This past weekend we surprised Heather’s Grandma out in New Mexico by showing up at her front door. She was having a retirement party and Heather’s dad’s family was all going to be out there to attend it. Her Grandma only knew that Caryl & Doris would be coming out there. Little did she (or anyone else out there) know that we would be joining them for the party. With the bizillion frequent flyer miles I earned with my trip to India, I was able to book our tickets for no cost to us. I scored a few other discounts for hotel & rental car and we were on our way.

The flight out there was fairly uneventful other than being slightly delayed leaving Chicago. Savannah did great on the plane. She watched a movie with Daddy and barely made a peep on the flight. The rental car place kinda messed up our reservation and didn’t have a full sized car for us. All we saw were Neon’s and Focus’… NOT GONNA HAPPEN! We ended up going with a brand new 06 Dodge Durango. Now that was rolling in style. Pleanty of room for all our crap!

We got in late Thursday night and met up with Caryl & Doris Friday morning before surprising Grandma. Caryl & Doris went ahead of us to Grandma’s and we showed up a few minutes later. She was on the phone with Heather’s aunt and hung up on her when we came to the door. I guess the surprise worked!

Friday afternoon we putzed around Truth or Consequences and Saturday took a trip out to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Caryl took us on the twistiest (is that even a word) road between T or C and the park… Savannah was really good in the truck for the 3+ hour drive to the dwellings

Sunday we had a great time at the party and afterwards the family went out for dinner before the NM folks headed back upto Albuquerque. Monday Caryl & Doris headed home early and we headed back upto Albuquerque. We met Rachel at the Starbucks she works at and managed to score a couple free drinks!

We made it to the airport with pleanty of time to spare. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to the terminal…. That’s where things started to get ugly. Our flight to Denver was delayed because the plane was delayed getting out of Denver to come down and pick us up. Weather delays in Denver would prove to be the death of us on our way home! We landed in Denver about 20 minutes behind schedule (Savannah slept the whole flight…unlike the annoying little pissant kid up in first class that was crying the entire flight). We were rushing through the airport to find out where our connection flight was and that one ended up being delayed as well. Little did we know that delay would be almost 3 hours long.

Oh, the plane arrived at the terminal on time.. but Denver was so short handed with ground crew that the plane sat on the tarmack right by the terminal for almost 30 minutes before someone could get over and park the darn thing. I was ready to give directions from the big window just to get things moving.

We finally got on the plane and thought we would be on our way home, til the captain came on the PA and said the jetway was broken and we couldn’t push back from the terminal! By this time Savannah was done with travel and really started to fuss. I applaud Heather for being able to handle her and fight the urge to check her with the luggage! We finally took off 20 minutes after we were supposed to be back home in IL and the night eventually ended with us passing out in bed about 2 minutes after getting in the door.

Pictures are posted here

It was great to get away, and even better to get back home!

We do have some good news to share with everyone. Before Savannah joined us, Heather and I decided we wanted to try and teach our baby sign language. I’ve read some information on it and it sounds like there’s nothing but positives associated with it. We understand she’s an infant and we’re not expecting perfection (heck, we’re learning it too). We originally started with only two signs (milk & done). I read that you have to be very consistent with your signing and use it whenver you’re referring to that object or action.

This past week, we’ve started to see some light at the end of the very long tunnel. Savannah is actively making the sign for milk. If we hold up a bottle of milk, or Heather is getting ready to nurse her (9+ months and going strong!!), Savannah will make the sign for milk! At first we thought it was a fluke, but the past few days, she’s consistently making the same sign whenever milk is near. It’s not an exact match of the ASL version, but hey, she’s only 9 months old.

Now that she’s been on solid foods for a few months, it’s easier to tell when she’s full and doesn’t want anymore. So in addition to the done sign, we’ve started the sign for ‘more’. We’re not going to bombard her with too many signs at once, but we’re confident she’ll pick them up and eventually (hopefully) she’ll be able to use these signs to communicate with us when she isn’t able to do it verbally.

Keep your fingers crossed! I’ll work on getting some video of her making the sign

Here’s some links to check out for more baby signing info
http://www.signingbaby.com/
http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/baby/babydevelopment/1449533.html
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm

With work busy as ever (I have global projects underway right now), I can’t help but be tired and mentally worn down when I leave the office every night. But there’s always something special waiting for me when I get home that makes it all worth it.

How could you not want to rush home and spend a few hours playing/feeding/cleaning up after this little doll? Sure I’m a zombie by bed time, but seeing her beautiful little face sound asleep in her crib before we go to bed is all the inspiration I need to deal with the garbage at work.