mom and wesley adventures

I've been waiting to post this until I had some PICTURES but instead my FAMILY who I begged for pictures has not RESPONDED. FAMILY, THAT'S YOU! I'm not a good photographer when I have a squirming baby to attend to all by my lonesome.

That's right, Wesley and I embarked on an adventure and visited my family in Colorado Springs sans dad. My brother's wife had a new baby girl, so we all got together: my brother and his fam, my other brother and his wife, my folks, and a slew of cousins who also live there. It was most awesome.

The plane ride out was great. Shane got a special pass (thanks for the tip, Whimsy!) to pass security and get me to our gate. There was an extra seat open so I could buckle in Wesley's car seat and he could sit (and sleep) there during the flight. (I did break quite a sweat getting the ginormous thing all buckled in though. It wasn't easy.)

I arranged our flight to Denver to correspond with the flight of my brother and his wife, who were coming to Denver from Salt Lake. That was the best idea I had all year, since as soon as I landed in Denver -- by myself -- I put Wesley in his gate-checked stroller, slew the diaper bag over my shoulder, and somehow pushed him WHILE CARRYING A 30-POUND CAR SEAT across the airport. By myself. THEN, I got my 50-pound checked bag and hobbled about 30 feet to a bench by baggage claim and dropped everything. I was not moving. If I had had to get to the rental car facility or ANYWHERE other than 30 feet from baggage claim -- by myself -- I would have died. Literally. My arm was red the whole afternoon from just lugging the car seat strap.

After Brad and Leslie arrived and came to my rescue, we got a rental car and it took Brad and I like an hour to get the car seat hooked up -- another thing I don't ever want to do by myself. Traveling is an adventure!

The weekend was full of fun and happiness and memories and laughter and familial bliss. My family rocks. My folks got an awesome suite at a Marriott, and Wesley and I had an upstairs loft, which was so very contemporary. He had his own port-a-crib, although sound did tend to carry so we had to be super quiet when he was napping or sleeping.

Some photos from the hotel room...

That magazine didn't make it.

Wesley mastered stairs on this trip. He loves them. We don't have stairs in our place. While visiting with my brother in his kitchen, I noticed Wesley crawl over to the living room (down a hall), but then a few minutes later when I went to get him in the living room, he wasn't there. Not in the living room? Not in the kitchen? What? He was all the way up the stairs. I first felt like an irresponsible parent (what if he had toppled over?), and then I felt beamingly proud of his mad stair skills.

Some highlights of our action-packed Colorado adventure:

Friday

Mom and dad (thank you thank you) funded a trip for the family to the top of Pike's Peak. How did we manage that? On something called a cog railway; it's this train that has a gear under it so it can stop and start at any time (so if it has to stop while going up a big hill, or a mountain, it doesn't slide all the way back down). Our tour guide told us the Pikes Peak one is the longest and highest one in the world. At some points, the incline is 25 degrees.

After traversing deep snow and thick forest, we were at the top of the mountain. It wasn't a very clear day, which was sad, but up at the top we were above the clouds so it was nice and sunny. Our tour guide said on a clear day we could have been able to see to Kansas. Oh well!

It was fun, but... first of all, it was COLD, and secondly, I could not BREATHE. Due to the elevation, I felt nauseated and disoriented and winded. It's the strangest feeling. Anyone from sea level (like me and my folks) really suffer up there. It was even kind of emotionally painful, I thought. Wesley started getting really squirmy, and I felt like this AWFUL mom since one of his socks fell into a mud puddle, he was only wearing a jacket, he as wrapped in just a light swaddle blanket, and it was literally 5 degrees up there. Literally. I couldn't tell if he was hungry or thirsty or tired or freaking out like I was or what. At one point I think I almost cried. It was strange... I just didn't feel like myself, and I think it's 100% due to the elevation change.

We were only at the top for about 20 minutes, and I was ready to go back down. If I do it again, I'll bring full winter garb for me and all family members. It was fun and I'm glad we did it, though. On the way back down, we all started feeling better and warmer and chatty. My family rocks. The train ride is about an hour each way.

(Random Trivia: Pikes Peak originally had an apostrophe in its name, but the U.S. Board of Geographic Names discourages the use of apostrophes in geological names so it was eliminated. Fascinating yet strange. I am a stickler for correct possessive and plural punctuation.)

Friday night

We threw a party for my mom. Her birthday was the week before, but due to a brilliant idea from my brother we'd been scheming for weeks. She turned 50 this year, and we really wanted to make her feel special. (Poor dad, all he got from me when he turned 50 was a card and some cookies. Forgive me, dad!)

We asked lots of our friends from Church, family members, mom's old coworkers, etc., to write memories of mom for a book. They all emailed them to me or my brother, and Kurt printed them out on nice paper and put them in a book. How cool.

We also scoured all our old pictures for ones of us with mom doing awesome things, and we got a book with 50+ pictures in it for her. Some awesome memories. Family trips, birthdays, graduations, weddings, you name it. We live a rich life. My family rocks. Did I mention that?

Anyway, we totally surprised mom. She cried buckets. It was awesome. I love you, mom!

Saturday

Another high point of the weekend: my sister-in-law Leslie and I got TOTALLY LOST like four times. Wherever we went, we were lost. I was in a new place, in a weird rental car, and just totally underestimated how long it would take and how difficult it would be to get places. To add fuel to the fire, I tried to buy a baby gift for my brother from a guy on Craigslist and -- not only did I get lost in the way to the guy's house, but -- the guy STOOD ME UP. Boy, I was mad and frustrated and LOST. It was an awful Saturday, really.

Sunday

Sunday was much better. Kurt blessed his baby girl in Church at 8:30 in the blessed A.M. That afternoon Wesley napped for a loooooong time in Kurt's upstairs guest room while everyone socialized downstairs. Lots of food, all the family, excitement all around. It was great!

Here's Uncle Kurt and Wesley and Kurt's son Kyler playing with stacking cups (Wesley has also discovered stacking, and he is quite the pro):

And back home

We came home on Monday. We barely made it to the airport in time (am I an idiot or what? I never time things well), and then Wesley and my flight was super full and he had to sit on my lap. For almost three hours. It was awful! It's dang tough to entertain a squirmy, tired baby for that long! I tried to get him to go to sleep countless times. He finally fell asleep as we landed. You read that right: just as we landed, sweet little Wesley sighed into my shoulder and fell asleep. Just in time for me to wake him up again. Poor little man! We spilled water on the girl beside us at least 3 times, but she was totally cool and actually asked if she could carry my bag out of the plane. I declined her offer but struggled for another minute or two and she just took my bag and carried it. What a nice gal. Whew. We lived.

So, there you have it! A dramatic play by play! Now if only that family would send me more pictures... I said you guys ROCKED only a million times in this post. You owe me! Pictures, please!