In Which We Have A Flashback And Start The New Year Off With Some Craziness

So I spent most of the first part of today making three gigantic floofy tutus.  I wore one of the tutus (a classy black and white knee-length number) along with pink feathery cuffs, choker, bunny tail and ears while I marched in a parade with my fellow derby gals.  The evening also involved a giant tiger puppet, a pizza parlor, a reenaction of Charlie the Unicorn in blown glass, a burlesque show and (of course) a coffee shop.  It was a busy night!

But I promised to tell you about Christmas.  So we'll talk about that instead. 

Anyway, the flight to Dallas was uneventful other than the part where Connor had a seizure fifteen minutes before we left for the airport.  The little guy is thankfully a very good flier so long as he can look out the window.  We touched down in Denver, Colorado and drove to Colorado Springs, where we attended a wedding at the Air Force Academy.  The chapel was pretty incredible and it was a beautiful wedding, but Connor was most impressed with the pipe organ.  He tried very hard to convince us that he needed a similar one for Christmas.  We could install it right next to his 50 foot tall Christmas tree.

After that we flew down to Dallas, Texas, which is where a large number of our relatives from both sides of the family live.  The next eleven days were a whirlwind of gatherings, outings, presents and family togetherness.  It was fantastic to get the chance to see everyone!  The last time the three of us were able to go down to Dallas as a family was Christmas of 2008, so it had been far too long.  Since it's not likely we'll travel to Dallas next Christmas as we should be bringing our daughter home sometime around that time period and don't want to submit her to baptism by fire (welcome to the United States-- let's meet your eighty new relatives!) it was especially great that we got the chance to see so many of our loved ones on this trip.

While we were down there my sister, who among other things happens to be a professional photographer, was gracious enough to take a whole bunch of pictures of me suited up in my roller derby gear.  We did this in a nice area of downtown McKinney on a Tuesday just after sunrise and startled the heck out of a number of morning commuters.  She had to be extremely patient with me because (in case you couldn't tell) I am a giant goof ball and so half of her pictures involved me making a duck face or some other ridiculous expression.  I submit an example here so you know what she was dealing with.  At any rate she still got some fantastic pictures despite my lack of cooperation (such as the other lovely picture on here), so that was pretty awesome.

Connor had a difficult time with some of the transitioning; we split our time between my parents' house and Jer's parents' house, so just about the time he got settled in to where we were it was time to move.  He took actual naps, which is nearly unheard of for this kid, and had quite a bit of seizure activity.  I suspect the stress probably lowered his seizure threshold.  However he really did an incredible job with all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and I was very proud of how far he's come. 

Certainly how he rang in the new year-- fast asleep in bed-- was a major improvement on last year.  Let's hope the upward trend continues!

At any rate it was a great holiday trip, but I have to say I'm happy to be home!  Traveling is pretty exhausting-- especially with the amount of equipment and supplies we have to haul along for Connor-- and so it's nice to be able to kick back and relax for the rest of Jer's time off. 

And if that relaxing time involves tutus and bunny ears, so much the better.

Happy New Year to you all!

~Jess