Sunday, February 15, 2009

Quality (extended) Family Time

Last week was completely, insanely busy!

I had a ton of stressful stuff going on at work, all of which had to be 100% completed by Monday morning. By Thursday, I was worried enough about my chances of getting it all done by quittin' time Friday, I decided to cancel our weekend trip. That's a lot of work stress! How did I cope? By coming home to this!



Danee on one leg, Jasper on the other, all warm, all soft. Better than Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil combined!

So, after nearly canceling Danee's whirlwind tour of the Tri-Cities, we made a split-second decision and threw a bunch of stuff in the van (only forgetting a few crucial items), filled her little tiny tummy to the brim and headed out!

First up: Snuggle time with Grandma Brinkerhoff! The last time my mom was featured here, her face had been frozen in a horrified expression because of some of the antics I had undertaken as a child... (file photo here:)



Well I'm happy to report that Mom's face has since recovered, and she was able to fully enjoy her newest (and probably final) grandbaby! She fed her a bottle, then combined some burping time with grandma snuggles...



Then we took Mom out to a Valentine's dinner at Applebee's - completely scoring a less-than-five-minute wait! By the time we were done, the lobby was standing room only, with wait times in the neighborhood of "no thanks, we'll go somewhere else!"

After returning Mom to the Pasco Retirement Castle, we made a LONG overdue visit to my cousin Alicia. She's been holding a whole lotta babystuffs for us, and now that we were finally in the same zip code, there was no way we were going to not meet up!

What a great visit!! When we got there, Alicia and her husband Bill were watching the awesome kids of Ryan and Danyelle, while they were out at their own Valentine Dinner. They arrived to collect their children shortly after we got there, and we all sat around visiting for a couple hours... Everyone who had been waiting to get their hands on our little Daneekins was able to, including Alicia's completely adorable son Payson.



From the second we walked in, he was jumping out of his skin to get some baby time in!

Danyelle's little girl Audrey also liked Danee, but only as long as her own Mommy wasn't holding her!



Time flew, we finally did the BabyStuffs Transfer, and then headed over to Donald & Lisa's, where my sister Susan was anxiously waiting to meet her youngest niece.  Unfortunately, by this time Danee had had WAY more time in her car seat than she was willing to endure peacefully, and she screamed the whole way there.  As a result, we ended our night there...  We had an extremely generous offer to stay with my aunt Carolyn, but the prospect of putting the poor tiny girl back in the car seat was too heartbreaking, so we had to turn her down.

This morning Cindy got some time in with Donald & Lisa's little Elisabeth, who is about twice the size she was in August when we last saw her!



Meanwhile, Lisa got to remember what a much smaller baby felt like...



As I looked at the couch, I thought the baby swap was one of the cutest things I'd seen in a while!



We wrapped up our visit with a round of ''Big Baby, Little Baby'' with Danee and her cousin Elisabeth.



Now we're home and exhausted, but I already want to go back and do a better planned, longer lasting visit... But there's not much time to think about that since I gotta get back to work in the morning!

HUGE thank-yous to all the people who showed us such generosity and hospitality - we had a GREAT time!

9 comments:

  1. Busy, but so much fun! It seems like every time we go to the Tri-Cities it's a whirlwind of family and fun, and we wouldn't trade it for anything! It's so great to have such a big and supportive family. Someday I'd love if we could actually see you in person and meet all of you (including Danee).

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  2. I want to bust a tear out. That is such a lovely bunch of pictures you guys. How great. You got a lot done and saw a lot of special people. That cat is cute of yours. Love it.

    Danee can feel special knowing that she is going to be so completely loved by such a wonderful family. I feel the happy without prozac.

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  3. I love the picture of you sitting on the couch with Dani. The cat makes the picture. :)

    I hope to see you guys the next time you go there.

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  4. Hi Mike, Chopped Liver here. It was great to see you and the missus and tiny sweet baby girl, so as to differentiate between her and big sweet baby girl.
    Hopefully next time we will have more time to visit. Love you all!

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  5. It was so nice finally meeting you all in person and holding your sweet baby girl. She is pricless and your love for Danee radiates from you both.

    Hope to see you again soon!

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  6. Hey aunt susan! (and everyone else) I just wanted to say NO FAIR! I didn't get to come along and see all of my wonderful family. And specificaly to aunt susan thank you for my across the univese cd. I love it (though ive only had it for one night:) So thanks again and I hope I get to see all of you next time we come down!

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  7. You are most welcome sweety! I'm sure you're going to enjoy that CD as much as Shawn and I do!

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  8. Now those are some of the cutest pictures ever!

    Thank you for coming over this past weekend! We were so glad to have you stay at our home. Anytime!

    Danee is beautiful. I know that she was meant for your family.

    (Elisabeth already misses her cousin...come back soon....or maybe we'll head your way!)

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  9. It was so awesome getting to see you guys and finally meet Cindy and Danee, and especially getting to hold the sweet little thing for so long! All of these pictures are so priceless. Can't wait to hang out again!
    P.S. I had no idea our Jaspers looked so much alike!

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