Our annual trip to Dartmouth is one of my most anticipated trips of the year. I love visiting that part of the country and it's always fun to be reunited with Jamie's family. Plus, we get to watch Kirby play football! Woo!! Go Kirby!!
If you all haven't been to the Northeast, you MUST add it to your bucket list. Dartmouth is in Hanover, NH, but we flew into Boston and made the almost three hour drive to the Dartmouth campus. Gorgeous drive. Absolutely brilliant trees and hills and pure creation that only the Lord can paint. Ah. Just stunning. Go!
Since there was no way we were going to make the drive up there, we indeed flew.
We flew with our 8 month old baby.
Lord help us.
I should have asked you all to pray before we left, because we needed it. I was not at all nervous at first, because here was my thought:
The absolute WORST thing that can happen is that Lucy is a wreck the whole flight and everyone hates us and talks bad about us for the rest of their lives, and we never see them again.
That's the worst thing, right? That's what I kept telling myself.
First flight. Left the house at 4:00 AM. Yep. 4:00 in the morning. Lucy woke up nice and chipper and crashed on our 45 minute flight to Houston. Out cold.
Good girl, Lucy! Thanks for being awesome! We land in Houston and have to walk VERY quickly to our next flight! No potty break. No stopping to feed Lucy. No resting. No breakfast. No nothing! We had to BOOK IT to our next flight!!! The flight from Houston to Boston was almost four hours long. The second we got out the plane, Lucy pukes all over Jamie. He was instantly not thrilled and I was holding in church giggles. I was about to cry because I was laughing so hard inside!
Poor Lucy.
She was a busy busy baby for about an hour and a half, and then she slept for about an hour and then she was up and busy for the rest of the flight. Just busy.
Y'all, I've always been very warm bodied, but since being pregnant and having Lucy, I'm like in a constant hot flash. Why I wore a sweater on the flight? I may never know. I was sweating buckets trying to wrangle my child!!! But there were no tears at all. Just happy screaming and squealing!
Oh Lucy.
We love you so.
This picture in Boston pretty much sums up my thoughts of flying with her:
She's a bit disheveled. One sock on. One sock in hand. Bunny hat hanging low. Low riding in the stroller. Minor pukeage on shirt.
This child CRASHED in the car on the way to Hanover.
It was only noon but already a long day. Bless it.
But once we met the Schoenthaler's at the airport, grabbed lunch and made it to campus, all was right in the world.
The campus is absolutely stunning. Set in a beautiful part of the city with gorgeous, colorful trees surrounding and pure happiness all around :)
The first thing we did was head to Kirby's football practice on Friday afternoon.
Kiki, Jamie, Aunt Camie, Lucy, Chief, and Spencer:
Lucy loves her Aunt Camie!
Kiki loves her Lucy:
Kim had the cutest shirt made for Lucy with Schoenthaler and Kirby's number on the back. She also put Kirby's best friend's football numbers on the arms--Bo and Alex.
After practice, Uncle Kirby was pretty happy to see his niece:
And the honorary goduncles, Alex and Bo were thrilled to meet their godniece
Deep in conversation:
Bo, Lucy, Kirby and Jamie:
By the way...
Did you know that my child LOVES empty water bottles?
It's the crinkle and the pop and the easy hold:
Loves 'em.
Jamie don't look so scared to be hugged by your Wifey:
I may have had a few bites of pumpkin cheesecake with caramel sauce at dinner but then I also had a dip cone when we got ice cream:
Welcome back, baby weight!!
Since we were there for Homecoming weekend, we got to enjoy the giant bonfire they create on the green:
Lucy the bear was a bit enthralled and not quite sure what to do about it:
The boys got lightsabers to make the evening a bit more festive:
Lucy got one too :)
Looking a little bit stoic:
It was a fantastic evening, but we were all ready to get to the hotel and in bed. By the way, I think our hotel was in Vermont. So all in one day, our little family of three went from Louisiana to Texas to Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Vermont. Big. Flippin'. Day.
Saturday morning started off a little earlier than I was hoping it would. Thank you, Lucy.
But Lucy and I met Marty and Kim down in the lobby for breakfast:
Jamie came a bit later, and Lucy girl was happy to see her Daddio!
She also got to try a few bites of blueberry from a muffin:
Good little eater.
After breakfast, we headed back up to the room for a mid-morning snack...for both of us. I fell asleep, face down, with my feet hanging off the end of the bed and no blanket. I was already wiped out and it was only 9:00 in the morning.
Power nap done and we all got ready for our fun-filled day at the Dartmouth game!
We headed to Hanover to walk around the cute town and we met up with Kirby's mentor, Thelma:
That sweet woman prayed so many blessings over my baby girl when I was pregnant, so I am quite thankful for this precious prayer warrior.
And I may or may not have made it a goal to semi-match my girl:
Kim had a sweater made for Lucy with the Dartmouth "D" on it and I wore my white sweater as well. Lucy had green and white poke-a-dot skinny jeans, but I don't own green skinnies, nor do I need to be wearing them.
But she was precious:
Finally, we headed to the game after eating a quick lunch at the football tent.
Dartmouth played Yale that day, and it was a really fun and exciting game!!
Go, Kirby!!!!
Lucy was all warm and cuddled with her daddy for the first part of the game:
And eventually conked out:
But then woke up quickly at the excitement from the first touchdown!
Chief playing with Lucy:
Hi, everybody!
Lucy loves her Kiki:
Jamie being the baby teddy bear at the game:
Dartmouth ended up beating Yale 20 to 13! Great game, Kirby, Bo and Alex!!!
Lucy reunited with her Uncle Kirby!
Hey Uncle Alex!
Hey Uncle Bo!
I love my sweet family:
Apples and sweet potatoes are hardly a game day food staple,but it works for Lucy:
Hey Uncle Kirby!
Kirby, Lucy and Alex:
After the game, Lucy and I strolled while the rest of the family waited for Kirby to get out of the locker room:
She was zonked out cold and needed to nap so badly!
Once the boys got out of the locker room, we headed to Molly's for dinner:
Kim and Kirby:
Daddy playing in the mirror with Lucy at dinner:
After dinner, we hung out at Kirby's house for a bit, met his friends, and then headed back to the hotel to get a good night's sleep before we headed back to the air port in the morning.
Sunday morning, we got to the Boston airport pretty early and let Lucy roll around on the floor and play to get out all of her energy:
And this...this, my friends...is the "family room" at the airport where I was told would be a comfortable and private area for me to nurse Lucy:
Um, really?
It was private, indeed, but comfy would not be my word.
Oh babies and airports...odd combination.
The Boston to Houston flight was pretty terrible. Lucy slept the whole time on the plane for a good 40 minutes before we took off since we were at a standstill on the runway. After we took off, she was still asleep and I was counting my blessings.
Then I got bumped by the stewardess, waking up Lucy for the rest of the 4 hour flight. I thought very ugly things about that stewardess, but then remembered that I'm a Christian woman and need to practice grace and forgiveness.
Lucy was awake the rest of the flight. Busy. Noisy. Fussy. Angry. Happy.
Mommy was sweating.
It was a long 4 hours.
We arrived in Houston, ate some pizza. Cruised around the airport. Got some candy. And just enjoyed ourselves before we had to get on another plane.
The second the plane took off heading to Lafayette, Lucy blows out her diaper. I can't tell you the last time she did that. I told Jamie that I had to race to the bathroom to change her or else I'm going to have a mess on me as well! We were literally still taking off, I'm giggling like a school girl, and I'm hauling my smelly baby to the back of this puddle-jumping plane to change my stinky child!
Let's just say she was a mess. There was no putting those clothes back on her. So I had to bring Lucy back to the seat in just a diaper.
Naked baby on a plane. Nasty.
Thankfully, Jamie had a dirty undershirt in his bag, so that's what Lucy got to wear for the remainder of the flight:
At this point, we were delirious and we thought it was absolutely hilarious that our 20 pound, 8 month old daughter was wearing a large, dirty, undershirt.
She was quite proud of herself though:
We got home. Had fro yo for a late night snack, everyone got baths and showers and then this happened:
I put Lucy to bed and it was the end of a very long day.
FANTASTIC weekend.
Thank you, Schoenthaler family for a fantastic trip!
Thank you, Kirby for going to a beautiful school and for hosting us!
Love you guys, and I can't wait to see you all again at Thanksgiving!
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