March- Visiting my MN family

March was a busy month for us too.  Luke had to start job searching all over again. Before we found out about him being laid off though, I had used our Sky-miles to buy a plane ticket to go visit my MN family for a week in March.  My siblings were on Spring Break so I felt it would be a good time to go see them.  I got the tickets before I was feeling crappy, so of course when it came to the day of travel my body decided that it needed to die on the plane.  On the day we were supposed to leave to go to MN our flight kept getting delayed which did not help with my stress levels.  By the time we got on a plane it was really late and Carlos was pretty cranky with me.  And since Carlos wasn't 2 yet he didn't need his own seat so I got to have the pleasure of holding him on my lap while taking advantage of those air sickness bags.  Man was that fun or what?  Needless to say I have learned my lesson and know to not fly alone with a toddler while pregnant.  I was really lucky and had nice people sitting next to us on both flights that helped me with Carlos.  And I had invested in a portable DVD player which also saved my life for most of the flights and while we were waiting in the airport for our connecting flights.  We watched a lot of Aristocats and 101 Dalmatians.  Oh and Cars 2 as well.  I love the Pixar films because most of them are almost 2 hours long so it keeps him occupied for a while at least.  Anyway, when we finally arrived in MN and got to our hotel I discovered that my suitcase was locked.  Silly me thought that if I didn't lock the lock on my luggage that I wouldn't have any issues of getting into the suitcase so of course I didn't bring a key.  Little did I know that TSA would take it upon themselves to LOCK my suitcase and thus cause me even more stress.  Good thing my Dad has tools like a dremel tool because the next day Grandma Shelly came to the rescue and cut that stupid little lock off for me.  Now I have learned two lessons when traveling.  1) don't travel alone with a toddler while pregnant and 2) don't put a lock on your suitcase unless you plan on bringing the key.  Because you never know if it will be locked or unlocked when you get it back.

Anyway, the next week was filled with lots of fun times with my family.  Every morning Carlos woke up and asked when we were going to "Grandma's to play with the cars".  My parents still have the car mountain that my siblings would play with when they were little and all the Hot Wheels too so needless to say my car loving boy was in heaven. :)   We walked to the park near my parents place a couple times while we were there and Carlos loved it!  We also walked to my siblings old Elementary School where my Step Mom works now and played at the playground and took a little nature hike as well.

One of the days we were there we went to the Mall of America and did some shopping and checked out the Aquarium that is there too.  We met Dad for lunch at the family favorite restaurant, Rainforest Cafe and soon discovered that Carlos does not like robotic animals that move.  Or the sounds of a real rainforest for that matter lol.  Because every 5 min or so the monkeys would move and make noise or it would thunder and rain.  Carlos was totally freaked out for most of the meal so he got a lot of snuggle time with Grandma and Poppa that's for sure.  Before we left the mall we got him a Lightning McQueen and a Mater toy from the Disney store so I think that made up for the traumatic lunch.

A couple of the nights we were there we took advantage of my hotel pool and went swimming.  Carlos is like his Mama and Aunt Megan and prefers the hot tub over the big pool.  I couldn't get into the hot tub all the way so Aunt Megan and Uncle Dusty took the little guy for a swim a lot in both pools.  He sure loves them!  Uncle Logan needed some time to warm up to Carlos again as he just wanted to snuggle up to me and Carlos didn't like the idea of sharing his Mama.  By the end of the week though I think they both got along a little better.  Hopefully the next time we see them it will be easier on both of them since Carlos will be older.  But who knows, my kid is a bit crazy.  And Logan doesn't handle crazy little kids well (but who can blame him?  I can barely handle it and I don't get a choice in the matter being that I'm his Mother lol)

Another day we were there Dad took Megan, Logan and I to see The Lorax.  Carlos stayed home with Grandma Shelly and snuggled and "helped" make dinner and Uncle Dusty was at Tennis practice I think.  The movie was so cute!  I think it made me cry a little though, but of course my pregnant hormones didn't help lol.  It was nice to get out and spend some time with my siblings and not have Carlos climbing all over me.  And I think Grandma had fun with some one on one time with the boy too :)

The last full day we were there (I think) Shelly, Megan, Carlos and I drove down to Rochester and visited the Burton's and I got to see one of my High School friends (Kaylene Polley) and meet her sweet little girl, Ann and husband, Tom for the first time.  It was great catching up with her and having our kids meet.  Ann is just over a year younger than Carlos so he didn't quite understand that she couldn't run around like he does, but he soon figured it out and was actually very gentle with her.  We took them to the park near their house and played for a little while before heading back to the Burton's to see the rest of their family.  The Burton's are a long time family friend so my parents go visit them often, especially on holidays and when the kids have time off at the same time.  This year their Spring Breaks weren't the same so when we went to see them the kids were in school, but their Mom, Ann (yes I know a few Ann's lol) took them out of school early so they could see us.  I hadn't been back in Rochester for almost 6 years so it was fun to see them and catch up with them too.  But our day trip had to end so I didn't get to visit everyone that I would have liked, but not everyone's schedules worked out so I'm just glad that I did get to visit some friends at least.  Hopefully I won't wait as long to go back and visit.

One of the last mornings we were there we had breakfast together (minus Dad) at my hotel.  It was one of like 2 mornings that I got to eat a waffle instead of cold cereal since someone was there to distract Carlos for me to make myself one.  Don't get me wrong though, I do like cold cereal and it was one of the few things I could keep down during my first trimester with this baby so I ate it often. ;)  That and applesauce.  Which happens to be a staple in Carlos' diet.

Anyway, while we were on vacation, Luke was back in GA job hunting and gave me a call one day saying that he got a job offer for a job in Virginia.  I didn't like the idea of moving (again) or leaving my beautiful house, but you gotta make sacrifices and go where the job is.  The job offered almost twice as much for the salary than the ATI job and Luke would actually start working right away.  So he ended up taking the job and started on April 16th (but more on that in the next post).  So when we got back from vacation we started planning out and doing little improvements on the yard and such before Luke left.  But I'll include all that in the next post as this one is getting way too long.  If you are still with me, thanks for sticking it out and reading all this!  Next post will be about April and all the stuff that we crammed into that month too.  I'm just glad that I got to spend some time with my family before the real craziness began for us.  Thanks for letting Carlos and I come and see you!  We love and miss you all! :)