a happy new year finally at home

our past week of holidays have seemed quite surreal as we have been celebrating in florida! that is right, the meiste's loaded up the PLANE and headed to sunny (though not all that warm as florida was experiencing record cold temps. we are talking 24 degrees) florida. we were not alone on this adventure. we went to visit brads parents and the wenke's and brian meistes came as well. there were more memories made than i am able to type at this type, but rest assured these are things i desire to document and so will appear eventually.



in the meantime, here is the story of our arrival home last evening amidst the snowflakes.



the preparations for departure actually began fri evening, after spending the day soaking in the last of florida, brad ended up with the stomach flu! not even joking. i banned him to the living room, lysoled my way to putting the boys down, and began the packing process in between checkin in on the violent vomiter.



when dawn broke, brad was still pukin and the packing was not much farther along. taking advantage of having a grandma close by, i called in a breakfast order and started loading the kids up for the short drive to gma's condo across the subdivision. apparently i took to long, for grandma appeared at the door to take max for a walk to her condo. well, this left bear completely distraught. i strapped him in the strolled and strapped ayla in her sling. finally we approached the condo to see gma coming along with bear's bike. well with bikes available, no one wanted breakfast so meltdowns multiplied and timeouts were doled out. i asked gma to babysit while i threw the rest of our belongings into several small luggage arrangements. after a short while, she dropped the boys off as she was just to tired and went home to her condo for lunch.

thankfully, we had several leftovers in the fridge which i combined into a snack lunch for the boys and some bread for the still healing cookie tosser. i quick went outside and sat poolside for 20 minutes as that was what i had wanted from the vacation and sat was the one and only day sunny and warm enough for such an activity. when my time was up, i did yet another load of bedding and started dragging things to the van. we were on our way.

the airport was way busier coming home than we arrived one week ago. security checks took an entire 45 minutes during which the boys would try to sneak away. also, there was an apparent prob with the a/c because hot hot hot. i thought the puker was going to pass out or upchuck all over so i entertained the kids, hauled all our carry ons, and kept the ticks/ids at hand for the check. risky move, i lose everything, including my cell at sea world...

once our two diaper bags, one carry on suitcase, portable dvd player on loan from the habers, my purse, the sling, the stroller, the carseat, all five pairs of shoes (yes, even ayla's were suspicious), two belts, and max's backpack were deemed safe; we set up camp by the gate. i took the kids to forage for sprite for brad and his pukes, get candy and gum for the ride, and purchase a shake that i was craving despearately. no sooner did i successfully complete these goals when we started to board and i had to toss the shake. no time for tears, because we had to drag all aforementioned carry ons on the plane and stuff it in the appropriate places.

our seats were arranged nicely. max at window, wes in middle, mommy and ayla on my lap, aisle, and then the sickey. once we were situated, the fam we sat behind on the flight down to flordia arrived and took over the seats in front of us. this is not just your typical fam but a loud mouth mother, whiny toddler named amelia who sounded as if she had a very contagious case of pneumonia, and their 18 month old son carter who we heard repeatedly "is such a charmer", "is so tired", and is his mommy;s "little man". carter does not like to fly, and as brad says the loud mouth lady's "husband hates her".

i glanced at brad with a look that asked "should we just bail now and start walking to mi?", and then noticed how wet my lap had become. oh sure, ayla pooped everywhere!! while the pilots were taxing down the runway, i was stripping my babe to nakey and using wipes to attempt a massive wipe down of the poopy baby girl. i tossed the outfit in the garbage and managed to wrestle another one on as we took flight.

the rest of the 2 jr flight went smoothly until we began our initial descent and max had to pee something fierce. he cried, he begged, he whined. still, the stewardesses said no, please wait until we land. then bear began to cry as the turbulence bounced us around and max went into hysterics. as soon as we touched down, i rushed maxer into the bathroom, hauled bear onto my hip and watched in giggles as max peed over the entire bathroom during the jarring ride to the gate.

we collected our baggage and hightailed it into the winter temps, me with bear riding on the stroller crying that it was too cold. he was right! brr. the veen was again our refuge and it took us only 10 minutes to find in the freezing cold.

so, moral of the story, we are just staying home for the next 25 years. feel free to come over as we will not be leaving.

just kidding, we had a beautiful time (mostly) and are so grateful for the opportunity to vacation as a fam. thank you jesus for the safe and adventurous travels.