I Love My Bed

We're back from our vacation!
Did I even mention we were going? Probably not. But we were gone - for a week! That's the reason for not posting. Not laziness. (This time.)

At Horsetooth Reservoir above Fort Collins.

We left at 6 AM last Friday, and spent 12 hours on the road driving to Fort Collins, Colorado. We went out there to visit Paul's grandparents (his dad's parents) for a mini-family reunion. Both of Grandpa and Grandma's kids, and all of their kids and grandkids made it out there at the same time. We all arrived within a few hours of each other on Friday evening, and all departed within a few hours of each other on Tuesday morning.
We had a blast. It was so nice just to hang out and relax, and get to know Paul's family a little better. We were all out there together last summer, but this time I felt like we were more comfortable with each other.
The family is as follows: Grandpa Ted and Grandma Nadine, their daughter Connie and their son Doug (Paul's dad). Connie has two daughers - Amy and Emily. Amy has a 5-year-old son, Boston, and Emily and her hubby Chris have a son named Jack who is 1 1/2. Doug and Janice have Paul (obviously) and Elizabeth, and then there is me and Nathan. So 14 people in all for this family reunion.
I was fascinated by watching Nathan and Jack (who are second-cousins, for those of you who, like me, have trouble with the proper cousin-isms) play together. To me they look so much alike.

Maybe I get distracted by the chubby, chubby cheeks. But there are some pictures that they almost look like twins. Definitely like brothers, or at least something more closely related than second-cousins.

Yeah, that's Nathan on the left, and Jack on the right. Just in case they look like the same kid to you.

After we left his grandparents' house, we headed down to Colorado Springs. Paul's best friend from childhood moved out there this summer, so we wanted to stop by and see him. After a half a day in the area, we decided we'd definitely be coming back next year.... When it's warmer. We got to do a quick hike through Garden of the Gods, see some indian cliff dwellings in Manitou Springs, and tour the Glen Eyrie castle and grounds, which is where Seth works (for Navigators). Since it was only in the 40s, we didn't really get to enjoy the hiking and time outdoors as much as we would have liked.
From Colorado Springs, we headed to Ness City, KS. Where is that, you ask? It's a little town smack in the middle of nowhere. And you realize that as you drive an hour down a two-lane highway and pass no towns, and very few oncoming vehicles the entire way. My little sister got her first teaching job out there, so we wanted to stop by and see the town.
Ironically, Ness City was the vacation destination for my family many summers as I was growing up. There is a little hotel with an indoor pool that we found by chance one summer, and so we ended up coming back year after year. (Because these farm kids love their indoor pools!) Sometimes we'd stay there on our way home from visiting Mom's relatives in Colorado, and sometimes we'd go out there and stay the weekend. Us kids would hang out at the motel, enjoying the cable tv and the pool, and Dad and Mom would go for drives, visiting various farm equipment dealers and some of Dad's distant relatives.
We got a good visit in with Carl that evening before we all turned in. We all got up at 7, and she headed to school, and we headed home.
I figured up on the way home: we'd spent roughly 25 hours on the road. That's a chunk for a one-year old. And believe it or not, when he wasn't asleep (which was more often than I though it would be), this is the face he had most of the time:

And that was with a new arrival that popped out sometime over the weekend at Grandpa and Grandma's. See his new pearly white back there on the right side of that smile? That puppy popped through and I didn't even know it until one night when he was acting off - quiet and cuddly. And it's a molar! The one on the other side is just under the skin, and the in-between teeth are coming in, too. What a champ!
But that does explain the sleepless nights that began the week before we left, and continued the whole vacation (except for one blissful night). He'd wake up at night, and it would be two hours before he'd go back to sleep. He'd fall asleep in your arms, but as soon as you put him back down, he'd start crying, which turned to screaming if you tried to just let him "cry it out."
It made for some interesting sleeping while we were gone. We were in a full size bed at Grandpa and Grandma's. Now, there's only 6 inches difference in width and height than our queen bed here at home, but it makes all the difference when it comes to knees and elbows in the middle of the night. Then add to that a sleepless one-year-old. Nathan's playpen that he was sleeping in is about 2/3 the size of his crib, so when he rolled over in his sleep, he'd run into the side and wake up. Paul would give up after 20 or 30 mintues of rocking and come put him in bed with us. Maybe Paul could sleep with him in there, but I couldn't, and judging by Nathan's restlessness, neither could he. So I usually ended up getting back up with him in an hour or so and rocking him for 20 or 30 minutes more until he was finally completely out. Then when we stayed at the hotel in Co Springs, we had a king size bed, which was plenty of room for all three of us, but Nathan did acrobatics and ended up with his head nestled into my ribs (and I somehow on the edge of the bed), and his feet on Paul. So given that I couldn't roll over, I didn't sleep that well then either. Then at Carl's we were on a futon. Enough said.
So I was SO GLAD to get home to my own bed. I slept like a baby. And so did Nathan, until 7 AM.
Argh.