OK – we survived the trip home.  For those of you who stayed on top of the adventure via Malin’s blog – fantastic.  For those of you who didn’t, here are a few more highlights from the rest of the trip.

Dexter and the pond.  Loren and Zaidee (aka Papa and Gaga Yates) have a pond with three fish and about 4000 frogs.  Every day, multiple times a day, Dexter would want to go visit the frogs.  We started to use this to our advantage – “Dexter, if you eat your food, you can go visit the frogs.  Dexter, if you want to go outside to see the frogs, you need to get our of your pajamas first.  And so on.”  With his new firm stance on the word no, we needed all the leverage we could get.  Dexter would literally run to the pond, stand so close to the edge that he needed constant supervision, and yell “FRA – Jmp.  Mama, FRA Jmp.  FRA Jmp” over and over again.  If they jumped into the water he’d say “Fra nap”.  Yes, Dexter, the frogs are taking a nap.  By the end of the week, the frogs would see us coming and all jump into the water upon spotting Dexter and I because of course I attempted to catch a few (and succeeded) for Dexter.  Joel taught him to “tickle” the frogs with a leaf, and Dex would laugh loudly when he “tickled” a frog.

Nicholas was not as in love with the frogs as Dexter.  As for the fish, the boys fed them a time or two but it was really the frogs that caught Dexter’s attention.

Dexter and the caterpillars.  While we were there, the caterpillars were out in force.  Dexter fell in love with them too and his grandparents put one into a frog cage for Dexter to tote around all day.  He called his caterpillar Fluffy.  Each day he would see a “Fluffy” out and about and needed to carry them around.  Some days I think Dexter will be a computer hacker and other days, I think he will be a bug specialist.

Dexter and keys.  Dexter has an obsession with keys.  He figured out how to insert and remove the keys from the golf cart cars that Loren keeps.  He was one step away from driving the golf carts himself.  When we visited the fire station in the town of Dexter where Loren is the fire chief, Dexter figured out how to prime a pump on a fire truck and was one step away from releasing 2,500 gallons of water into the fire station.  He also noticed that the keys were left in the fire truck jeep and let the fireman know about it.

So, you might be asking what Nicholas was up to this trip?  He was playing with 3 different train sets and lots of cars.  Joel and cousin Reid had over 100 match box cars for Nicholas to delight in.   Nicholas played contently while Dexter ran around and kept us on our toes.  He also LOVED riding on a Tricycle.

As for the plane ride home, both were troopers.  The day before we left, the boys finally got on Michigan time which I was dreading.  Thus, they had an extremely short nap as we drove to the airport.  They waited patiently as our plane was once again delayed an hour for mechanical problems.  Nicholas did not want to share his mom or his seat with Dexter, which made entertaining them a challenge.  Dexter finally quietly fell asleep on Malin while Nicholas fought sleep for another hour before kicking and crying while I rocked him to sleep.

We had a turbulent ride home which ended in a really bumpy landing.  All the food Dexter had just eaten to help his ears clear came right back up again – all over him, his seat, and his things on the floor, with just a little on Malin.  As we taxied to our gate, my seat belt was off and I was throwing bibs, napkins, plastic bags, and wipes back to Malin (she and Dexter sat behind Nic, Joel and I).  She stripped Dexter out of the layers I had dressed him in and passed him back to me over the top of the seat.  Malin cleaned and bagged everything up except for on puddle of puke on the floor in front of Dexter’s seat.  We had run out of rags to use.  As I got off the airplane, I notified a flight attendant – “you may want to clean up seat 24E.  there’s puke on the floor.” He looked at me funny.  By the time we made it to the kids’ playground within SEATAC – Dexter had made a full recovery.  Dinner was consumed by all.

On Sunday, Nicholas woke up at 4:45am.  That sucked – especially for Joel who got up with him.  The boys are now back on our time zone and back to routine.

It was a great trip and I want to THANK EVERYONE who loaned us car seats, pack and plays, high chairs and more.  A special thanks to Scott who let us sleep in his room and Loren and Zaidee for providing a roof over our heads.  It was a great trip and the boys really enjoyed playing with cousin Reid, Maya, Uncle Scott, Heather, Aunt Betsy, Grandpa Loren, Grandma Zaidee, Grandma Grandma Ruth, Grandma Crick and Grandpa Don.

Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!

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