Stephens' Stories: January 2014

This story deserves its own post. As we arrived at our gate at the Houston airport from Atlanta, we started to gather our things. We came to a horrible realization that Bear was no where to be seen. OMG! I frantically looked through all of our carry-ons, under the seat, in the chair-back pockets, I asked the people sitting in front of us and behind us. Had they seen Bear? OMG!! What were we going to do? How was Austin going to go to sleep tonight???? Bear was missing. The last time I remember seeing him was while we were waiting for our flight out at the Atlanta airport. AH! I became hysterical and cried and cried. We told Austin that Bear stayed with Skeet (a cousin in Georgia) and that he would be sending him back soon. Yes, we lied to our son. Austin did surprisingly well that night. He slept with his monkey lovie, which is the lovie that he naps with at school. The next day was a Saturday so I got online to see if any stores in Houston had the exact same Bear lovie in stock. I called at least 25 stores, and I am not exaggerating. Not a single one of them had the exact same Bear in stock. I had to describe it to each person who answered the phone. Many of them responded "we have a light brown bunny" or "we have a dark brown bear" or "we have a bear that is attached to a blanket". Of course, these would work. So I found Bear on amazon and ordered it with expedited shipping ($45 total) for a Tuesday arrival. It was coming from Japan on a boat. Ha, yes I was desperate. Austin continued to sleep at night with monkey and would occasionally ask for Bear when we got home from school and when he woke up in the mornings. We told him Skeet was borrowing him and would be sending him back soon. On Tuesday, I got an email from amazon while at work saying that Bear was damaged in route (what the heck?) and I should expect a full refund. I freaked out - I don't care about a refund, I just need Bear to arrive tonight. Well, I was out of luck with the Bear from Japan. I got back on amazon and did find another one from a US retailer. I ordered this one and it was set to arrive Friday. Phew! Bear arrived on our porch on Friday night about 30 minutes after Austin went to sleep so we had to wait until the morning for the happy reunion. We let Austin open the box and he was SOOO happy to be reunited with his Bear. It made mommy happy too! :) Of course his teeth are probably going to be paying for this down the road since he really only seems to suck his thumb when he is holding Bear. Oh well.....

Okay, so here we are and it is January 31 and I am just now finding time to blog about Thanksgiving. That is how the past two months have been..... Anyways, we flew to Atlanta on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Southwest just starting flying to Atlanta, which is great for us since we love to fly SWA. I had a genius idea of loading Austin's 4 favorite songs - all country songs that he watches on the recorded CMA awards from August 12. He was watching the performances almost every day at that point. So I downloaded Hunter Hayes' "I want crazy", Florida Georgia Line "Cruise", Darius Rucker (Hootie) "Wagon Wheel" and Kip Moore "Hey Pretty Lady" onto the ipod. He used his headphones on the airplane, which was entertainment for almost the whole flight. He loved seeing the airplanes and the luggage carts "golf carts" and of course, the "workmen". A couple times on the flights he just wanted to stand up in his seat without his seatbelt. At one point we basically asked the flight attendant to tell him to sit down and put on his seatbelt. He quickly obeyed her. After this, David and I told Austin that "the lady" will come tell him to sit down and this did the trick. We made the drive from Atlanta to Vidalia (about 3 hours) and Austin took a short nap in the car. Vidalia has a Pizza Inn - one of David's childhood pizza places in Houston so of course he insisted that we eat dinner there. Pizza was fine; restaurant was NOT clean. I will be fine not returning there. :) We checked into our lovely honeymoon suite at the Americinn, complete with whirlpool tub IN the room. We requested a bigger room so that the pac n play could be in a corner removed from our bed. David and Austin took a long bubble bath together every day we were there. It was like swimming in our room! Austin loved it and it was a 45 minute activity, usually while I was getting myself ready.

On Wednesday we had lunch at the McGregor farm house. Will and Lauren arrived and Austin had fun riding in the golf cart with Daddy and Will/LaLa. We went back to the hotel after lunch so that Austin could take a nap before dinner at Anice's house (my grandmother's cousin). Since Austin is well aware of his surroundings, one of us had to also "go to sleep" at the same time as Austin. On Wednesday, if I remember correctly, I actually did take a nap while he napped. One night, David hid under the covers with the computer and watched a movie on it since the TV couldn't be on in the room. We went to dinner at Anice's and enjoyed the annual Brunswick stew, butter biscuits, salad, congealed jello salads, and an assortment of cakes and pies.

On Thursday, the church service at the McGregor Presbyterian church, started at 11am. This is a service that is just our family - and we fill the whole sanctuary. We have about 70 family members at Thanksgiving every year. Austin behaved for the most part as each family shared their "annual family news" and we all tried to sing a few hymns. He spent much of the hour long service in Grandad's lap eating animal crackers and raisins. I am sure Grandad's suite was covered in crumbs. :) We headed around the corner to the farm house for lunch. Austin was assigned his own seat at the little kids table - there were two other cousins around his age, Peyton - nearly 3 and Avis, nearly 4. Their table was in one of the bedrooms right next to the old heater that was on - nice. We turned that off. They did have crayons out for them but Austin definitely wouldn't sit in there by himself so David and I took turns. He would not eat any of the yummy Thanksgiving food, probably because of the raisins and animal crackers during church. He did have a piece of caramel cake though. After the big family picture, we headed back to the hotel so that Austin (and I) could nap. That evening, we went to the Little House for some horseback riding, hunting, bonfire, "Gator" riding, and leftover eating. We didn't ride horses or hunt but others did. Austin, Daddy and I rode on the Gator, which was like a giant 4 wheeler. Austin LOVED this, bumpy ride and all. We had discovered some horrible news that day - the Texas vs Texas Tech game was not on any of the channels that our hotel got. Our alternate plan was to either go to the Ruby Tuesday (like Chili's) bar to watch the first half since they closed at 9pm or to go to my mom's cousin's house in Vidalia to watch the game. Reid did get the game on his TV so everyone invited themselves over to watch it. Since Austin obviously was not going to stay up the entire game, or even until half time, someone had to be the sacrificial one and take him back to the hotel to go night-night. That was me. After Austin was in his bed, I hid under the covers with the computer and found a play-by-play of the game to watch. Fun times! David and Stacy were the only die hards who stayed at Reid's for the whole game, and really the only other people who cared since most of our family either went to or roots for SEC teams like Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, etc. Side note - Reid, my mom's cousin whose house "hosted" the game-watching, is a vet. He has about 6 dogs of his own, 2 of which are goldendoodles named Frank and Steve. David got to share the couch with them as he does with Savannah at home. Austin found a little dog friend too.

On Friday morning, we stopped by the farm house to say our goodbyes and then got on the road to Atlanta. My mom and Stacy rode with us to the airport and they were also on our flight home. It was a good trip to Georgia to celebrate everything we have to be thankful for and to continue the tradition that has been going on for years. I hope this tradition can be a special part of Austin's life as he grows up.