Last year in October Scott and I took a trip up to Estes Park to see the leaves changing colors. We stopped along the way to take some pics of our growing family. This year our schedules might prevent us from an October trip so we headed up this weekend to see an old friend of mine. On the way home we stopped at the same spot and snapped some quick pics (it was raining...). It's amazing how much can change in a year :)

Trip to Tulsa

What lucky blog readers! Two posts in one day! (Can you tell that Scott's in charge of Audrey's breakfast this morning??) This post is more for our own posterity. I tried to thing of an angle that would make it interesting to my millions of readers, but sadly all I can tempt you with is pictures at the end :)

We recently took our first airplane trip to Tulsa! Audrey and I flew out on Saturday and Scott joined us on Sunday then we all flew home together on Tuesday after Labor Day.

The plane ride to Tulsa was exciting :) Going through security with a baby, a stroller, a diaper bag and my purse was enough of a workout to last a week! Luckily Audrey is a charmer so throughout the entire process people kept cooing and googling at her, so she was entertained.

The flights themselves were uneventful (if you don't count the two poopy diapers at 36000 feet - one on the way to Tulsa and one on the way home - airplane bathrooms were not meant for changing diapers...). The flight attendants couldn't get enough of Audrey. On our flight to Tulsa one of the male attendants was on his way to check the luggage compartment and stopped in his tracks and said "Oh my gosh. I instantly love her!"

Audrey thought the flights were amazing and spent her time turning circles in my lap. Scott and I were both smart enough to skip the drinks, knowing those would become INSTANT baby magnets but that didn't stop our seat partner from getting one, so that became a very fun game - try and grab the strangers Diet Coke!

Although traveling was a workout it wasn't enough to scare us away! I'm just looking forward to the day when Audrey can toddle around pulling her own Dora suitcase behind her :)

Getting ready to go to see Grandma and Grandpa!


It was game day, so we had to show our Tiger Pride!


Daddy joined us for the trip home.


Audrey played and squirmed until the wheels touched the ground at DIA.


Hitchin' a ride on the shuttle to our car.

"IT'S A FREE COUNTRY!"

I must preface this story with the disclaimer that we've been studying the Constitution.

One of my students yesterday was having a particularly difficult time letting go of using his scissors. He had earned some drawing time and was quietly working, when he got the notion that his creation would not be perfect without getting scissors involved. The rest of the class was in the middle of watching student council campaign speeches so the scissors would have probably pushed them over the edge (7 year olds can only ignore SO MUCH! It's not very fair that they have to "suffer" through 22 5th grade speeches while he's drawing away!)

I went over and took his scissors away from him and put them on my desk.

He got up and took them off my desk.

I went over and picked them up to hold them.

He went to my desk to get my scissors.

I went over and removed that option.

He went to the back of the room to get a pair from the "lost and found" bucket, saw me coming towards him and decided on a green crayon instead.

During clean up I saw him hiding behind a desk using someone else's scissors in a last ditch effort. At this point I explained that he would need to leave his project with me until Monday since it had been so difficult following directions.

Needless to say this didn't go very well. Using my magical teaching powers I managed to get all the other kids packed and ready to go, and we all started walking towards the parent-pickup line. My friend had not given up the good fight, and along the way he turned to me and shouted "You can't keep my drawing! This is a free country! I can do what I want! I'm an American!"

To which I replied:

"You are correct! You are an American, and you have the right to free speech. Being an American means that sometimes you have to follow rules, but you can be angry about it!"

In a way, I was very proud. It takes a very high level of learning to use the Constitution to your advantage :)