deodorant for $4.50. They don't let you bring your toiletries on board and then it costs you a ton if you get stuck somewhere. From now on we'll bring more in our carry on. The hotel didn't seem like a bad place. Audrey and I took one room and Paul and Colin in the other. Colin had a hard time going to sleep and didn't do so until 1am. He slept on a bed. I put Audrey on the 2nd bed in my room but she wouldn't sleep flat(she won't ever) so she ended up sleeping in her carseat. During the night I woke up because I thought I felt something crawl on me. I then saw bugs crawling around my bed. There were quite a few of them. It was disgusting. We found them in Audrey's bed too. We scoured Paul and Colin's beds and didn't see any in there so we all slept in that room for the next couple hrs. It was disgusting and I had a really hard time sleeping after that.
Changing Audrey's diaper on the suitcase
Colin ended up with a total of 6 hrs sleep, we got about 3. We got up early so we could get to the airport in plenty of time to make our flight. We took Colin on the train that they have in terminal A and he really liked it. He also liked the tunnel. We got to our gate just to find out it had moved. We ended up switching gates 4 times. We would just get to one and sit down when they would announce that it was moved again. We had gotten to the airport almost 2 hrs early and still didn't manage to sit for more than a minute or two before the flight took off.
In the airport
We ended up getting to the Elmira airport at noon, so 13 hrs after we were originally supposed to land. We were all exhausted but glad that we had finally made it.
