Have Baby, Will Travel

Before Reagan's arrival, many people told us, "Having a baby will change EVERYTHING!" "Get your SLEEP before the baby comes!" "Things are so much easier with the baby INSIDE of you." Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah... So far, having the baby hasn't changed EVERYTHING or totally interrupted our sleep. However, we realized this past weekend that traveling was MUCH different than when he was in-utero!

Richard's office gave him his birthday (Thursday, November 4th) off, so he took the following Friday off and we made it a long weekend. Thursday we went to the zoo because he'd never been before, he got free admission for his birthday and Reagan was free. We only had to pay for me! Unfortunately, it rained. We were able to stay for about an hour, but then it started to pour and the baby got cranky, so we left.

Here are a few photos we snapped while there:

The stroller ended up getting soaked through, but he lasted a while before getting upset.


Intent on NOT smiling with Daddy in front of some mixed monkey exhibit.


Silly boy loves riding in the carrier with his Momma!


Thursday evening we went out with the Clarkfam for dinner at a burger joint where it's hip to be square. Richard got a free cupcake and we had a good time.

Friday we headed down to Miami for the night so we could visit the Coral Castle, which Richard had dreamed of visiting for many moons. What should have been a 4.5 hour trip turned into a 5.5 hour trip because of a little boy who cried wolf from the back seat. "Crying wolf" in this case meant that he screamed his little head off, making us think something was truly wrong, when in fact, he was just in need of a good stretch. The only song that could calm him down was "When and Who and What did he do?", a children's Bible song about Genesis 1:1 we learned on this CD.We stopped at a Cracker Barrel on the way down, bought a bluegrass CD, and let Reagan dance in the car for a while. He LOVED it! We eventually got to Miami and checked into our hotel. It was sweeeeeeeet and we got a good deal on it!

Enjoying the luxurious accommodations with Daddy.


Thinking about Cuban food with Momma.


Making sure nobody separates him from his beloved wiggly bird.


The night in the hotel was comfortable for us, but our poor little guy was up every 2 hours because of a combination of whatever I ate (tasted great, but the flavor stuck around for a while and my tummy was upset) at the Cuban restaurant that night, it was unseasonably cold, and he wasn't at home in his own bed (pack 'n plays are no substitute for a crib)! Thankfully, Richard had the sense to suggest and ensure that we brought the swing, our saving grace! We were eventually able to get him to rest for about 3-4 hours straight in that and woke up with only an hour to get ready, pack our things, and check out before getting charged a late fee. We ended up going slightly over the time, but the staff thought Reagan was so sweet they didn't seem to care! As Richard says, we got the "Cute Baby Discount".

The Coral Castle was interesting. It was Richard's special birthday trip and he was giddy, snapping pictures right and left. I won't make a detailed post on the actual castle because you can read about it at the website I liked above. Here is our family there. It was chilly and Reagan wasn't thrilled about the amount of layers he was in because he had more trouble bending his elbows, thus his face. (I'm sure he'll enjoy our trip up north for Thanksgiving in 2 weeks!) I had to bump up the color so you could see us better since we were in the shade. All those things behind us are the sculptures a 5' tall, 100 lb. guy built on his own out of coral for his lady who lived back in Latvia. A little creepy? Yes. A little romantic? Maybe. Explainable? Not really.


Our trip back ended up taking over 6 hours because of stops to feed ourselves, the baby, stretch, and do a little outlet mall shopping to get Richard a new pair of RED shoes, believe it or not! "When and Who and What did he do?" stopped working on the long ride home, so I ended up in the back seat showing Reagan clips from Yo Gabba Gabba on Youtube, using Richard's iPhone! Thank you, Apple! He especially liked this one.

And that was our trip! Sunday we went to Richard's favorite burger joint with a bunch of friends, and then we were back to life as usual. The electricity has been acting faulty, so we got it checked out. Over $600 to repair our messed up meter box. Stinks, yes, but hopefully it will save us money on electricity since we were operating on only 1 of our 2 wires coming into the house. (And if we hadn't caught it sooner, we could have had a burnt down house! YIKES!)

Reagan's started teething, we think, and wants to gnaw on everything in sight. We've started giving him an ice cube in a mesh thing meant for making solid foods more baby friendly sized. He's learning how to use it and seems to like it. However, he does NOT want us helping him hold it! He's an independent 3.5 month old!


And here is one final picture. Our happy boy with his toys!