minivan loaded and headed west on I-90. An hour and a half, a stop at McDonalds, three tolls, and a bunch of curses hurled at Mapquest and we were at my grandparents' front door.
Great Grandma (henceforth ggmak 'cuz I'm lazy) is 90 and Great Grandpa (ggpak for the same reason) was just turning 96. They still live in their own house, though they have the occasional help from a nurse, house cleaner, handyman, and of course Great Aunt Carol. Of the three daughters, only Carol lives east of the Mississippi and in fact only about an hour and a half away. She shoulders most of the care giving burden for the rest of the family and deserves more kudos that can be given.
Carol had arrived earlier to help get things ready for us as well as manage the chaos that was sure to ensue when we arrived. Speaking of chaos, both girls had napped on the ride to Belchertown (as had I) so they were ready to roll the moment we walked through the door. ggpak had the luxury of watching the Clara blur by from his easy chair while ggmak tried to keep up with Lilly. Although Lilly's still just crawling, she gave ggmak a run for her money.
We spent the first day just trying to get our bearings after travelling all night. The girls played and Clara crashed out for a few hours. Although we are usually entertained by our elders' early bed time it was awfully tempting that first night. However, I had to head back toward Boston to pick up Uncle Ryan in Farmingham... er... Framingham where he had arrived on a bus from the airport. (Ryan had left Seattle after working a night shift.)
(Throughout our stay and in the days since I've seen many, many references to Framingham in the news that I either never noticed before or which weren't there before. Of course, I continue to think about it as Farmingham for some reason. Ryan and I, in a near stupor, had a great laugh about Farmingham actually being a pig farm. What can I say? We were REALLY tired.)
The sleeping arrangements were a little tight, however. Amy, Clara, Lilly, and I were in ggmak's usual room. ggmak had moved into ggpak's room. Auntie Amy and Uncle Ryan were in the guest room and Grandma Joan and Great Aunt Carol each got a couch in the living room. Lilly didn't sleep terribly well and was up early the next morning. She woke me up with a poke in the eye after getting her breakfast snack and it was all downhill from there.
Friday was pretty mellow. We hung around the house munching on ggmak's famous pizza and mediating between the great grandparents.
Out of nowhere: "You didn't like my pizza, did you?"
"Quite frankly, no I didn't! What did you do to it?"
(Over 50 years of marriage can do that to you.)
Since we couldn't find an Internet connection in Belchertown Amy and I packed up and headed 15 minutes up the road to Amherst where we knew there was a Starbucks with wifi. The kids fell asleep in the car, of course, so I stayed with them while Amy went inside to buy goodies and login. Some minor problems prevented an easy connection so we tried inching closer to the building, still in the car, to get a signal, but no luck. Maybe we can find some other open network... no dice. Eventually, we gave up and headed back to Belchertown for dinner, which had been held for us.
Little Miss Earlybird woke around 5:30am on Saturday. This time we were better coordinated and I managed to get out of the house with Lilly before anyone else was awakened. Ah, Starbucks, where better to get some sweet, sweet caffeine at 6am? Actually, it turns out it was a lousy place because IT WASN'T FRICKIN' OPEN! The horror! Lilly was asleep in the car so I sat in the bitter cold waiting... waiting... waiting. Periodically I'd turn the car on to get some heat, but for the most part it was just waiting... waiting... waiting. They opened at 7am.
When I arrived back at the house everyone was stunned to see me fully dressed coming in through the garage. They figured we were all still asleep. How little they know Lilly.
Saturday was party day for ggpak. His birthday wasn't actually on the 29th, but it was close enough. The rest of Great Aunt Carol's family (her husband Ray, daughter Jessica, son-in-law Christer, and granddaughter Annie) arrived bit by bit as the day progressed. We sat down for dinner at 1pm (huh?) on a combination of three tables that filled the kitchen to capacity. ggpak got loads of sweet gifts, but I think he was really happiest that so many of us were there.
After dinner we went outside to let Clara, Auntie Amy, and Uncle Ryan play in the snow. Clara delighted in hurling snowballs from point-blank range at anyone that didn't dance out of her way. Lilly even got into the action by making a snow angel... sort of. She couldn't really move in her snowsuit, but slowly sank into the snow grinning all the while. Jessica, Christer, Annie, Carol, and Ray departed in stages and suddenly the house seemed much bigger and quieter.
Lilly slept longer on Sunday, but that really meant I couldn't sneak away for morning coffee. Oh well. I'd survive... maybe. (Um... clearly I did or who would be writing this?)
Whenever we go somewhere exotic I love to go hiking and Amy loves to visit quilt shops. Sunday was the day to do both after church. Except church was declared "too much trouble" so instead church came to us. Someone from the church came to administer communion and the local Catholic channel was tuned in.
We decided to head back up to the Amherst Starbucks (where they recognized me and Lilly) to figure out where we needed to go. We got a list of about 10 quilt shops in the general area as well as Mount Sugarloaf. We'd start with an adventure, then loop back to Belchertown past the quilt shops.
Wait, you say, aren't you in a walking boot/cast thing? Isn't your ankle broken? Well... yeah... but you see you can drive to the top of Mount Sugarloaf...
Unfortunately, Mount Sugarloaf was closed. Slushy snow covered the road up so we parked to let Clara out to play in the snow. I looked longlingly at the massive summit a full 200 vertical feet above me (yeah, only 200 vertical feet and I still couldn't summit) while dodging Clara's snowballs.
After giving up on the mountain we started looking for the quilt shops. In the end, we found only one and it was closed. Clearly not our most successful outing ever. We did find a lovely Subway off the freeway for lunch though. We also discovered that a Subway soup spoon is WAY too large for Lilly's mouth so she wound up almost bathed in yogurt. We got home just in time for dinner followed quickly by the older and younger of us going to bed.
Monday was all about departing. It was obviously time since the snow had turned to rain and grass was peeking through the blanket of snow. We left about noon after tearful goodbyes. Grandma Joan stayed behind to help settle the great grandparents back into their routine.
Our flights were pretty standard. We flew through St. Louis, which has a weak selection of food in their concourse resulting in Starbucks sandwiches for dinner, but was otherwise uneventful. Both kids slept well and weren't terribly fussy. I was due for work the next morning and Amy accurately predicted both kids would be up early thanks to the time change so after tucking them in we did the bare minimum before crashing ourselves. The only thing that didn't happen was retrieving Tokul from Amy's parents, but that happened just a few days later.
Lessons learned? Clara is easier to travel with now that we can take the lazy parent approach and plug her in. Lilly still has a ways to go. After Christmas to a cold-weather destination is pretty cheap for airfare and cars. Finally, Amy's going to have to put up with me for a long time given the longevity that seems to run in my family. Sucker.
