With the caveat that traveling with small children brings with it a level of exhaustion unknown in pre-kid days, we had a full and fun vacation. My parents, bless their souls, arranged for us to stay in a suite at the hotel, so that we had two (huge!) rooms and one (huge!) bathroom in which to spread out. By putting Mateo in the sitting room, ourselves in the bedroom, and Natalia in the palatial bathroom, we all had sufficient distance from each other that we all mostly slept through most of the nights. Here are Grammy, Tali, and Teo chilling on our fashionable couch:
We got in on Wednesday night, and the desert air worked its magic on Sacha and I and our colds almost immediately. In fact, it dried us out so well that we thought we had been cured until we returned to the wet air of home and resumed coughing and blowing our noses again. Or did we just catch another cold? Let's hope not!
While in AZ, we spent lots of time with Grammy and Grandpa, my sister, my brother and his girlfriend. It was wonderful to spend time with everyone while simultaneously enjoying the gorgeous weather and the sun. I think the best part was watching the kids play with everyone and soaking up all the attention from people who loved them. We played in the hot tub, ate good food, went to a local park a couple of times, attempted to attend a baseball game with the kids, with limited success, and Sacha even sprung me for two evenings so I could spend some time with the adults after the kids went to bed.
Here are Grammy and Te Te playing in the park:
One of our favorite parts of the trip was Saturday afternoon, when we all went to the civic center park after the game and everyone just wandered around and chatted and played with the kids before dinner. And, of course, we had fun celebrating my sister's upcoming 30th birthday later that evening!
The kids, shall we say, experienced the vacation in different ways. Mateo acted as if he had been injected with rocket fuel! He was going full blast from sunrise to sunset, although thankfully he stuck to his nap schedule, which saved our sanity. We finally clued in to the fact that we could put on a video for him when he woke up at the crack of dawn and buy ourselves another 45 minutes of sleep. He was SO EXCITED to see everybody and to check out all the new things around him that he just wanted to go go go go go the entire time.
Here are the kids in the hotel restaurant, checking a massive mirror:
Tali was a little more uncertain of her surroundings and spent a lot of time begging for her ba-ba (her binky) and her blankie. By a lot of time, I mean a LOT of time. We let her have the ba-ba for the first couple of days and then started rationing it more, but you'll notice that she has it in all the photos!
I think her favorite part was playing in the water in the hotel hot tub. I give major props to Megan, my brother's girlfriend, for coming prepared with some fun pool toys just for the kids. The kids went nuts for them!
We were sad to leave the family and the sun, but also happy to be back home, even with the rain. Mateo welcomed us back to reality by waking up last night at 3:30 am and staying awake until 4:30, and then springing to life at 6 am after his mama had finally fallen back asleep. To give him credit, he actually woke up to take himself to the potty, which was great, but then he just could not get back to sleep. Always with the post-travel sleep disturbances, that one. Anyway, we're hoping to get back into our normal routine soon! And, also hoping for a little more sun in these parts sooner rather than later.
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