Our visit to the states: Week One

In the interest of space and time, I've divided our trip home into two blogs!

What a fabulous time we had in the states! We started off with a nine and a half hour flight from Frankfurt. We were checked in and waiting long before our flight, and made it through security despite the hurdles of one-handed mommy and Hayden's explosive diaper. Initially we had a window and aisle seat on a 2-4-2 seat plane. After we took off, a nice lady offered to switch with us because she had two empties beside her and that would give Hayden a seat to lay down on. That was a tremendous help! The flight passed by pretty quickly, Hayden was fussy for about 45 minutes of the whole flight but never cried. He only slept about 3 hours of the flight, and of course not all together, but overall it was a great experience for his first flight.

Watts picked us up from the airport and we met my parents at Concord Mills, to avoid some traffic since we came in late afternoon. We headed to the Greensboro airport to pick up our rental (since it was a whopping $250 cheaper there than in CLT) and my dad picked us up Country BBQ sandwiches and hushpuppies for dinner. Our first night was pretty uneventful, as we were exhausted! Tuesday morning we got up and headed to Walmart for a pack-n-play for Hayden to sleep in, and picked up a few things. We went to lunch at Olive Garden with my friend Trinady, after stopping by the Pavilion to show off little Hayden. That night we went to dinner (back to the Pavilion!) with Eric, Erin, Ryan and Zoe but Hayden slept through almost all of it, so he didn't get to see much of his cousins.

Wednesday we headed down to Fuquay to see Mamaw Benson and lots of family on that side. We had a great lunch, spent the night and got back in the car for a little drive back to Greensboro. We did a little shopping, went to visit Salem and my old co-workers and ordered Jay's replacement wedding band (that he lost forever ago). I ran into some old friends by chance in Old Salem, and we had lunch at the Old Salem Tavern and had a great time catching up with other fellow new Salem moms. We made it back to Greensboro in time for a hot dog at Yum Yums with Liz; a stop by Eric's to see the kids; and dinner with Gloria and some more of Jay's family at Outback, who had a blast meeting Hayden. We spent the night with Gloria and as usual, woke up nice and early to start our day!

We added a little surprise to our weekend by meeting my old friend Brandi for lunch. Brandi is an admissions counselor and was in Winston just for the day. She was supposed to meet our mutual friend, Monique, for lunch at the Filling Station but Monique was unable to make it. She called me and had me go in her place, but didn't tell Brandi. Hayden and I arrived first, secured our table and let the host in on the secret. When Brandi came in she was so surprised and excited, and we had a fabulous lunch. Monique was able to join us at the end of lunch and the four of us had a great time.

Friday afternoon we kicked off Reunion Weekend with registration, where Hayden finally got to meet Katie, Melissa, Meigh and lots of my classmates. We headed to the May Dell for Founders Day and were not particularly enjoying the speaker when Hayden decided to go into full-scale babbling. He kept us pretty entertained for the rest of the speech, and we enjoyed the beautiful weather. We met up with some of Those Girls on Clewell Patio, where we also ran into Kathyrn and Graham! It's so much fun to see these babies in person. In all the excitement of seeing everyone, I had forgotten to check into the hotel, so Hayden and I headed over there to check in and settle ourselves before heading out for dinner. We met our friends at La Carretta for enchiladas and stayed as long as Hayden would allow. We went back to the hotel room, and after a few rounds of back-and-forth between myself, the loud kids and their rude parents in the hallway and the front desk, we went to sleep late and had our room taken off our bill for the night. Lizard shared the room with us, and was willing to rough up some pre-teens if necessary.

Saturday came bright and early, one of our busiest days at home. We ate breakfast in the hotel lobby, got dressed for Reunion and headed to Salem for our 10am class picture. There were at least 40 of my classmates (out of our class of about 110) so I was excited to see so many faces I hadn't seen in five years. We shopped a little at the Salem bazaar, talked to old friends and then Liz took some fabulous black and whites of Hayden. We went to lunch in Bryant Hall, where all the classes gave the big reunion checks to Salem and our classmate, Meenal, won the Young Alumnae award. We had our class meeting and got to go back to the hotel for a few hours to relax and let Hayden nap. We went back to the Filling Station for our class dinner and had a blast with my classmates. The food was wonderful of course, and Hayden allowed himself to be passed on and on and on to almost everyone that wanted to hold him. By the end of the night he was definitely ready for some mommy time! The adolescent baseball players had an early Sunday game, so we didn't have the same problems as the night before. We got a much needed night of sleep.

Sunday morning Hayden and I both woke up with a little sniffle but saline pushed us right through it. We checked out of the hotel, packed the car and headed to brunch at Hutch & Harris with a few friends. We had great food and sub-par service, waited until the stroke of noon for our mimosas and had a fun time mostly at Katie's expense. We headed to Salem for some more pictures but Hayden was feeling crappy so we nixed the idea. We got a surprise phone call saying that Stephanie was in a labor a whole four weeks early, which would most certainly change our Monday plans from dinner to a hospital visit! We went to visit Monique at her new house in Clemmons and got to hang out with Mary Hilliard and little Edward, who was just a doll. The babies didn't really do much, but we had a blast talking about pregnancy, labor & delivery, and the merits of adoption. We spent the night with Katie and enjoyed her yellow lab, Emma. It helped me especially, who was missing Oscar terribly.

That concludes week one! Check back soon for week two, surviving jet lag with a baby, and Hayden's first veggies!