Road Weary

"Mommy, these things keep falling from the sky! What did you and Daddy call them? Helicopters? Whirlybirds? New York trees are weird."

So, we did it. We trekked north with the boy to both of our hometowns in upstate New York, plus a few other stops along the way to see friends and family. The jaunt from coastal SC to central NY is a 15-plus-hour car ride on a good day, so we ended up breaking it up into two barely bearable chunks. Kostyn did surprisingly well in the car given that he was cooped up in his carseat for at least a few hours for six of the 11 days we were on vacation.

In addition to all the new sights and sounds (we stayed in five different places during the trip), Kostyn quickly became overwhelmed with the number of people who wanted a piece of him up there. They are dear loved ones to us but mostly strangers to him, and after a few days he sort of freaked. It got to the point where he would freeze and look down as soon as he noticed someone smiling at him. That was usually followed by all-out crying and desperate crawling in Mommy's direction. I felt bad because so many loved ones wanted to snuggle and cuddle and play with him, and they were all so good about keeping their distance instead. He did reward several patient people with the gift of him falling asleep in their arms, though.

To make matters even more challenging, he got sick while were up there, and then I got sick, too. Not fun. After his fever spiked to 103 (his very first fever, by the way!) we took him to a local health clinic to make sure we weren't dealing with an ear infection (which we weren't).

All in all it was a decent but exhausting trip. We were incredibly thankful to see so many friends and family, though there is never enough time to really feel 'caught up' with people. Kostyn got treated like birthday royalty everywhere we went, and the weather was perfect, which made us long for a permanent move up there even more. We'll see.....

Kostyn got his first haircut, thanks to his Aunt Annette, who did a super job of 'fixing' what was quickly becoming a mullet.



Celebrating his birthday with Chris' family:



Celebrating his birthday again, this time with my family. His Aunt Lisa's yummy homemade cupcakes were his first real chocolate treat.



Our friends Jerry and Kim's gorgeous twins, who were so patient with KO (thanks, guys!):



His future wife, Sophia, who is a perfect blend of her parents, Mike and Ann. Soooo sweet.



Trying to find his cousin Cora's tongue: ("See, it looks like this, and I think it's right in there...")



It's hard to see it in this picture, but my nephew Zayvius did not take off his Batman cape the entire week (his usual getup also involved black cowboy boots and an old pair of pink gloves that desperately needed to be washed, if my poor sister could ever convince him to take them off). He is a gem, just like his sister.



And here's Chris teaching our nephew Tesher how to tie knots around sticks with blades of grass. Boys.



See, Kim and Amy - I didn't take a single picture of either of you hot pregnant mamas, just like you asked!