Beantown, Inaugurations, and snow in Raleigh?

We had a very exciting week! We made our rescheduled trek up to Massachusetts to visit the Malynn side of the family. At the airport, Adelaide threw up after running around like a crazy woman.

Then, she was very good on the flight up (it took all of mommy and daddy's energy, but she did cooperate). When we got to the house, she seemed to remember everything and everyone from her last trip up in May. She started randomly pointing at Ryan's dad's picture last week and saying, "Steve!" so I think the constant pictures helps her memory. After only about 10 minutes of warming up she went right to Grandma Robin.

Boston, of course, has the coldest day they have had in 4 years when we got there. The snow and cold weather limited what we were able to do, and what we could do with Adelaide especially. Under normal circumstances, Adelaide would have been miserable being cooped up for 4 solid days, but with the different surroundings and constant stream of people playing with her, she did amazingly well. She loves her Aunt Jordyn, as usual, and could not stop feeding Alby the Dog cheese. Aunt Lindsay and Uncle Luke came over several times to play. Adelaide really loved playing dollhouse with Aunt Lindsay. Grandma taught Adelaide to sing Ring Around the Rosie, which was a big hit.

Ryan and I got some time to ourselves to head into Boston. We ate at Ryan's favorite burrito place, Anna's Taqueria, and then headed to Fanueil Hall and Quincey's Market. On Monday, I headed into the Lexington office to meet with some folks from work who were kind enough to travel in on President's Day in the snow!

While the trip itself was a lot of fun, our travel home was the opposite of fun. On Inauguration Day, we headed to the airport. Adelaide got carsick and threw up in the car on the way there, poor little dear. Boston stop and go traffic is not for the fragile bellied. Once there we noticed that the flights to Raleigh before and after ours were cancelled, but our was still "On Time." We took notice of the gates to DC - they were festooned with red, white, and blue crepe paper and balloons. They also had 5 additional latex-gloved security guards at each departure.

Naturally after waiting there for 2 hours, they cancelled our flight as well due to the 2 inches of snow in Raleigh. Yes, there was over a foot of snow where we were with planes taking off and landing, but Raleigh was in chaos. So, we spent 6+ hours in the Logan airport entertaining Adelaide and watching the inauguration proceedings on TV with our fellow annoyed air travelers.

It was a delicious feeling to finally get home and get into our own beds, and know that we were back to routine comfort. On Wednesday Adelaide's daycare was still closed for the morning, so we had a chance to play in the bit of snow that hadn't yet melted. I leave you with a picture of my bundled up nugget:

I won!

After several back and forth email discussions with American Airlines over moving our flights due to the contagious viral baby, I finally received restitution for damages. ;-) Our cancellation fee ($300!) was waived and we were given two vouchers for future flights.

We went to yoga again this morning, as we did last weekend, at the Y. Ryan has been going almost every day since we joined. I can't say the same, but I have been really busy with work this week and classes starting again. My typical NCSU class started, my MBA classes started (statistics and org management), and my new Chatham course starts this coming week. I also held our third annual Innovation Retreat at work this past week, which is always both an invigorating and exhausting experience.


I thought it was time to take note of a few of Ade's new behaviors and routines...

• Ade spends some time nudies in the morning before getting dressed. She loves to cuddle me and snuggle and get wrapped in a blanket. I love that time in the morning. I sing a little song, "Mommy loves her baby!"
• At night, Ade has collected several lovies. It started with the duck and elephant that had to be in the crib. Then the owl, which she must hold while falling asleep (Hoo, hoo!). A small Elmo and Grover that used to stay in the car somehow transitioned to being part of bedtime as well. 
• I sing her a song based on a Sesame Street clip where Elmo wishes he had a dinosaur for a pet and adjust the words, "If Elmo loves his Adelaide, he would give her hugs and kisses" (she hugs and kisses me) "If Elmo loved his Adelaide, he would say it's time for nunny" (she responds nunny and snuggles up for bed).
• Ade likes to repeat the whole alphabet after you, and loves "counting" though mostly she repeats "Two, two, two.."
• We have thankfully expanded Adelaide cinematic collection to include Nemo, and her favorite part is with the sharks. She is obsessed with changing the DVD, and so alternates which of her movies she wants to watch. She asked for three different shows within 10 seconds yesterday ("Elmo, pawwww, fishies!" was a request for the Elmo potty DVD, the Wonder Pets Bengal tiger episode, and Nemo)
• She says Yes a lot more lately, and very enthusiastically.
• She knows about a million words.
• She likes to give fishie kisses.

Ryan and I are trying to plan out some of our travel in advance for this year, and I think so far it is looking something like this (but don't hold us to it!):

• January - Boston (all)
• Feb - Pgh (Steph and Ade for CMU recruiting)
• March - Boston (Ryan for fantasy baseball)
• May - Vegas??? (Ryan and Steph alone potentially for conference???)
• June - Orlando (Steph for conference, probably)
• July - Boston (all)
• August - Pgh (all for Tamara's wedding)
• Beach sometime
• Fall/Winter plans undecided

Okay, gonna sneak in a few other tasks during Ade's nap.

A YMCA family

After days of being basically stuck at home, we have gotten stir-crazy. We decided to take Ade to the YMCA playhouse for an house so we could work out. We figure 5 days into the virus she is probably not contagious, and she woke up seeming a lot better this morning.

She had a great time, daddy did the elliptical, and mommy took a Zumba class. When we picked her up from the little play room, she was sitting in a circle with all of the kids for storytime. She saw us and ran over with a huge smile. She was really good and had a great time.

We are so happy to have signed up. When Ade is here with us for days, being used to playing with other kids all day, she gets bored. And, we get exhausted of entertaining her! Ha! Props to all all of the SAHMs out there!!!