Well we made it...so far

We are in Winter Park, Colorado. We left Asheville yesterday at noon and drove to Columbia, SC. Then we left Columbia by plane at 6:30am, flew to Houston and then onto Denver. In Denver, we boarded a bus with the assigned team and drove up to Winter Park. We are in a hotel until Sunday when we get to move into camp. So here is how it went:

Phase I: Asheville to Columbia.
We left right when we wanted to at noon. Asher and us all ate in the car and both of the kids took a nap. Asher watched some Wiggles on the ipod and we got into Columbia, pretty much without incident. It was great. We arrived at the Sloan's where Matt's sister Buffy and her twin girls were waiting on us! It was the first time that we got to meet Zoe and Tori and my oh my are they cute!

We put Asher down for a real nap in the pack and play and all of the girls played. Well Lucy played and Zoe and Tori grunted and ate.
About 5pm the barrage began when Nate, Watts and Maggie all arrived to play. Linda and Mark got home from work, David and Mary Lane came over and it was a zoo! But it was so great to be around family and all of the kids playing together. Then we ordered pizza and celebrated Asher's birthday! Asher's great grandparents even arrived for the celebration. It was great fun!



Then, Matt introduced his family to the camera on my laptop and how it can distort your face so you look ridiculous. Here are a few of the favorites:






I am not lying when I say...EVERYONE took pictures. It was one of the funniest things that I have seen in a long time.

Then everyone left, we put the kids to bed and stayed up too late getting ready for today.

PHASE II: Columbia to Houston
Matt ended up going to bed around 2am. Then Orbitz kindly placed a complimentary phone call to Matt at 3:15am to let us know that our planes were ON TIME. uggh. Then Asher decided he wanted to get up at 3:45 for the day. So Matt got up with him. Lucy and I got up at 4:30am, got dressed and into the car. Matt was not especially fun during this phase of the trip. But he gets a pass on that since he only got one hour of sleep.
We got the airport and the guy checking us in was not happy to be there either. So that was fun. We managed to get the kids through security and to the gate. But we kind of lost track of time and had to be paged because the plane was close to leaving us! We boarded the plane and Asher played and Lucy slept. It rocked.

PHASE III: Houston to Denver
Asher was so tired from being awake since 3:45am that as soon as the plane left the gate, he was sound asleep. Lucy, on the other hand decided that was a good time to play the role of classic screaming baby on the plane. I am not kidding when I say, SCREAMING HER BLOODY HEAD OFF. She wanted a bottle and I messed the bottle up and it was leaking all over the place. I coudn't get it fixed without standing over a sink and no flight attendants were very helpful. Finally after ten minutes of cursing and sweating and unbelieveably dirty looks from other passengers, a flight attendant approached and offered to help. He took the bottle and dumped it out and brought it back full of the perfect temperature water. Lucy took her bottle and was asleep within minutes. Glory. Everyone slept-except me for most of the flight.

PHASE IV: Denver
We arrived in Denver at noon. Our bus was not coming the airport unti 2:30. So we had two and half hours to kill. Which wasn't that bad because both kids needed to burn off energy. So Asher ran around like a maniac until he was literally falling down he was so tired. He hit his head hard twice on the floor of the Denver airport and has two magic eggs on his forehead. We got on the bus, very tired and very worn down by whining and just general crankiness. The addict needed a fix from the Wiggles and we caved to his demands. He fell asleep in about thirty seconds and so did Lucy. They both made it for about an hour and with one hour left, they both decided that they had "had enough of traveling. thank you very much." And so they just fussed and were crankpots for about an hour. Then we made it to the hote;.

PHASE V: We are in the hotel.
We have made it. But both kids are sleeping in pack and plays about three feet from each other. I am pretty sure that Lucy is getting sick and might have an ear infection. So we'll see how this plays out for the next three days.

I am sitting in the hallway typing this because I am downloading 30 Rock off of itunes so that I can watch a little something before I go to bed. Sorry for the giant recap, but I am simply amazed at how well this trip went. A little complaining and whining I can handle. Giant meltdowns and getting kicked off of planes...I can't deal with that and I am so relieved that did not happen to us today.

By the way, best parent hack travel tip so far. Buying black felt for helping to make the room dark. We aren't using it for that purpose, instead I draped it around Lucy's pack and play so that she can't see us and wake up, Asher can't see her and wake her up. Also, it blocks out light from getting in her face as I get ready for bed. I am POSITIVE that I will be traveling with black felt for years to come.