traveling by airplane with 3 kids?

TRIP #1
We took 2 trips in April. The first was to visit my 2 sister's (Donna and Debbie) and their families in Denver. Donna's son, Cade was getting baptized, the kids had been begging to visit their cousins and aunts and uncles on an airplane, and the flights were cheap, so we did it.

Spencer, Carli, and Danielle on the airplane. Danielle was the biggest pain! Back and forth, back and forth, fussing, whining, wanting to eat, wanting her blanky, wanting to look out the window, blah, blah, blah. Thank goodness Spencer missed her from working a lot and actually wanted to deal with her.

Cale and me
Pam, Paige, Kelsie, and Carli at the Baptism.
Jeff and Cade
Cale and Cade with Grammy in the background

TRIP #2

We finally took advantage of Spencer traveling so much last year and took the whole family to D.C. for a little tour trip with his frequent flyer miles.

We decided to fly into the Baltimore Airport so we could fly nonstop. Smart, huh? But we didn't think about how terrible and stressful it would be to travel 30 miles to our hotel by bus, metro, and walking with 3 children, 4 pieces of luggage, and a double stroller during rush hour.

Here is Spencer stressed out on the metro. When he stresses out, he hides it very well. The only way I knew he was stressed was because he was sweating, and when we finally made it to the hotel 3 hours later, he had to lay down on the bed and rest for a few minutes.
FRIDAY
It started with changing Danielle's diaper. My sense of smell failed to detect the enormous poop in her diaper, so I proceeded to change her diaper on the bed. When I opened the package, I realized my mistake and decided to attempt to move her very carefully to the floor to prevent poop on the bed, and to get closer to the wipes that were on the floor. I wiped her butt clean and put on a new diaper, happy that no unpleasant experiences happened. As I started to stand up, I noticed a huge glob of poop on my leg. I don't know how I missed that one. Danielle saw it, and started pointing and screaming, "eewwww, eewwww!" Yeah, Danielle-eewww. So, I grabbed another wipe and cleaned it off and washed off in the bathtub. I thought that was the end of it, but during the day, Spencer would excitedly inform me that he had found another poop stain on my shorts. He did make me feel better by telling me they just looked like dirt. Too bad they didn't smell like dirt too! Oh well.

One other thing-I think I can safely claim that I am a master packer. I have packed my family for many, many trips, not forgetting anything. But, somehow, on this trip, I seemed to forget one, very important thing-my running shoes. All I had were sandals, and that wouldn't work with all the walking. So, we had to go and buy me a new pair. Darn.

We spent the first day walking the monuments and seeing the White House and the Capitol.


With the kids, we couldn't just push, push, push to see everything. We took a lot of time just hanging out and letting them play. It was hard for me to just walk slow and enjoy just being together. I'm such a checklist person, and I feel like a vacation is a failure if we don't see and experience everything, even if that means everyone is tired, grouchy, and crying. Thank goodness Spencer is entirely opposite of me in that regard.

Here is us playing at the water fountains. Danielle is obsessed with water.

Spencer put flower's in the girls hair.
We decided to splurge and ride in the paddle boats

More rest and play time.
Dinner in Chinatown
Cale feeling good after his shower.
SATURDAY
We went to the top of the Washington Memorial. I had never done that before, so that was fun.

The Natural History Museum was a hit, of course. Cale is really into bats right now.
We got lost trying to find a restaurant and ended up by the White House again, so we took another picture.
Dinner
Bedtime

SUNDAY
This is Danielle and me on the metro on our way to church. I guess I'm contemplating something very serious.

Cale and Carli were getting bold on the metro by Sunday. They liked to drive Spencer and me crazy by moving from pole to pole while the train was moving.
We visited the Air and Space Museum that afternoon.

There was some kind of climate rally in the mall on Sunday afternoon.

MONDAY
We finished up with the American History Museum.

We also went to the Botanical Gardens Museum. I had never done that either. It was really beautiful.

Of course we barely missed the bus back to the airport, so we had to sit in the rain for 40 minutes for the next one. (we barely missed it from the airport to the hotel as well)
Oh, this is when I experience pure joy and peace because she has finally fallen asleep on the airplane.Cale and Carli were of course fighting instead of sleeping, so I told them that whoever fell asleep first would get a surprise the next day. They were silent after that and asleep within minutes. I love it when I'm so clever and smart.
Spencer apparently wanted the surprise as well.

let's try the next sport

All right, I had to show these pictures and videos, because they are so typical of Cale playing a sport. He is so funny! Watching little kids learn how to play a sport and use their body is the greatest thing.

The coaches were constantly telling him to pay attention when he was in the outfield. But I've got to agree with Cale on this one-baseball is BORING! Too much standing around and not enough action! I'd get bored too if I was out there for an hour, and I only touched the ball when I hit it off the tee twice and ran one base.

He received the game ball twice for hitting the ball really good.


Without fail, every time after he hit the ball and was waiting on a base, he would put the helmet on his head like so and try to run to the next base like that. The coaches were always yelling at him to put his helmet back on his head, but he would just happily wave at them and keep it there until they came to him and put it back on correctly. Here is Cale hitting the ball for the very first time at his very first game of the season.

good bye black algae

When we bought our house last year, our pool was a beautiful green color. We couldn't see 1 inch deep into the water, it was so thick with algae. Anyway, when we drained and cleaned it, we found the plaster in less than desirable condition. Our house is 30 years old, and I'm pretty sure the plaster was that old too. It was cracked and breaking in many places. We didn't know much about pools, so we happily filled it back up with water and attempted to enjoy it.

Well, little did we know, that black algae loves cracked plaster, and started to grow behind it and all over it. We didn't know how to get rid of it, and our pool repeatedly turned green. We just couldn't keep it clean. You might remember some of my previous posts when I was ranting and raving over my pool. Spencer was working out of town all summer, so I learned how to take care of the pool myself.

Anyway, I didn't want to go through another summer of H---, so I told Spencer we needed to either re-plaster or empty it and acid wash to get rid of all the algae. We took the cheaper route and emptied it. As we were acid washing, we realized the damage was more severe than we thought. Even if we cleaned off all the algae, there was still some behind the plaster that would probably grow back.

I finally convinced Spencer that we just needed to do it-we needed to re-surface the pool. So, here it is! We decided on a mini pebble surface instead of plaster, and had it re-tiled as well.


This is after they came and tore off all the old plaster and tile.


Here is the new tile

This is how they rigged up all the hoses to put the mini-pebble down.

Here it is all done. They also put in that water leveler. It will fill up the pool all by itself. Thank goodness. Many nights last year I would wake up in the middle of the night, remembering that I forgot to turn off the hose. I would run outside and my whole yard would be flooded. At least we had really green grass.

Here are the steps with a little tile decoration

Filling the pool back up.

The kids think it's the greatest thing to play in an empty pool.

And here it is!
Good bye black algae! Hello hot summer!