Seattle here we come

Today marks the start of our 10 day summer vacation to Seattle to visit friends and family. This is our first significant trip with Davis and so far things are going smoothly. Yesterday, I was able to stop work at about noon and help with packing before my 3 month check up. It took us a while to pack, clean, prepare instructions for the cat sitter, water plants, clean out the fridge, etc but by about 7:00 we were all packed and ready to go. We ended up with 3 checked bags, one carry-on, the diaper bag, stroller and car seat. This seems like a lot, but for us, it is actually traveling pretty light. I think Davis picked up on our stress of getting ready to go as it was a little more difficult than usual to get him to bed. Megan and Dave picked up Thai food and we shared a nice dinner before settling down for the night. Given how much more difficult it was to get Davis down, I expected a tough night, but he slept well and we were up at 5:00 to make final preparations.

After packing the last of the baby gear, fixing the cat bistro, doing laundry and putting away dishes, We left the house at about 6:30 and headed to Megan and Dave's so Dave could take us to the airport. Having Dave drive our car home and pick us up when we return really simplified the day and avoided a lot of stress from taking a taxi or livery. Davis took a short cat nap* on the way to the airport, but not enough to provide any real rest.

The airport went much better than I expected. We were easily through security with one of the nicest TSA agents on the planet and grabbed a quick breakfast. We walked Davis around the terminal where he enjoyed watching all the people and activity. Taking advantage of Jet Blue's pre-boarding, we got settled in early with a tired and hungry baby.

Our flight wasn't scheduled to depart until 8:45 and we were a few minutes pushing back from the gate. By the time we took off, Davis had been up for about 4 hours and was very hungry. The advice we got, which seemed to work, was to give him a bottle to suck on during take-off and landing to help with the cabin pressure changes. While this worked well, the timing made it very tough to withhold the bottle and sleep until take off. However, the screams we endured on the tarmac were worth it – Davis didn't have any issues with ears popping on take off and went to sleep shortly after we passed 10,000 feet.

The flight so far has been a mixture of entertaining Davis and working. Kristen has been working hard on a paper and I've been listening to podcasts and these blog posts. Davis has actually been very easy to entertain – we can just walk around the cabin and he is fascinated by all the faces and people. He has been very popular with the flight attendants and other parents. We've also spent time playing with toys, bouncing on dad, reading books and sitting in the car seat backwards self entertaining.

Right now, we have an hour until landing and Davis is napping in his car seat. Soon we'll wake him up, put our stuff away and prepare a bottle for the descent. After landing, we pick up the rental car and head to my mom's for the next 10 days. We're really looking forward to some relaxing time with Grammie, seeing Kristen's Aunt, seeing friends and being back in the great pacific northwest

Here are some pictures from the flight:





* A cat nap means a short nap, but if you've ever seen our cats, you would think otherwise.