Northwest traveler's

Our ten days in the beautiful Pacific Northwest are almost coming to an end, and we have much of the travelling behind our belt. The first leg of our trip consisted of driving to the Charlotte airport, which besides a semi-truck's tire blowing out right next to us and scaring us to death, went very smoothly. We managed rather easily to get all our gear, stroller and car seat included, into the shuttle at the parking lot and unloaded again at the airport, had to wait probably ten or fifteen minutes to check our bags, and got into a rather lengthy line with a hungry, fussy 3 month old when we realized one of the greatest things about airport security lines, they have a seperate family line. There was absolutely no one in the family line so we got to zoom right past everybody and start the process of breaking everything down and getting it through the detectors, which was definitely tricky but manageable. We got to our gate with plenty of time to spare, I fed Emmory and Mark went off to hunt down dinner for us (Our flight didn't leave until 7pm). Thankfully our flight was scheduled to leave on time, and right before boarding started, Emmory fell asleep in my arms. He stayed asleep until the plane started to take off, and then I fed him again so his little ears weren't bothered by the pressure, which they weren't. He was awake after I fed him, and after a little while he started to get a little fussy. This is when I realized something about my son, that I always kind of knew in my head, but didn't fully realize until being stuck in a tiny plane with him-he is a really active little guy. If he isn't sleeping or drowsy, he is moving. Unfortunately there isn't much room to move and play sitting on my lap with another seat a foot in front of me, and this lead to an unhappy baby. He likes to be able to spread out and kick his legs and move his arms, and he just wasn't able to. There is one more thing about my son that doesn't go well with flying, and that is that he falls asleep best on his own in his crib, and if he is anywhere where there is anything going on, he will fight sleep and try to stay awake. The first flight was about 2 hrs 3o mins, and for the first hour and a half E was awake, and he began to get really fussy towards the end, because he was tired but was fighting the sleep. Finally I decided to use the one thing I knew would put him to sleep, I nursed him. He fell asleep, and woke up when we had about 30 or so minutes of the flight left. We had a pretty short layover in Dallas, about 40 mins, but luckily our gates were close together. That gave us just enough time to go to the bathroom and do a diaper and clothing change, and then board our next flight, which was going to be just under 4 hrs long. By the time we landed at Dallas, it was past Emmory's bedtime, and I knew this would either work greatly in our favor, or would be a disaster. Fortunately, it worked greatly in our favor, and after I fed him on takeoff again, he fell asleep and didn't wake up until we landed in Seattle, even with the extremely loud flight attendant who would come ask us if we wanted a drink in the loudest voice possible even when Emmory was sleeping right there in plain sight. So all in all, we had a pretty good first flight experience with a baby. Compared to travelling alone, it was ten times harder, but for travelling with a baby I think it went about as well as it could. The next day we headed to Cannon Beach, OR, which was about a 3 in a half hour drive, and compared to flying across the country that was a breeze. E did great in the car and we arrived without incident. We had a really good time with family at Cannon Beach, and E still slept through the night even with the time change, so we actually got some sleep which was very nice. Cannon Beach is my favorite place in the world, it is gorgeous, and I have so many wonderful memories there b/c we went there every year growing up. My parents have actually gone there every year since they got married. It was still beautiful, and while I didn't get to come and go as I pleased this year, my family took care of Emmory a lot so we could still go out and do things, which was sooo nice. I will definitely post pictures when we get back to Greenville. We will be in Seattle until Saturday, then we fly back to Greenville, have a day of laundry and rest, and then drive to Pawley's Island on Monday. We are so thankful to have the opportunity to do so much travelling and have so much vacation time this summer.