I am a really good bragger about how awesome my little international flyer is on the many trips we have taken. But truth be told, I pretty much go radio silent when we hit one week until flight time because my nerves still rattle at the thought of a ten hour flight with a two year old. It doesn't much matter if your child is a perfect angel on the first 13 legs across the ocean if he decides to be the devil on the 14th leg. It's doesn't really matter if you have the model flyer for the first six hours of a flight because guess what? There are still four more hours of flying time in which to act out. Bottom line, you can never feel completely comfortable or confident in your child's flying ability until you are on the runway at your intended destination. I have to say that I was downright troubled about this flight and thankfully it was all for naught. Evans proved himself over the course of our ten hours in close quarters and made me pretty proud. He was content to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in between four separate viewings of Cars 2, all on his new noise canceling headphones his Daddy smartly picked up the day before we left. These were concerning to me because when we attempted a practice run with the new headphones the night before, you might have thought we were trying to stick hot needles in Evans eyes. As soon as he was able to grasp that these were the gateway to actually HEARING "Light A'Queen", he was good to go.
Someone was pretty pumped to find out that Delta offered Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on their Sky Kids menu (and it wasn't just Evans). Imagine my delight when Nickey Nouse was all Evans was asking for and miraculously it happened to be an option. Score one point for Delta. And don't fret, we are aware of the gap in Evans' front teeth and will begin an orthodontics fund shortly so that base is covered. :) After all the excitement from the first round of MM and Cars 2 I was still a little weary of our good luck lasting seven more hours. Until this good omen occurred.
It's not that Evans never sleeps on long flights it's just that he tends to only fall asleep as the wheels of the plane touch down in Atlanta. Which doesn't really do much to help me out. This spontaneous nap was like a dream come true. I was able to finish the last 50% of the book I was reading AND start a new one. When E woke from his snooze we finished the flight up with three more complete viewings of Cars 2. He never took the headphones off the entire flight. I'd say they were the best $9 my husband ever spent. And to top everything off, Evans' flying outfit matched the Delta blankets perfectly. Ha Ha!
So here we are safe and sound. Happy to be home with Buddy and Susie but really looking forward to Daddy arriving on Thursday. It's a hard time of year to be away from family but since we are traveling to Virginia next weekend, it was essential that I fly first and get Evans over the jet lag before cramming 3098230948 people into Deaner's grandmother's house. Jet lag would not have been welcome there! Especially since not much sleep is ever had when all the cousins (and brothers and sisters and inlaws) are all in the same house at the same time. It's normally one big party, drinking, shopping spree! Can't wait for the fun to begin!
Before heading out of Germany last week we got to partake in several Christmas holiday festivities. Friday night we went to the lighting of the tree on base and it was surprisingly nice. There was a big Choo Choo set up and Evans surprised all of us by getting right on it and riding it alone!!
My son. The one who is cautiously wimpy. Deaner and I both were dumbfounded but so proud of him. So proud that I will mention that he rode it again a second time before deciding that he could absolutely positively not ride it a third time because it was the scariest thing on earth. Go figure. I choose to think about the first two big boy rides.
We got to watch the lighting of the tree with our good friends, the Sommers, and it was all the way around a nice evening.
Here is Deaner and I's Prom 2012 picture in front of the big tree. I mean, I'm sure some people bring babies to prom, right? And a great shot of Evans and his best snow buddy Brady.
Amazing how the men folk were able to keep those babies up in those snowman heads for long enough to take a picture. I think the little boys will really appreciate it some day! We ended this fun evening with a massive amount of food and beer at our favorite brewery, Brauhaus Castel.
Saturday the Deaner's struck out on their own to the Rudesheim Weinachtmarkt in the blistering cold while the Sommers did something of equal intelligence and hiked to chop down their very own live Christmas tree. I won't even go there but I hadn't heard very good reports from them when last discussed. I can't say that we faired all that much better. We set off bundled up and ready to enjoy the Christmas spirit.
Everything went well until we realized that the crowds were pretty thick and the temperature was rapidly dropping when it hit full dark at 4:55pm.
I am only comfortable posting this picture now that I have awesome fresh highlights in my hair and now longer look like I prefer the two tone hair coloring I unfortunately was sporting. We scurried around to eat dinner and after an hour or two Evans was crying for "hoooooooommmmeeee". The only problem was that we had just missed the train and had another hour to kill. So we did what most normal awesome parents would do and took our baby to an Irish Pub.
Two tall beers and an apple juice please!? I should preface this by saying we do know the people that own this bar and I did pop in first to ask if it would be okay to bring Evans in to defrost while we waited on the train. I think they thought it was more peculiar that I actually asked if it was okay to bring him in.
Evans fit right in with his new Hummer car (a demand was made for this car when passing a gift shop and was happily purchased in hopes he would forget his frozen killing digits that he wouldn't keep his mittens on). We got to chill out, warm up, enjoy some brews before re-bundleing up and heading home. It was a great family evening and we even got to wake up to this Sunday morning.
Apparently this is nothing in comparison to what we have been getting since Evans and I have left the Fatherland and I can't say I mind. The muggy 70 degree weather we are having here isn't great but at least your face doesn't feel like it is going to fall off every time you step outside. Can't you see his excitement?
I'm sure I will have plenty of updates along this vacation that I hope takes a long leisurely feeling about it. Yeah right. In T - Minus 48 hours Daddy will be landing and then I figure that the real wild fun will begin! Merry Christmas season to everyone!
