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.

Lifehacker has some pretty cool stuff. For example: How to Opt Out of your Yellow Book Delivery. I've been wanting to do this for years. Our Yellow Book gets dumped immediately into the recycle bin. Here's another: Top 10 Fast Food Recipes You can Make at Home. This list is gathered from all over, including painlessfrugality.com and youtube.

Here are some extreme close-ups (and I'm not talking about Wayne's World).

We are leaving for Colorado tomorrow. Our flight is [literally] at 6am. We land in Denver at 8am local time, which is when Jaime usually leaves for work. It will be the start of our day (Finn's actual birthday!) and we will have already done an entire day's worth of work. That's what we did in highschool when my class went to London. We flew all night and arrived early in the morning to a very busy day. After a day like that, you sleep quite well.

This afternoon I'm going to stock the fridge for Steve (he's house-sitting and pet-sitting for us for five days) and try to actually clean the kitchen. Other that that, I'm pretty relaxed about the whole thing. Does that surprise anyone?