Alabama Trip 2014: Final Installment

So, as I mentioned previously, we actually returned to Birmingham on the 29th of November, which was the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  It also happened to be the day of the Iron Bowl.  Which is why my original plans changed.

See, originally, I was planning to head to Tuscaloosa on the 29th and stay a night there.  But then Annie told me that was the day Auburn and Alabama were playing -- and it was happening in Tuscaloosa.  I quickly modified my plans.  Ain't no way I wanted to be in that mess of traffic!  So we just went to Birmingham and did our day jaunt over to Tuscaloosa later.

So we got back to Julie's early in the evening.  We ate dinner, ran a couple errands.  I started making cinnamon rolls while the big game came on.  Now, here's the thing:  I'm not a super football fan.  It's just never been important to me.  Like ever.  But Julie is a huge fan -- especially of UA.  And so she was watching the game.  Ergo, we all watched the game.  And I learned something:  it's not so bad.  I'll never be an avid fan.  I'll never live and breathe college football.  But it was a pleasant evening watching the game from the comfort of Julie's living room and watching her (and my husband ;)) get super-anxious at various points.  I missed some of it, as I was working on cinnamon rolls.  But I was in there for the end when Alabama walked away the champions.  I learned stuff about the game I didn't know at all.  And I realized I shouldn't have had such a negative attitude about it in the past.  You live, you learn.

After the game, Jeremy went to bed with the munchkin (we weren't super strict with her bed times while on vacation.  After all, it was vacation!) and Julie and I stayed up and had a fun girlie visit.  It's harder to come by those with kids -- so I've learned.  I had brought her birthday present with me on the plane so that it wouldn't take up precious room in the Christmas package I'd be sending later.  So here she is opening her birthday present.

I made her a froggy quillow!  I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.  And it's thanks to Jeremy that it happened.  He helped me design it.  That's definitely a nice perk of his engineering mind:  he can envision things where I really can't until tangibly hold it.  Anyway, so basically it's a fleece blanket that can fold up and tuck into the frog and become a pillow.  when it's unfolded, the frog part is inverted and becomes a place you can put your feet to keep them warm.  Depending on how ambitious I feel this year (which isn't looking good so far...), I may try to make different animals for each of the nieces and nephews.  But that's a big maybe.

Anyway, I stayed up with Julie until Jon got home from work around midnight.  Then I headed to bed.  Sunday morning, Jeremy, Lynnaea, and I went to the Alabaster Ward for church.  I ended up hanging out in nursery the whole time, because I didn't know how Lynnaea would do if I left her.  Which was just as well, since the usual nursery assistant wasn't there.  We took a nice afternoon nap.  And then we went to church with Jon and Julie in the afternoon.  Then we all went back to Julie's and ate pizza. 

Monday was our Tuscaloosa day, and then Monday evening, Julie cooked dinner for us and then we watched Elf (because the Christmas movies were starting to play on the tv!).  We also snapped a couple pictures, because we needed to :).  This was the better of the two.  Hard to believe we've known each other 16 years!

Tuesday was the day we left Julie's.  I woke up early to see Julie off to work.  It was sad.  We weren't leaving until the next day, but we were staying one more night with April and Greg.  Julie texted me later to say she didn't want to go home if I wasn't going to be there :(.  So sad.  We didn't leave until the afternoon, so we relaxed and visited with Jon.  It was nice to sit and chat with Jon for a long while.  And of course, get some pictures with him too.

It's funny...  In recent days I've been going through and organizing old photos.  My oh my how we all have changed!  It's weird that we're in our mid-30s.  With kids!  Yikes!  When did that happen!?!

Anyway, so we said our good-byes.  Headed to April's and then she followed me to turn in the rental car.  Then we mostly just hung out and visited at her house -- and played some old Mario Bros on some system Greg got for his birthday -- until we were meeting up with Greg at Cracker Barrel.  That was good food!  And Jeremy impressed many people with his eating abilities, let's just say that.  I think it took 4 servers to bring all our food out.  It was crazy!  The food just kept on coming!  Back at April's, she and I visited into the night while the men played Super Mario 3 (the best one, I might add...) and had a hilarious time doing so.  We were cracking up watching them.  Then we all turned in for the night.  Oh yeah, I also made cinnamon rolls again, only this time, I was concerned with whether or not they'd rise, since we used self-rising flour. 

Holy cow.  I just had a massive paragraph that I accidentally deleted.  Ack!  Well, forget it.  Basically, April took us to the airport.  Our flight was delayed a bit.  But we made all our connections.  And the last flight of the trip (from San Diego to Seattle) was bomb, because there were only 53 passengers on board, and a ton of empty rows.  Which meant Lynnaea got her own seat.  And that was the best ever. 

There we are on the airplane -- Lynnaea with the tablet.

We landed in Seattle a little after 9.  I was exhausted.  We got our luggage and took the airporter.  We got home about midnight, and by the time we got everything done that we needed to do (change the baby, give her some milk, brush her teeth, etc), it was 1 in the morning.  We were exhausted.  And so we slept.  And Jeremy took the next day off work too, just so he wouldn't have to go in at 6 in the morning.

So that was the end of the trip.  It was a wonderful two weeks.  Wonderful.  Sometimes I wish vacation was all the time.  But then, it wouldn't be vacation. 

So coming up will be Christmas stuff.