An Overly Long Vacation

Happy New Year everyone! It seems like FOREVER since I last posted, and if you look at the date of my last post, it has been FOREVER!! After 2 1/2 weeks of traveling, we are pooped and ready for a vacation from our vacation. I don't know what we were thinking in being away from home for so long, but I figure we might as well enjoy it while Mike is a student because once he graduates it's "Hello to the real world" and "Goodbye to winter breaks!" Our trip started out "delayed" because of Southwest Airlines or as some people call it "SouthWORST." We had a layover in Vegas, which was supposed to be 2 hours but because of delays in Orange County, was only one hour. Then we sat on the plane in Vegas WAITING for people from another flight that was delayed to get on our flight. Oh, and we had to wait for their luggage, too. I didn't know flights waited for delayed or late passengers. It was ridiculous, but Mike quickly pointed out that I would have wanted the plane to wait for me, too if I was delayed on another flight. We ended up arriving in Salt Lake at midnight where my brother picked us up after waiting in the park-n-wait for 45 minutes. Of course, my parents live in Logan, which is another hour and a half drive from Salt Lake City. We CRAMMED into my brother's little Honda Civic (2 large suitcases, 1 mini suitcase, 1 duffel bag, 1 stroller, which sat in Mike's lap, 1 carseat with baby inside, and 3 adult passengers). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my brother was driving up from Provo with all of his stuff--large suitcase and HUGE bag of laundry. I don't know how we fit everything inside, but we did because we had to! When we finally got to Logan, it was 2:00 AM and we were exhausted! Abby did GREAT throughout the whole ordeal and crashed once we got there.

We spent Christmas with my whole family--all 24 of us in one house on Christmas Eve. My sisters and their families who live in Kansas and Michigan got to meet Abigail for the first time. And Abby got to meet all of her cousins, including the three "triplets" who are only a year older than her. My three older sisters all had girls within 3 weeks of each other, so we call them the "triplets." It was such a great time being with everyone and spending Christmas with family, even when everyone got a tiny flu bug. The triplets all came with colds, which quickly passed on to others and became upset stomachs, coughs, stuffy noses, throw-up and diarrhea! Mike and I didn't want to catch the bug, nor did we want Abby sick, so we left for a couple of days to spend time with Mike's sister. We didn't get sick, but Abby did! It was so sad to hear her cough and try to breathe with a stuffed-up nose. I felt completely helpless. She is slowly getting over it, though, and is getting back to her normal self. Here are some pictures of our time in Utah:

Christmas Sunday outside of my parents' home. Abby is wearing her Christmas dress that Grandma Sue made for her. It was ADORABLE on her!

My sister has a very "spirited" child, as she likes to call him, who is always getting into some kind of mischief. I walked into my parents' room and found him hiding behind their dresser with black marks all over his face. I asked him to show me what he had been doing and he led me to my mom's make-up where he had been playing with the mascara. At least he knew where to apply the make-up--on his eyes! He sure is cute!

All 10 of the grandkids! It was quite the chore trying to get the little ones to sit AND look at the camera, especially Sienna (she's in the argyle sweater). She LOVES to walk around!

What's Utah without a little snow? Unfortunately, it did snow while we were there, and quite a bit, too. My parents have this steep driveway that has to be constantly plowed and shoveled to avoid icing over, which makes it impossible to drive up. One night all the brothers-in-law (all 5 of them) and my dad and 2 brothers went out to shovel all the snow. My youngest brother was on the ATV plowing while the older boys threw snowballs at him. Way to help out boys!

Christmas morning! We got Abby one present--her very first ornament! Doesn't she look excited? More like, "What's going on guys?"

We drove all the way down to Payson to see Mike's Grandma. It was the first time Abby got to meet her. She just loved to look at Grandma Hall! We sure do love our grandparents!

We spent some time with Mike's older sister Wendy and her husband Austin in Lehi. This is their little girl, Mea. She LOVED playing with Abby. One time while I was nursing Abby, Mea came in and wanted to see her. I told her Abby was eating. So Mea went and brought in her plastic spoon to help feed her! It was too cute!

One of our favorite activities while in Utah was going to Flowrider, a place in Ogden where you can "surf" or "boogie board" inside. This is a picture of the "gang" before our wipe-outs and me boogie boarding. It was actually a lot of fun, but took a lot of energy and strength. I was only able to boogie board because Abby was SCREAMING for food, but Mike got to try both the boogie board and surfing. I am told the surfing was the hardest because you have to be balanced and coordinated. It was fun to watch everyone "wipe-out" each time they got up. I had a good time, but didn't really enjoy getting thrown into the wall or twisting in a whirlpool of water. Everyone eventually caught the hang of it and were able to get up at least once. Here is a link to catch us out on video--Mike is the second one to go on the first video.

http://the-trueman-show.blogspot.com/2007/12/white-christmas.html

After spending 10 days in Utah, we flew out to Pleasanton to see Mike's parents and siblings and a few friends. This is when the trip began to feel too long. We should have flown out earlier to Pleasanton and come home sooner. Oh well, we learned! We spent a couple days in Pleasanton just hanging out and eating. I swear I felt like I ATE all weekend! It ended up POURING the whole time we were there, so we spent a lot of time indoors. But Mike's parents love to play games, so we got to play every night! Here are some pics:

Abby has quite a few boyfriends already, one being Max. He is my best friend's baby boy who is about 9 weeks older than Abby. It was pretty cute to see them together.

Mike and his friends from high school. They wanted to see Mike's new red-haired daughter! Oh yeah, they got a home-cooked meal, too!

Abby with her "Uncle" Craig, Mike's friend from high school and fellow red-head, and future pilot of Mike's private jet. Mike informed me he is going to buy a Honda Jet one day and have Craig be the pilot. Oh the dreams this boy has!

We flew home on Sunday and couldn't be happier to be here! We had a great time with everyone, but are glad to be back in a normal schedule. FYI--We flew home on Alaska Airlines and have never been on a better flight. We checked in 40 minutes before departure and the plane was already boarding for an early depature. We got in 30 minutes early! And we got to take Abby's carseat on the plane with us, so we just strapped her in and she slept the entire flight! I love Alaska Airlines!

Sorry for the extremely long post, but I wanted to get a lot of pictures up! I had tons more to post, but these will have to do for now. I hope everyone had an exciting Christmas and New Year! It sure was fun to see lots of you the past couple of weeks! Come and visit Southern California where the weather doesn't include snow!