On The Road

The past month my boss and I have been trying to use up the rest of our vacation before we lose it at the end of the year.  The problem is that Uncle Sherwin just laid off our third key so we have to work open to close while the other one is on vacation and it’s not too much fun.  So I realized a week or so ago that I actually had four days off from Sunday through Wednesday so I decided it was time to go somewhere again.

I checked the flights and I could make it pretty easily to Long Beach to see my brother but then I realized I also had enough time to go hang out with my sister and her family in Maine.  The flights were wide open so I mentioned the trip to Alexis and she asked if Karleigh was coming so I asked my dad for a buddy pass and he said no problem.  It was kinda last second for Karleigh so we weren’t sure if it would work out for her to get time off so that was left in the air for a bit.

On Saturday Karleigh picked me up from work and on the way home as I figured out what time I needed to leave to catch the red-eye to JFK she got a text from her boss saying she could have the time off.  So we quickly figured out a schedule, packed some bags, and went to the airport.

The flight was wide open so we got on no problem and had a whole row to ourselves.  I can sleep just about anywhere at any time without too much trouble but unfortunately Karleigh can’t do the same so she stayed awake watching TV on the flight while I stretched out and slept.

We got in to JFK around five a.m. and had a four hour layover which isn’t too much fun after a red-eye, but we survived and eventually got on the flight to Portland, ME.

In Portland we had another little wait till my sister could come pick us up but it was worth it to see Little Jake yell and start laughing as soon as they pulled up and he saw who was standing at the pick-up curb.  Then as we pulled away he said ‘Papa says jet bluuuuue’  because my dad taught him to say that he flies on jetBlue and he now thinks all planes are associated with jetBlue.

The point of our visit was to try and give my sister and Ian a bit of a break from the little ones and it turned out to be quite exhausting so hats off to people with lots of little kids.

We started with a nap since Karleigh and I were both super tired and it was time for Little Jake to go down and Benjamin was already out.  After that we just had dinner then let Lex and Ian go over to a friends house for a while and we watched the little ones.

Little Jake is hilarious but moody.  The way he pronounces things cracks me up and he very politely says ‘yes’ instead of ‘yeah’ now.  He also mimics what my mom said to him about having ‘good manners’.  And any laundry basket is referred to as a lion cage and he flips them over and crawls underneath.  But his laughing sometimes changes very quickly into screaming for no apparent reason which results in a ‘time-out’.  He seems to be getting the point of those and hopefully the screaming will subside.

Benjamin is the most easy going baby I’ve ever seen.  He always seems to be in a good mood and if he does start to cry he normally isn’t too hard to make happy.  Jakey can always make him laugh too.  Unfortunately he seems to be getting his first tooth so he was a bit more fussy than usual but he’s still a cute baby.

Karleigh and I showed up in Maine with just our hoodies to keep warm which will do nothing in the freezing windy city of Portland.  So when we went to the Head Lighthouse and the coast on Monday we had to borrow some warm clothes to stay somewhat warm.  It was freeeeezing.  The cold didn’t seem to phase Lex too much though and while Kar and I pushed the stroller she ran down the trails to the tide pools and climbed on the rocks right out into the breakers paying no attention to the cold.

On Tuesday we went to the outlets to see if we could find some good deals.  The stores were pretty cool and Jakey loves the fish at the L.L. Bean store but the prices were still pretty high for outlets.  Four hundred dollars for a jacket anyone?  From there we went straight to the airport and said our good byes and again went to board a wide open flight.

Unfortunately for us the FAA and the Port Authority haven’t quite figured out a good way to run JFK yet and despite the nice weather outside we were delayed going into New York both on the ground and in the air.  Our seemingly perfect connection at JFK soon became impossible and we knew we would have to spend the night in New York City.

Luck for us, my parents were at the airport getting on the same flight we were trying for to get to Salt Lake.  They left their apartment keys and some dinner for us with an entertaining gate agent who met us when we landed and we were able to spend the night in Queens in relative comfort and do some exploring the next day in Manhattan before heading back to the airport to catch our flight to SLC.

In the end it all worked out.  I had an extra day off anyway and Karleigh’s boss didn’t mind that she took one more day off.  We were both a bit tired since we didn’t make it back to Provo till 1:30 a.m. and we both work at 7:00 a.m. but we have since recovered.

About the pictures:

The one with Little Jake and his sunglasses… yes, he does think he’s that cool

The one looking out on the rocks and the ocean… Look closely, Alexis is in that picture.