Traveling in the winter is exhausting

Lacie has decided that she wants to avoid winter travel via airplanes if at all possible (she also doesn’t know how we end up hitting rough roads every time we travel to or from my parent’s house in the winter). Below is a condensed description of our travel experience this winter break.

Westbound travel

Flight canceled (plane grounded in Detroit) – change to US Airways (ghetto airline) and fly Ithaca to Philadelphia to San Francisco to Seattle instead of Ithaca to Detroit to Seattle (13.5 hours instead of 7.5 hours) – changed terminals at each airport with a second security screen at SF – no nap for Baeo – Baeo in bed at 2.30am his time – all morning interviews for me at Amazon.com starting at 7.30am

Eastbound travel

Whole family got stomach flu – all day interviews at Microsoft for me while I should have been in bed – phone interview with Adobe the next day – mostly recovered in time for flight – mechanical issue required deboarding reboarding new plane delaying arrival by 1.5 hours – missed connection in Detroit – stayed night in Detroit – flight to Ithaca canceled due to no pilot – flew to nearest airport instead of flying standby likely staying an additional night – rented car and drove final 50 miles (overcharged for car by $56) – stopped at Panera Bread for lunch and they forgot to include my sandwich in our bag (didn’t want to drive back to get it)

I tend to agree with Lacie although I am flying back to Seattle at the start of February for a competition and will have to do it again soon for additional interviews…I will just have to be prepared.

Winter Fashion of 2011

Things you’ll need to include in your wardrobe…

Oversized boots are key.

That preferably go up to your butt.

Strainers are the new hats.

Pants are obviously optional.

The most popular accessory, especially with the Peterson family…

the bucket.

Dilemma

What do you do when both you and your husband are flat on your backs and puking from the stomach flu, at the same time, with a toddler running around?  Yeah, I don’t know either. I’m just so grateful for my mom who has been here taking care of us and Breadon.  I couldn’t imagine if we were back in Ithaca by ourselves.  I mean, I guess we could have tied him up for a couple of days to keep him contained, but I don’t think he would have been very happy about that.  I told Derek that this can never happen again.

To make it even worse, Derek had four hours of interviews at Microsoft yesterday.  He is a true superstar.  I don’t know how he was able to do it, but he got through the day.  I couldn’t even imagine spending the day up and about, having to use my brain, and having to act all up beat and chatty.  All I managed to do yesterday was get up to go pee and watch four hours of MTV’s, “I Use to Be Fat.”

Did I mention that Braedon had come down with it Thursday afternoon, so we have all been dealing with puke infested blankets, buckets, and towels for almost a week now.  On a brighter side, today we all are feeling better and luckily the flu stopped spreading after it took it’s toll on the Peterson family.  So far my parents and Jenny are still doing well.  Let’s hope it stays that way.

Well, we are out tomorrow….back to ithaca.

A year in Pictures.

I know this is a little late but, Happy New Year!

Derek and I were lucky enough to have my mom babysit so we could enjoy the night out, and by night out I mean until 8:45. I know, we are serious partiers, people. We met up with my best friend Jenny and had a great time just relaxing and chatting.

It was a good night, or should I say late afternoon?

Now I’m going to use this post to take you all back into the year 2010 with pictures.

January: Braedon started scooting/crawling.

February: Huge snowstorm in Ithaca and Braedon went sledding for the first time.

March: Derek found a fun place to take the Jeep and let Peyton run.

April: Braedon’s first Easter egg hunt….

and he starts getting into things.

May: Braedon turns 1! Derek also finishes up his first year of grad school and we make the drive home to Seattle.

June: We take Braedon on his first hike.

July: We enjoy the summer back in Seattle, Derek does an internship at T-Mobile, and my high school friends come for a weekend visit.

August: We have a ton of family at the house for vacation and we make our trek back home to Ithaca.

September: Braedon goes apple picking for the first time and we take our first camping trip.

October: We visit Boston! Braedon works on his gymnastics skills.

November: Braedon learns yoga and we make a trip to the children’s museum in Rochester.

December: Braedon meets Santa for the first time and we head home for Christmas break!

and there you have it…2010 with the Petersons!

For the love of…

MOTORCYCLES!

Ok, I think everyone who reads the blog knows about Baeo’s obsession with motorcycles. After being at my parents house for a while, I might be able to say that his obsession is as big as my dad’s. Here is a typical rundown of what happens at least three times a day, it might even be more.

Braedon will grab Grandpa’s motorcycle magazine, hand it to him, and climb up next to him and sit on his lap so they can look at all the cool motorcycles.

After looking at the motorcycles for a while, that just isn’t quite enough to satisfy his, or I should say their, craving. Braedon will hop down, find grandpa’s shoes and bring them to him and run to the back door pointing.

He’s ready to sit on the motorcycles.

Obviously this starts early, considering they are both still in pajamas. He will want to bounce back and forth from one motorcycle to the other playing with all the buttons and turning on the GPS. I think he is scheming up a bike trip. If this isn’t enough excitement, he then feels the need to be escorted down to the shop where he can sit on the other motorcycles, the riding lawn mower, and the boat. You see, the boat has a steering wheel and anything with a steering wheel is awesome in Beao’s book. Oh, did I mention the motorcycle noises that must be made while sitting on them…by both grandpa and Braedon? Yes, you can’t sit on a motorcycle without the sounds.

After awhile Braedon will come screeching and bouncing through the back door just filled with excitement. He may not be saying any words but I know he is telling us that he got to sit on and drive a bunch of motorcycles and that it was way cool!

A little while later, it goes back to this…

and you know where that is going to lead.

These two are best buds!

Wants to be just like his grandpa, and I’m okay with that!

Oh, and I have a feeling that the little motorcycle we got for Braedon that is back home isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Christmas #2

We got back to my parents the Monday after Christmas and had a couple of days to visit with Matt and Kori.  Braedon had Christmas # 2 and got to open more presents and play with more new toys.  Although this time he had Lilly’s help with opening presents.

Grandma and Grandpa Wilson got him a rug to drive all of his trucks on.  Lilly liked it too!

On Tuesday, my brother, along with Derek and I, took Lilly and Braedon to the Everett Imagine Children’s Museum so they could run and play their little hearts out.

Braedon loves to drive things and his favorite things to do at the museum were to drive the bus and the airplane.

Since we had everyone together we decided to get some more pictures taken.

Grandma with all of her grandkids.  We had to distract Lilly and Braedon with crackers and chocolate chips during the photo session, but it worked!

Family photo time!

We have been enjoying our time home and can’t believe that we only have a little over a week left!  Time goes by so fast!!!

Christmas in Kennewick

This year we spent about a week over Christmas in Kennewick visiting Derek’s family. Braedon has been able to see all of his cousins while we have been here and it has been so much fun watching him interact and play with them all.

This was Braedon’s second Christmas and I would say that he enjoyed it greatly. It took him a little bit to figure out that the real present was underneath the paper, but he actually showed excitement while opening presents this year and it was a lot of fun to watch.

Santa brought him a little motorcycle and he received a bunch of trucks and tractors.

He also thought his older cousin's presents were pretty cool and lucky for him, they were nice enough to let him play!

As you can probably tell, I am very behind on posting but the plan is to catch up and get the blog up to date over the next couple of days.