Familiar Faces and Utah Fun Friday

Here is the first of several installments about our Utah trip. I decided to leave on a Friday September 5 to make a little more out of the short time we would have there. This meant I signed myself up to flying with three kids with a 2 hour lay over. (Great ticket price). We picked Mia up from school which turned out to be a sad point. Fun Friday at school doesn't start until 1 or so. I tried to console her with thoughts of airplanes and seeing our Utah family, but nothing trumps Fun Friday. She came along. I think that we had more luggage then people coming. I must say traveling with kids means tons of luggage. We had to take all three car seats as well as the double stroller. The amount of clothes could have fit into a carry on. Oh well, such is life. Lucky for us, our good friend and neighbor willingly took us to the airport in her van. We barely fit. I came prepared with snacks and personal viewing devices, but still it wasn't right. We blew through the snacks and no one was interested in the movies I rented to watch on the nano and ipod. They were relatively good. The flights were short which was good considering Tiago was over the whole airplane excitement a few minutes after take off. I was banking on naps that no one took and gratefully we only had a mini melt down for about 20 minutes. What could one expect when we left Texas at 2:45 and arrived in Utah at 9 pm Texas time?

When we arrived, Grandma and Grandpa were ready to take over and I focused on the easy part of finding the luggage. It was way past their bedtime and we still had to get our car rental. I had reserved a full size vehicle. The kind employee of Enterprise noticed the excessive luggage and offered a free upgrade to a mini van or SUV. I actually predicted this since no one these days is really wanting to rent a gas guzzler. I happily took the Sienna and made my way north to Bountiful and my sister's home. My kids were in heaven. Not only did the house have three levels of toy wonderland, Liam was a fun playmate, and Angela had two kitties to play with.






This had to wait for after a good night's rest. I elected to sleep between Tiago and Mia on a queen size bed for various reasons. One, I didn't want them to fight at this stage of the game. It had already been a long day and we didn't need any more delays for sleep. I also remember that one time we slept over at a friend's house and Mia woke up disoriented and shrieking. Hopefully my kids would sense me there and self regulate before waking up the household. Also, Talia was in a nearby pack and play and I really needed to keep feeding times short and sweet. I was able to enjoy seeing everyone get some good sleep.