Sunday, January 31, 2010

¡Feliz cumpleaƱos!

Happy 10 month birthday, Dylan, Argentina style!!! For those of you not up on Argentinean soccer, Dylan is wearing the official jersey of Boca Junior, the Buenos Aires team. We're having a great trip...have taken over 300 pictures so I need to sift through them before posting more...but couldn't resist this one for now!!!

Adios!!!




Monday, January 25, 2010

Buenos Dias de Buenos Aires!!!!

Buenos Dias!!! We made it to Argentina!! It's thrilling to be back in shorts and flip flops! Especially as winter is hitting KC again! Here are a few pics from the journey so far!!

(yes, I know I am WAY behind on updating the blog! I actually have a post started with all sorts of Christmas/snow etc. pictures but work has been crazy along with getting ready for this trip. If I have some down time, I'll try to get it up while I'm here).

The adventure started with a very full ride to the airport on Sunday morning around 9 a.m. Toni flew into to KC on Saturday night so I didn't have to do any of the legs by myself.

Not room for much else here...

We had a 7 hour layover in Dulles which is kind of overwhelming with a 10 month old...luckily my Aunt Kathy and Uncle John live close to the airport and came and picked us up. We had a GREAT time at their house, hanging out with the 10 adults, 7 kiddos and 4 dogs. It was like a mini-vacation within the vacation. We don't get to see that clan very often, so it was super nice!! Julianna made me promise that we'll do it again this summer :)

All the great-grandkids!!

Toni used miles to get us business class seats which were awesome on such a long flight! They said they had a bassinet for Dylan which was key. Turns out the bassinet was more along the lines of a bag...that Dylan was way too big for. But we put a couple of blankets down and a sheet and Dylan slept at our feet. He did GREAT!!! He stayed up until about 10 p.m. KC time, but was in a great mood. He finally fell asleep and then only woke up once, but went right back to sleep after I fed him. They started serving breakfast around 6 a.m. KC time, so he woke up for good but was in a great mood! All of the flight attendants and people around us commented on how cute he was and how great he was. One of the flight attendants told me he looked just like the Gerber baby and should be in commercials! Toni and I managed to get a decent amount of sleep as well which was nice!



Would you call this a bassinet? The weirdest thing was it didn't unfold all the way, so it really just wasn't practical. However, Dylan did sleep like a champ so it worked perfectly!!


Sleeping like a baby!!!





Once we got off the plane, Toni headed into the terminal to find a cart for our luggage while I waited for the car seat and stroller with Dylan napping in my arms. After the car seat and stroller came, I headed towards the terminal, only to be encountered with an escalator. I could see Toni at the bottom, but there was no way down. I asked where the elevator was, and of course it was on the other side of the airport in a different terminal. Dylan and I headed that way, thinking we would be able to meet up with Toni. This super nice porter befriended me and showed me the way. He took me to this area at customs with no wait (all the other places had huge lines). Luckily, Toni had given me my purse (she had the rest of our stuff) so I had our passports and a credit card for the visas. However, I was trying to explain in my broken Spanish that Toni had my customs declarations. My helpful porter friend went and found Toni, she paid for her visa and he whisked us to the front of the next line. We were getting some dirty looks from the people waiting in line, but hey, I'm not complaining. We went and got our luggage (when we had to wait for the umbrella stroller (yes, I brought two) even though the rest of our luggage was out, my friend the porter went behind the area and got it for us). Then he escorted us through all the lines at customs and out to where we were getting our car. We actually didn't ever give the people our customs forms, so not sure how legit it was, but it was awesome because a process that normally can take hours took us about 20 minutes!!


The car ride in was uneventful. Dylan started to get a bit hungry/cranky at the end, but was in a great mood as soon as he got to see Aunt Nicki! The apartment we are staying in is great :) Dylan is upstairs napping as we speak (I think I might follow when I'm done here). We're super excited to be here and mostly excited to get to hang out with Aunt Nicki. I'll try to update more later!!!



All smiles once he saw Aunt Nicki!!









Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Let's Go Hawks!!!


I-O-W-A!!!




(sorry for the less than stellar quality of the pics, they are both camera phone images. I will take some better ones tonight as we cheer Iowa on to victory!!)