the states

a little over a month ago we embarked a bit of an adventure. we headed back to the states for three weeks. the first adventure was trying to get out of germany. we decided we rather not spend a small fortune to fly commercial so we opted for space a - or a military hop. a free flight on a military plane, the trick is that it's very much a first come, first serve system and then there are different categories. i could try to explain it all, but that deserves it's own post and is boring. basically since troy was with us, we were category 3 and we weren't first on the list but we weren't last either. so there were several flights going out the day we wanted/needed to leave. our first try was to charleston, sc. it would have been an easy drive to my parents. we made the list for this flight and literally, as we were walking through security to get onto the plane, they threw everyone off the plane - the reasoning - people and cargo on a cargo plane require 2 loadmasters, there was only 1 and rather than call another guy to work they opted to throw all the people off the plane and add more cargo, which only requires 1 loadmaster. so back to the terminal we went and waited a couple more hours for the baltimore flight, which we got onto. this was great and also sort of a huge pain. it was great because it is a commercial plane, so it was like a regular plane...with seats and each seat had it's own tv and there was food almost hourly. the downside....it was going to baltimore, which added an extra day of driving....lots and lots of driving. but we made the flight! the kids did fantastic. after landing in baltimore and getting the rental car it was almost 10pm. The kids slept for a little bit in the car, troy and i tried not to sleep in the car. we had been up for over 24 hours by this point. we drove until about 2am and stopped at a hotel. troy slept and i stayed up with the kids, who were beyond wide awake since it was around 9am to their little bodies. we got up around 6 and had breakfast and started driving all over again.

we finally made it to florida. grayson's little alarm clock refused to let him go beyond 4am almost every morning, but he adjusted pretty quickly to naps and bedtime. mayer fell asleep around 5pm the first few days but after that he was fairly adjusted. troy had a business trip to vegas the 2 days after we got to florida so he was gone the first week we were in florida. and this would be when i did a good majority of my shopping. in hindsight, i should have combined all the bags into just a few instead of just throwing them all into our bedroom, it was probably a bit of a shock for troy to walk into a room full of shopping bags but whatever. it all resulted in 2 boxes having to be mailed back and one extra suitcase....not too bad if you ask me. and some of it was birthday and christmas presents for the boys. flordia weather was awesome, i did pack a couple shorts and t-shirts but i had no idea it would be so warm a majority of the time we were there and that resulted in more shopping.  we got to the beach 3 times and i hit target 4 or 5 times and starbucks every time i left the house. i figured if i overdid it with target and starbucks i wouldn't miss it as much when it was time to leave. i decided mayer was old enough for his first dolphin cruise and it was awesome. i don't know that i have ever seen that many dolphins before and that was my third cruise. the boys had a great time playing with grandma and grandpa. there was a lot of lego building, coloring, book reading and playing in the back yard - mayer had to show grandpa his soccer skills. another big moment was grayson's first haircut. i was not looking forward to it but it was time. he did awesome. he pretty much sat frozen the whole time. and i was very happy to see his hair was still curly when it was all done. my mom and i were able to sneak out a few times for some margaritas and shopping...not always in that order. although, it was pretty awesome/scary when the waiter asked if we wanted our margaritas to go....uhhh, what?

mayer and grandpa

grayson and his first haircut

playground at the mall

mayer and grandma

grandma and grayson playing around

another playground at another mall

the beach! and grayson is happy - even better

one of my favorite pictures

grandma and mayer with uncle jeff's legos

grandma and the boys at a shell beach

mayer and grandma on the dolphin cruise

captain mayer turning the boat around - he took his job very seriously

grandpa and the boys

the saturday after thanksgiving we got back in the car and headed back up to the virginia/dc/philly area. troy's sister recently moved from philly to alexandria and since we were going to try to fly back from bwi, we thought it would be awesome to stay with her and her family and spend some time with our nephews. it was a bit of a nightmare to drive on thanksgiving weekend and i instantly remembered how much i disliked northern virginia/dc's traffic. it was great to see shaina, tom and jake and to meet our newest nephew, ben. quite adorable. mayer and jake instantly started playing and it they went nonstop until we left. the day after we got to virginia, we went to philly for the day to see almost all of troy's family...where there was another new niece we had to meet, again quite adorable. it was awesome to have the boys get so much attention and to have them see most of the family, it was a long day but worth it and that night we went back to virginia. the next day we just hung out with shaina and the boys. and then we learned there was flight back to germany that night and there were no flights for the next couple of days and since troy had to be back to work by friday, we packed up and headed to bwi. a huge thank you to tom and shaina for letting us stay with them for those few days - it was great to spend time with you. at baltimore, we kept our fingers crossed we would make the flight. even with troy being with us, we were towards the bottom of the list but we made it. i think it left around 10pm so it was pretty easy for everyone to fall asleep. on a side note....my camera died 2 days before thanksgiving and i forgot to bring my charger so i have no pictures from thanksgiving or virginia/philly but we've got the memories :0)

it was a very busy 3 weeks. full of family, driving, starbucks and shopping but it was great!