Sleep

It's so nice to get some much needed rest. Being on vacation I just didn't seem to sleep that well, especially when the kids got sick. Finally last night after figuring out what we could feed Kate and have her body tolerate it somewhat, I was able to get a solid nine hrs! Woohoo! Now, I know for most people 9 hrs. at 7 months isn't that great, but with her sensitive stomach she hasn't been able to go more than 4 hours without nursing since she turned about 4 months. (there was like a month in there where she started sleeping "through the night" but then stopped because she was getting bigger and needed more food to get her through the night but couldn't eat cereal or ANYTHING). So, yay for sleep. It's amazing how much better you can feel, and how much more patience you can have when you can get a good nights sleep.

Now I am going to jump back to our vacation.

Once we left Devon's parents house we went up to my parents where we were originally going to stay for about 2 weeks. Then the day before we went up my Grandfather passes away (a little quicker than anyone thought he was going to) and so instead of staying for 2 weeks we ended up only staying for about 2 days. We left Devon's Sunday afternoon and arrived at my moms Sunday in time for a late dinner. Monday and Tuesday we just hung out. Monday night we went to the High School basketball game and that was about it. It was nice to relax and not have a schedule, especially since the kids were getting sick (thanks to the earlier visited cousins grrrr). My kids seem to ALWAYS be sick when we go to my moms. I don't know what it is but it drives me crazy! It doesn't matter if it is the middle of winter of the burning (and in YC it is burning) heat of summer. Anyway, so they were sick and not very well behaved (don't you hate that!) plus, I wasn't that patient with them because of the earlier mentioned lack of sleep. By Tues. night Kate was doing really bad and had honestly been up all night for 2 nights in a row, so we got her in to see the doctor Wed. morning. She ended up having an ear infection along with the wonderful cold that was going around. She got some meds and I got relief in knowing that although her cough and breathing sounded bad that there was no fluid in her lungs and she didn't have pneumonia. Thursday we were all planning to drive back to Utah for my grandpa's funeral but Devon and I decided to leave wed. and stay the night in Reno. We thought that it would be better for us because 1. we wouldn't have such a long day in the car and 2. because we wouldn't have to get up early to leave. With that decided we loaded the car and drove the 2.5 hrs. to Reno and stayed in the peppermill. The best 23.00 I have ever spent! They upgraded us to a suite and the room was really nice! The beds were so soft, the pillows heavenly and just a whole lot cleaner and nicer than I was expecting....especially for what we paid for it. The night however didn't go as well. Kate spent most of the evening crying and would only stop when we were in the bathtub. Austin seemed to be doing better until he started crying and i went over to see what was wrong and he puked all over me and the bed (it was mostly on me and I caught the rest with a towel.....SICK!) then I picked him up and we hauled it into the bathroom where he pucked on me again. EW. That was the first time he has ever puked!. The poor lady who had to come and and clean up the nasty towels we used to clean with probably thought we had gotten a nasty hang over LOL. Sorry lady, just sick kids. After a late night and FINALLY getting the kids to sleep, we actually slept really well. We ended up sleeping in and not even getting up until like 9:00! After that we were off to Utah. Things in Utah went well. It was nice to see family, for me it was kind of awkward....you're all there because someone has passed so you don't really want to be rambunctious (sp?) like we were 3 weeks ago at thanksgiving....yet it's boring to just sit around solemnly. Anyway things there went well. The funeral was nice and the lunch in after wards was fun. It was fun to hear so many different stories about grandpa, some of them were classic grandpa stories that I have heard 100x and some I had never heard. After the funeral services and everything friday we all just hung out then got ready to leave on Saturday. We ended up packing up and leaving in the early afternoon and were able to stop and have lunch with 2 of my old roommates before heading back home. Once we were home had time enough to unpack, do the laundry and pack again so that we could do one more quick trip to Idaho Falls to see an friend of ours that moved back east, but had come out to spend time with her parents. We got back last night unpacked and I am so happy that the house is clean, the laundry is now down and I don't have anywhere to go for a long while!!!

I just want to say, although it was a crazy holiday, I can't believe how well our kids did in the car. Both of them have been complete ANGLES. On the way out to california we drove 14hrs without the slightest glimps of a meltdown. We drove up to my parents, then to reno, then to Utah, then to Boise, then to I.F. then back to Boise....all within a month and they handled it better than I did! They seriously were so good in the car I still can hardly believe it! So yay for good kids in the car that don't get car sick, yay for medicine that helps make being sick more tolerable, and yay for a husband who works like crazy in the summer so that we can do crazy things like this in the winter.