In Texas!

Well, we made it to Texas, the land of my roots! Almost my whole extended family lives here- in Austin, San Antonio, or Fort Worth and here we are to visit them! I was born in Lubbock, Texas, and lived in the great state until I was 10, when we moved to Oklahoma, followed by a stint in New Mexico and finally ending up in Michigan, where I went to most of high school and all of college, moved to Phoenix for pharmacy school and then back to Michigan where we live now. :) Today we will go to visit my mom's parents who live in a sort of long term care facility (Granny has Alzheimer's and Papa is just sort of lost without her, so they stay together). I am hoping to get some pictures of Carolyn in the bluebonnets (beautiful blue wildflowers that grow everywhere here in the spring) and visit a playground with a bucket swing for the first time since it is nice and warm here. :)Carolyn did very well on the plane flight yesterday, though it was a long day for all of us, filled with the usual (and even some of the more unusual) delays. We flew through Chicago Midway and all the screens said our flight was delayed by more than an hour so we decided to have a more leisurely lunch than we might otherwise have had- midway through our sandwiches and soup and with all kinds of paraphernalia out on the table for Carolyn, the announcer says over the PA that they are boarding our flight- almost an hour before we expected them to! Evidently the plane came in early and they were going to try and take off as planned. So we ran! And ran and ran! And very out of breath, we made it to the gate on onto the plane… where we sat… for about 45 more minutes- waiting for other unfortunate passengers who assumed that the tv monitors had the correct departure time! Fortunately, Carolyn had many willing attendants and many fascinating things to look at and touch- like the little blower thingie that blows air down.
She loved looking out the window at everything going on on the ground. Sadly, one thing that was not happening on the ground was our luggage being loaded onto the plane (something about that last sentence doesn't seem right grammatically but I don't care...) The luggage finally arrived last night after midnight! We're just glad to have it- but we wish they'd included a voucher or something for our inconvenience! :)

Here Carolyn meets Peyton, her second cousin- about 4 months younger than she is and super, super cute!!!! I loved having a chance to chat with my cousin Erica about all the joys of mommyhood and Peyton loved staring at Carolyn and Carolyn loved trying to get at Peyton's eyes.

Another big highlight for Carolyn was Jessie, Aunt Nancy's dog, who is very friendly (unlike our dog, who most of the time won't let her in sight of him!) Jessie kept trying to lick Carolyn's face and Carolyn would shriek with delight!

Carolyn is becoming more and more mobile every day. She's getting so close to being able to crawl on all fours and has started climbing and trying to pull up on everything! She was fascinated with this table that she could climb up under and crawl across! I love to see the light of the explorer in her sweet eyes!