CO Spgs.

We left last Tuesday for our third annual Whiting / Hudson Colorado ski trip. Mike had to go into work in the morning and was planning to meet us back home to get packed up and out the door. He called me half an hour after he was supposed to have been home to tell me that he had been stuck in a meeting and was still at work - an hour away. The irrational in me wanted to scream, and I said a few strongly-worded things in a tone that was probably not as nice or as understanding as it should have been. There was no way that he could get home in time for us to make our flight. Since mamas can basically do just about anything, I put on my big girl pants and was out the door within 15 minutes (meaning - I fed Quinn lunch, nursed West, gathered what I thought Mike would need, and strategically arranged our five thousand bags + two babies into a very-full car). I met him at the airport and we made our flight. Phew. 

Our return flight got in last night around 11:30pm, which meant that we pulled into our garage around 1am. Mike's alarm went off at 6, his car picked him up at 7, and he was on another flight by 8:30. He gets back tomorrow night, and then is off again Wednesday morning. This guy travels a lot. As a result, he has superstar status with most major airlines and flying with him always makes me feel like a special person. No waiting in any sort of line, we're basically always upgraded, we always get fed on our flights and he knows the system - probably even better than my dad, someone I've always considered to be the ultimate travel guru. Nursing a baby (which I basically did constantly on our flight last night) is so much easier when you're in first class, especially when sitting next to an unusually chatty male (thanks, 3 glasses of wine). I'm happy to have been a beneficiary. 

Our experience at the beginning of our trip combined with pretty comfortable traveling circumstances combined with the (few) number of hours Mike spent away from the airport between last night and this morning are actually pretty humbling if I think about it for more than three seconds. It may be hard to regularly be home alone with two littles, and I struggle sometimes with feelings of resentment towards Mike for being gone / not knowing our routine to the exact science that I do / getting to be alone / not understanding what my life is like every day (as if any husband in a traditional wife at home / husband at work situation could or does). But really, his airline status actually represents a lot of time spent on an airplane (over 50,000 miles so far this year - and it's only March), and that isn't necessarily always (ever?) a luxury. He works a huge number of hours most-days-of-the-week and is familiar with dozens of major (and not-so-major) airports. While there some fringe benefits to his frequent travel, I know that it can be absolutely exhausting. Mike works hard, and he's doing it for the three people that stay at home while he's away. We're lucky. He's a good husband - patient with me, always wanting to do what is right, and constantly just taking good care of us. I'm really grateful for him. 

So. It's Monday. We're home. I have two sleepy boys (West is on hour 3 of his morning-now-turned-afternoon nap), laundry is well underway and I have big plans of not leaving my house for the next 24 hours while we all settle down a little bit. I also plan on tackling the mystery smell that I discovered in my fridge (I cleaned it out just before we left! Ugh).

  

We had a really great trip. West was a champion baby and traveler. Quinn loved seeing the mountains, the snow and his cousins and only totally lost it a few times (I'll blame it on being two). We all loved having Mike around for multiple days in a row - especially Quinn, who basically wants nothing to do with me if his dad is around (Bye bye mama! Bye bye!). I really liked getting to see my brother and his family for the week, and we were happy to get to see Mike's little brother Dan and his girlfriend for an afternoon. Kera let me tag along with her friends for a night (I'm dying to replicate the best strawberry shortcake I've ever had) and we saw our first Colorado snowstorm (blizzard? it was windy). A side benefit: The frigid (frigid!! I'm such a wimp) cold + dry Colorado air worked a nice little miracle on West's head, and he's now happily wearing his helmet 23+ hours a day. Happy / sad. 

I feel like I didn't take nearly enough photos with my DSLR (and I'm sure I won't get to those for a while given my track record as of late), but I took a few with my iPhone.