Suzi, you got some 'splainin' to do!

E-mail from JC: "Oh, and WHAT IT THE REASON (it BETTER be good) as to why your lazy arse has not updated your blog in 2 years? Seriously. Rude. Vacation, and still nothing. What does a gal have to do?"

Well, here it is... with nearly four months of build-up I hope I can deliver the goods!

Let's start with the vacation, since that prompted JC's most recent "lack of blog updates" chastising. With the exception of those years when one or both of us was deployed and 2006 when David was due to arrive on New Year's Eve, we have always managed to make it to Florida and/or Texas for the holidays. Well, back in September Gary & I started pricing out potential trips and were disgusted with the nearly $2000 it was going to cost us in airfare alone. In addition to the ridiculous ticket costs, Gary's work schedule in December was a bit up in the air so we broke the bad news to our families that we wouldn't be traveling at all for Christmas 2008. Well, sometime in November we learned that Gary would have to travel to Tampa -- just three hours from my parents -- for work December 21-23. Translation? The U.S. Government (thank you, taxpayers!) would be paying for Gary's ticket to Florida! We went ahead and got tickets for me & David to meet up with him on Marco from December 23-30. We (and my family, of course) were thrilled!

Gary flew out on Sunday the 21st. David and I spent a fun day at LEGOLAND on Sunday and a lazy day on Monday prepping for our trip. Well, low and behold on Monday night David starts to spike a fever. Our flight left out of San Diego at 9:30 on Tuesday morning and, according to my thermometer, as we were leaving the parking lot for the airport he was up to 101.5. Fan-tastic. We made it though check-in and security (always fun with a sick toddler, a 50-pound suitcase, a car seat, and a carry-on bag!) and headed for the gate. Because he didn't turn two until the 27th and ticket prices were bad enough, I only bought one seat for this trip and, for the first time ever, was going to have a connection (all his previous flights were non-stop). We board the plane and make our way to our seat -- towards the back and a MIDDLE SEAT (never again). First the girl with the window seat arrives -- a 20-something girl who apparently adores her 2-year-old niece -- so far, so good. Then our aisle passenger arrives. Suffice it to say that her first order of business was to request a "seat belt extender." With David being warm to begin with, I try to crank up the air above our seat with no luck -- the barely cold air barely came out. Add to this the fact that it was a bright, sunny day and, even with the shade down, the heat was coming in through the window. This first leg was from San Diego to Houston -- about a 2 1/2 hour flight. We get in the air and, despite having a fever, being scrunched in the seat, and being warm, David did pretty well... until we started our descent. He had fallen asleep during the flight and was abruptly woken up as we started the landing into Houston. This launched him into major melt-down mode, complete with screaming, tears, snot, and sweat to the point that I went ahead and took his shirt off. This lasted the entire descent (approximately 20 minutes), taxi (10 minutes), walk to the new gate (10 minutes), and boarding the second flight (10 minutes). You know it's bad when the people around you boarding the flight are trying to read your boarding pass to make sure they're not sitting next to you and your screaming kid! Well, the saving grace came as we were boarding the second flight. As we walked through the first class seats a man sitting in the aisle seat handed David a Blow Pop. David grabbed the Blow Pop, said, "Lollipop!" and immediately stopped crying. He happily sucked on that lollipop for the next 20 minutes until he passed out and slept the rest of the way to Fort Lauderdale. Thank you, Mr. Blow Pop Man, whoever you are!