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Let's go to Grandma's!

One of the problems with writing a blog is that you never come up with your best ideas sitting at a keyboard. For example, I have written brilliant blog entries in the middle of the night, while I'm up with the baby, but you'll just have to take my word for it, since I forget all of them as soon as I go to sleep...

For example, I wrote several entertaining accounts of our trip to Florida to see my grandma, but you'll just have to settle for what I come up with while I'm awake. Grandma hadn't met Luke yet, so we decided to make the 4.5 hour flight in Michael's airplane to see her. I didn't know when I went to sleep the night before when we would be leaving, if we would be leaving after Eleanor's school, at noon, early in the morning... When we woke up Michael checked the weather and asked how soon we could leave. We didn't get out as soon as I hoped, but soon enough.

4.5 hours in a 6 seat airplane is long. I remember when we first got the airplane when Eleanor was almost 2---the cabin felt roomy, she had plenty of space to roam around, make tents, have a blast. When you get 3 kids, 2 car seats, one booster, and all our gear back there, it is quite a bit more crowded. I am not complaning, since alternatives would be flying commercially or driving, but it seems like a long trip. The flight was exciting as far as weather, but we managed to avoid the storms thanks to satellite weather and very helpful controllers. It was less bumpy than many other trips which have had much less exciting weather, in fact.

I think Eleanor and Amanda's main goal was to go swimming in the swimming pool just down the street as many times as possible. The fact that we were a few miles from the beach didn't impress them, what impressed them was that we could walk to the pool! Luke was happy when we let him roll around on the floor---he actually crawled for the first time there (kids always learn more when you go to visit family).
Grandma kept asking me what she could do to help. She's 81, just had major surgery about 6 weeks ago, and isn't yet up to walking very far, but she has played a lot of golf and was in the paper for placing second (this is according to her friends at church, she wouldn't have told me herself). I kept telling her that all she needed to do was exist, and hold a baby if she felt like it.

We went to the Jungle Gardens, Eleanor got to hold an alligator (well, a little one, and she will tell you that it's mouth was taped shut), Amanda took off her shoes all day, we all melted a little in the heat. We went to church with my grandma, it was rally day (beginning of fall Sunday School) and so Eleanor and Amanda stayed for Sunday School (Eleanor was excited because it included ice cream!) while Grandma and I went home to get Luke a nap. The trip home the next day was uneventful (but still long =).

Overall, it was a good trip, not something I'd like to do every week, but definitely worth taking.

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