Things I learned in California: Lesson 1

It's not the flight with children that is to be feared. It's getting through the airport.  

Here's our entourage: An XXL double stroller. A huge car seat. A matching second huge car seat. Diaper bag. Laptop bag. Duffel bag full of toys and food. Roller carry on suitcase. Toddler who doesn't speak English and runs like a wild animal the minute she is set down. Preschooler with major sensory issues who woke up 2 hours early and hasn't eaten breakfast. Mother and father who have never flown with kids and rarely flown without kids.

We start by checking our one gigantic suitcase packed so full that the zipper is slowly popping apart because we're too cheap to pay the fees to check more.

Then we innocently herd ourselves into the security checkpoint line. I start reading the signs. Laptops must be removed from laptop bags. Hmm. That's a problem because we worked for 20 minutes this morning wedging two laptops into one laptop bag to bring our total of 87 things to carry down to 86. But we do it.

The next sign is about liquids. I bite my lip and eye the diaper bag. No telling what's in that abyss. I start emptying it. We've taken up 5 plastic bins so far.

Things start moving faster. I take off all of our shoes, my belt (enter next problem, my pants start falling down because my body doubles in width above my pants and the laws of physics start to take effect). Silas naturally goes exploring and is embarrassed when security sternly tells him he can't be back here. Brian is trying to shove the double stroller into the x-ray machine (ramming is probably more accurate) while security tells him Sir, you're going to have to check that, and people are starting to make comments and get uncomfortably close in an effort to speed things along. The plastic bin count is up to 10 and I am informed that I need to meet with a security guard to test the liquid in our sippee cups. Silas is suddenly terrified of the metal detector and I drag him kicking and screaming with my free hand, squeeze the little monkey against me with my other arm, and squirt the guard with the sweat shooting out of my face as I walk through. I hear Brian yelling in the background "Angie, they're saying the car seats are too big to fit through the machine!" I look at him with fireball eyes that scream "Deal with it and don't even think about letting them take our car seats!"

Silas has a massive meltdown at my feet and Madison tries to do acrobatics to get out of my arms as I watch the security guard wave test strips over the water in their sippee cups. Ok ma'am, you're good to go! So I run off through the airport and hop on a flight to St. Lucia. Then I snap back to reality and wrestle my child to the ground to replace his shoes, take him behind the chairs to give a spanking for the horrible behavior, find my younger escapee, meet up with my husband and tell him lets not let this ruin our trip, give him a high five, send him to grab breakfast while I reassemble all of our belongings, and see him return with a gigantic gooey cinnamon roll (that won't be hard to feed to two fussy children on a cramped plane at all).

It was so hot in that airport.

We were the last people to board the plane. Brian hit people with the car seat he had heaved behind his back as he squeezed down the aisle like a pack mule.

Why was I so worried about the flight? It went great. The monkey was strapped in the car seat and I had an endless supply of food and toys. It was so fun to see the excitement on Silas' face and hear his little voice say Are we floating in the air? Is this your plane Daddy? Are we going backwards? We're flying up high in the sky!

The other good news is that we knew what to expect on the way home. 

It went the same, just without the element of surprise.

Lacking Activity

Let me explain my absence. Two kinds of sick bugs (stomach and flu) have been making laps around the 4 of us. Then we decided to pack up, coughs and all, and head to sunny California for a week. I figured sharing our germs might even the score with these Californians with their rock hard abs and their 70 degree year long weather. Actually, Brian was going for a week long business trip and I wasn't having it.

Pictures and stories to come.
Like when Silas begged pweeeze I don't want to stay in a honytail! (sounds like ponytail and he means hotel). I wonder what he thought a honytail was.

Latest Food Kick

I was a big fan of HandiSnacks when I was little and it turns out my kids are too. Everyday I hear Mommy I need some dippin sticks pweeze! Mash is always close behind raising one arm and shouting one of her only phrases, I do!

That cheesy mystery concoction still doesn't disappoint.

Preview

This fireman and his fire dog will hit the streets in two weeks. 

My little three year old can hardly wait. 

I couldn't figure out what he meant when he asked morning after morning if we were going to get candy today. Boy you done lost yo mind. When have we ever gone to get you candy? Then finally he said you know, when we knock on the doors! 

Oh I get it I get it. Not for a few weeks sweetie.

Burning Brush

I shared a picture of Brian's sooty legs a while back and this is their story.

One night Brian came in from working outside and said, Man when we set the brush pile on fire it is going to be crazy! I asked why and he said he had dumped about 100 gallons of vegetable oil and a barrel of fat on top of the fire (Remember his truck runs on vegetable oil? We're not into soap making or mass food production).  And not to mention the oil was dumped on a mountain range of dried tree branches from landscaping our entire property.

The next day were all sitting at the table eating lunch when Brian said, Hmm I thought I saw smoke going by the window. Must have been dust.

A minute later we both saw it. A huge cloud of smoke blowing past the window. Brian stood up and looked out the back door and started running. I got up and looked and saw a huge fire blazing in the back part of our property. About 100 feet from the house. It was huge. And very tall. And it hadn't rained in a long time and this day happened to be breezy and extra hot. The blaze spread was spreading extremely fast and was already past the fence.

In typical Brian fashion, he grabbed the water hose and started running barefoot towards the fire. I said calmly, Brian I think this is one for the fire department. He kept running but yelled back at me, Yeah, call 911! So I did and help was on the way.

But while we waited for the professionals Brian and I were quite the team. He yelled for me to find more hose so I bravely dug around in an area I like to call the "snake pit" which is behind the shop where the copperheads live and the leaves are 2 feet deep. I found a hose and ran to take it to him when I noticed his feet were completely black and he was standing funny like they were burning. He was real impressed when I brought him his crocs. But in spite of his gear my unorthodox but highly competent husband was able to get the fire under control by running laps around the blaze with the water hose before the fire department arrived. 

The firemen worked fast and before long all that remained were a few barrels that Brian wanted to let burn down. That was when I thought, Oh yeah I locked the kids in the house and I should take pictures of this.

At one point a container of vegetable oil turned over and started spilling out. One of the firemen saw the stream coming from the jug and started to run yelling Look out Bill there's gasoline! And Brian said oh no that's just vegetable oil. They were a little unsure. Vegetable oil? What are you a cook or something?

I found the kids running around making siren noises inside. 

Silas loved that real firemen came to his house.

They gave Brian some funny looks when he explained how the fire started spontaneously. Uh huh. Sure it did. Fires start by themselves all the time.

I think Brian liked the way this brush burn went down.  

He's a sucker for a good adrenaline rush.

My Little Cockatiel

I think she would appraise for well over a billion.

Science with the B Man

We are nerds.

Brian is the type of nerd who has endless amounts of knowledge packed in his brain and he can figure anything and I mean anything out. I'm the type who is intelligent in a select few areas but can't retain anything in any area and is always doing something awkward.

In my early twenties (I'm ashamed to say) Brian informed me that stars were distant suns in other galaxies. I died laughing at first because I knew that stars were just twinkling little balls in between all of the planets in our solar system. I would often wonder how astronauts managed to avoid them in their trips to the moon. Hi I'm Angie and I missed an average of 30 days of school every semester because my mom had rebellion issues. You can see why I was blown away to realize I was seeing suns in other galaxies. It rocked my world.

Last night we were in bed talking before we went to sleep and at some point he mentioned that the time dimension is different in space than on earth. I told you we're nerds. What the heck are you talking about Brian? Yeah, time is different in space. If you take a digital clock into space it will come back with a different time than here on earth.

I assured him that time is just a concept in our heads. A unit of measurement. Time being a dimension is just silly talk. If the time is off on the clock that went to space it's because the air pressure or some other difference made it malfunction. That's like saying that 12 inches is different on earth than it is in space.

Actually Angie, you bring up another interesting point. Length changes at the speed of light. A foot at the speed of light is shorter than a foot standing still. Length shrinks with speed.

I gave up and told him that's enough outta you Bill Nye, I gotta get me some beauty rest. But secretly I was impressed once again with my husband's smarts. And the good news is that I think he passed it on to Silas who is turning out to be sharp as a tack.

By the way, if this is the first time you've heard about the stars being far away suns, don't be ashamed. Sometimes these little facts just slip through the cracks.