We had a whirlwind weekend starting on Friday afternoon. We collected small children from various locations, grabbed the car that was packed for the weekend and headed north to the New Hampshire airport that Southwest flies out from. (there is a hope that Southwest may come to Boston!). We tried to eat dinner there, but the girls were too excited. They love planes and air travel. They don’t see that mom gets airsickness and is fricken’ terrified. Oh well. And the fact that Friday, the news came out about the crash in the Buffalo area was most likely pilot error. Somehow, that really bothers me that the pilot pulled the nose up when the plane started an aerodynamic stall instead of down. Even I know that is what will kill you and I don’t even LIKE flying!

We finally get on the plane, and we find 4 seats for us. Jay took the girls because I was not feeling well. They watched a Looney Tunes disk and had a ball.  I got a chance to read (finally started "The Golden Compass"). We finally got to BWI and the rental car. Then the fun began! The girls were up until almost midnight. They played with their cousins (ok, second cousins. I think. I can’t ever remember the first removed crap. These kids are the children of Jay’s cousin. close enough. We just say cousins, so if you’re going to get all technical on me? Yeah, I can find some choice words) Then we crashed around 1am. Jay was kind enough to try to let me sleep in, but the kids were playing and Soleil decided to hide in my room. Thanks! We managed to get dressed, girls bathed, and in the car by 11 to drive down to DC. All I could hear was "Are we going to see where Obama lives?" YES! but we are not going in…sigh. We visited the mall and the mothership (The Smithsonian Institution.) We saw at least 3 museums and when Soleil was acting like a 15 year old,(she even said "Yeah mom, Whatever" when I asked her not to throw crayons! calgon, take me away!). We finally took then over to air and space. Yeah- we stole our nephew, Eagle, because he is a better fit to our family than his own.  He loved the attention and doing what he wanted to do.

We kept Eagle for several hours and then met the family for dinner. We found out that Jay’s mom had a head injury last week and failed to tell any of us about since she was afraid we would yell at her to not come to DC (Hell woman, of course we are worried!) She had an emergency CT and was sent for further testing. They found an old bleed and some other damage that was old. Sigh.

Jay and I scooted out of dinner to meet our cousins for a comedy show. We saw Stephen Lynch. Check out our new favorite song. Just NOT WITH KIDS OR BOSSES AROUND.  http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=tra.26589744 It helped that Soleil was being well, a 15 year old. It really helped me enjoy this song.

We had a huge family brunch with about 40 people on Sunday. Wow. We were all wiped out and made the kids go to bed by 9. Amazingly, they DID go to bed (two nights of staying up to midnight might do that.) We had to get up at 4am to get back to Boston. We made the early flight, got the kids happy and fed, back to our car, made it to Soleil’s school with 2 minutes to spare. Life is good.