Our flight left at 6:00am on Tuesday morning. We got up at 3:40am, dawdled around for forty minutes, and left at 4:20am. Due to poor planning and a series of unfortunate events, we suddenly found ourselves down to the wire. I completely botched the security screening (had to walk back through the metal detector a few times, our stroller got stuck in the x-ray machine and held up everything). By the time we got to our gate, it was a ghost town. First of all, it was very early in the morning, so it was dark and none of the shops had opened up. Second, everyone had already boarded the plane. Anyway, we made it. Jaime sat in between her parents and I sat across the aisle between two strangers.

That flight went well. Stephen slept a little and the flight was smooth/on time (3.5hour flight). We arrived to find the Mulligans waiting right at our gate. Jaime gave Stephen a much-needed diaper change while I rounded up our luggage. We arrived on Finn's actual birthday so we went back to the house and started getting ready. Gavin and Steve left to go buy a grill while Krystle and Sherry did food-related stuff. By the time we did the actual birthday celebration, Stephen was down for a nap (he missed the whole thing).

Wednesday we went to the Denver zoo. Both of the boys were extremely well-behaved and we stayed for about three hours. That story is better told with pictures. We went out to eat for dinner and Stephen behaved quite poorly.

Thursday was home improvement day. Steve and I did our best Tim Allen impressions. After Krystle and Steve made two trips to the recycling center to dispose of all the moving boxes, Steve and I a) installed a bunch of hooks in the garage and hung stuff up b) installed tennis balls-on-a-string to assist the Mulligans with parking in the garage and c) installed two baby gates. Then Steve and Krystle installed baby-proof locks on the cabinet doors. We went out to eat again that night and Stephen couldn't have behaved any better. He was well-behaved and ate a ton of regular (adult) food.

My in-laws flew out on Friday morning and we just hung out all day at the house. It was rainy and cloudy all day. We made dinner at the Mulligan house. I figured I could make biscuits by strictly following the recipe but it did not work at all. Krystle swooped in and saved them, though, and all the food was good. At least I was able to make the mashed potatoes by myself and leave several pounds as leftovers.

The flight back included some screaming by Stephen and some banter with a stranger who had the unfortunate third seat in our row.

When we were flying into Denver, the landscape looked like a desert. I thought that was just a certain area, but it seems to be the entirety of the Denver area. I assume it's because of the altitude; it all looks like a field that has been devastated by wildfires. I was not a fan. The altitude and arid conditions meant I blew blood out of my nose all week. I suppose my body would have adjusted eventually. On our flight back, the guy sitting next to me had grown up in the D.C. area and lived in Denver for the past ten years. He said it took him about 18 months to adjust to the landscape when he moved to Colorado. When we were coming in for a landing in Virginia, he was marveling at the landscape. "It's amazing. It's so green." He just kept saying that over and over. That really intensified my it's good to be home feelings. I can't wait for Autumn colors. Shouldn't be long.

So yeah, it's good to be home. It was a great trip, though; we had a lot of fun. I have a ton of image editing to do. I can't even get started on my vacation photos until I get caught up on this portrait job I did last weekend.

Back from Colorado and checking out some good pictures. Still trying to wind down from a long day of travel.

The plan for today was to make Stephen so tired that he had to sleep on the plane. It worked, but only after it backfired for about an hour. He was beyond tired, completely manic and delirious. My wife and I passed him back and forth for a long time, taking turns singing to him and doing whatever we could to calm him down without stimulating him. He screamed bloody murder a few times before he finally passed out sitting on my lap, facing me. He slept for a full hour which seemed like an eternity considering I was unable to move for fear of waking him.

I do not travel well. This includes the flight itself and also the "being away from home" part. I don't know what it is. I have a very laid back personality but I am physically high-strung. Very high-strung. (When I played soccer in high school, the coach would let me stretch longer than everyone because he knew my calves would cramp up at the drop of a hat. This resulted in me skipping the first half-mile of running, which made everyone on the team hate me). So when I travel and am out of the routine, I have difficulty sleeping and I lose my appetite. I try to ignore it and be a trooper. I figure that there's nothing that I can do anyway. As soon as we got home, I ate like a fat cow.

After all of the ordeals today, we made it onto a shuttle towards the Economy parking lot. Jaime said "we made it, babe." Little did we know. Our car needed a jump. Battery was completely dead. We were out of milk for Stephen, so it could have been a very bad situation. Fortunately there is a free service for idiots like me, and the guy arrived within three minutes of our calling. I tipped him ten bucks. Then we had to pay fifty bucks to the machine as we drove out of the parking lot.

Hopefully I'll have more to say about the trip, but it's much more likely that I'll just post pictures and expect you to understand the context.

This is an old[er] picture that I came across and re-edited. This was taken in New Hampshire at Brookhirst Farm Bed & Breakfast. It is owned and operated by a married couple, and I remember the wife specifically using the word "cultivate" to describe her relationship with the moss on that patio. She watered and fertilized the moss to get this look:

September 02, 2006

So, on Friday afternoon I flew to the St. Louis airport. My dad picked me up, which was a bit confusing since neither of us know our way around that airport. Then we went straight to Denny's and picked up four meals. On the way to my brother's (Robert) house, we stopped at my grandparents' hotel room and all ate some Denny's in the hotel. That was a good (although brief) visit before my father drove me to my brother's house.

My brother has had a condo in Edwardsville, IL for two years and I had not yet seen it. It's almost precisely the same setup/floorplan as my condo, but slightly smaller. We hung out and waited for Robert to get back from Beauty and the Beast. He assembled and conducted an orchestra for a week-long community theater presentation of Beauty and the Beast (the musical). He got back about 10:45pm and we all hung out until midnight. Then my parents went upstairs to go to bed, Robert set up an air mattress and my brothers and I attempted to sleep in the living room (on couches and air mattresses). We talked for almost two hours and I had much difficulty sleeping after that. I got 3-4 hours of sleep.

The next day was Robert's graduation. First he had to conduct the afternoon show of Beauty and the Beast, so he left before us. My family (immediate family plus grandparents) all went to the graduation and waited. The graduation was... a graduation. Boring, etc. Fortunately Billy and I were able to pass his iPod Touch back and forth and play a turn-based game for a bit. Robert got graduate degrees in both Collaborative Piano and Conducting.

Then we walked across the campus to attend Beauty and the Beast. I had not been to any of the performances, and Robert had arranged for me to sit in the orchestra pit. I had the best seat in the house; it was so fun. The members of his orchestra were all cool and cracking jokes the whole time. Even though the orchestra pit is right in front of the stage, no one in the audience can see the members of the orchestra. Everyone was whispering jokes and making fun of some of the actors. It was a lot of fun. Also, some of the musicians were exceptional. The percussionist has a degree in percussion performance. He was the calmest, most relaxed guy, but he never missed a cue and he juggled about 5 instruments effortlessly. He was quite impressive, along with the flautist and the trumpeter. Then we went out to eat at Applebees until midnight, just the immediate family. I got another pathetic 3 hours of sleep.

Woke up at 6:30am this morning to get to the St. Louis airport, about 36 hours after I landed there. The flight home was awful. There was prolonged turbulence and I got very nauseated. The nausea continued after we landed and Jaime picked me up. Even after a thirty-minute ride home I was feeling horrible. I went into the bathroom and immediately threw up... violently. I even felt bad for a few more hours. I think I am finally starting to come alive, but I need to catch up on some sleep.

I'm currently packing for a trip to Illinois. My brother Robert's graduation is tomorrow. He got two masters degrees in two years while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.

Since it's only a 40 hour trip and I don't need much, I think I am packing everything into my camera backpack. That way, I can fit everything I need/want (including the laptop) into one carry-on. I already fit three changes of clothes and a toothbrush in there after I pulled out all the custom dividers and stuff. Since it's a backpack made for camera equipment, it has a place in the back where a laptop slides in and a lot of movable partitions inside the main area of the backpack. Should be perfect for my mini-trip. Since flying is such a hassle, I am not bringing deodorant or toothpaste and I'll just use someone else's (or buy some when I get there). Hell, I don't even need a cell phone charger because my brother has the same phone.

This really fell on a bad weekend for us. It is Jaime's first mother's day as a mom and her sister's big move is this weekend. So Jaime will be here alone with the baby, missing her family and waiting for me to get back (plane lands 11:30am Sunday). We really didn't even consider taking this trip as a family. We would have to check Stephen's car seat and stroller as luggage, etc. A lot of hassle for a 40 hour trip.