Another Big Milestone - Kaitlyn's first flight - AND she meets the cousins!

Age of Lady Kaitlyn:  5 months and 8 days

Family,

And a good afternoon to you from the Queen City, where the Bull is EXHAUSTED after getting up at 4 this morning to catch his flight home from O-town.  And why, oh why, where you in O-town, you ask?  Well, that is a GREAT story - thank you for asking. :-)

The Bull and Striker are making one last big trip before Jenny starts work, heading to Seattle to visit Uncle Chuck and Aunt Cat at the end of August and over Labor Day weekend.  Knowing that is a 5.5 hour flight and thinking some practice is probably a sage wisdom, my perfect pumpkin had the GREAT idea to take Kaitlyn on a test run.  The location - Central Florida, baby!  She picked that spot for many reasons - less than a 2 hour flight, so many great friends there with children and places to stay (translation - THEY ALREADY HAVE ALL THE EQUIPMENT), and the MOST important reason - we were due a visit to the cousins!

Jenny flew down Thursday morning, and the morning schedule for getting out of the house was a GREAT dry run for what life will be like when day care starts.  Basically, the schedule was:

5:30 AM - JT up for showering

6:00 AM - The Bull up, gets the bottles out of the fridge, rouses the Munchkin (who gives daddy a GORGEOUS smile with that single right dimple), changes her diaper, applies lotion and Lotrimin, followed by an outfit change (which must be supervised by mummy since I never seem to pick out the right outfit)

6:15 AM - The Bull feeds the munchkin whilst Muffin Puffin pumps (I am quite excited about this, as I'll now get a morning feed in and some early bonding time with Munch Munch)

Diamonds are forever - Jenny with her Big Sis from AD Pi
at their Blueberry Plantation in Haines City.

6:45 AM - Bull burps the munchin and tries some active time, Wife Muffin finishes getting ready (or in Thursday's case - finishes packing and loads the car

7:15 AM - out the door (this will ring pretty true, as I'll be dropping her at daycare and will need to get her there before 7-7:30 every morning)

The flip side to this is that the Bull will probably return to afternoon or evening running, but JT and I reckon we can figure that out in October (once we start the permanent day care and I'm done traveling with work for the year).

JT said that K was TERRIFIC on the flight - no screaming, ate a bit, had good standies, and was generally fascinated by the white noise machine that is a cabin (Batten - too true on that comment!).  And then she had a friend meet her at the airport with a base and car seat, which was a life saver (as was the SWEEEEEEEET Dodge Avenger with racing stripes - QUALITY).

Malin: "Um, excuse me - you don't look like my twin sister."
Kaitlyn: "Yeah, you don't look like the rings I like to chew on."

On Friday morning JT picked me up at the airport, and thus began a WHIRLWIND trip through Central Florida.  Now I should pause right here and say that WE WERE SOOOOOOO PROUD OF OUR DAUGHTER this entire weekend, as every 3 hours she was basically sleeping in a different apparatus in a different location after being held by a different person.  Seriously - whether it was the car seat, a pack n play, a crib, or resting on someone, we put that poor child through the ringer - and she was an ANIMAL!

Our first stop was Haines City, where we met Jenny's Big Sister from college.  They are now run a blueberry farm and packing plant, and we were given this AMAZING tour of their land and facility - SOOOOO COOL.  Munch Munch was great the whole time, even going so far as to PASS OUT during the drive around the blueberries (the heat and the hum of the Gator we were driving proved too much for her).

Proud Pappas - one of whom is showing off a nice case of
post Bell's Palsy squint eye - YIKES.

After that it was onto Valrico, where we settled in for the feature event of the weekend - MEETING THE TWINS!!!!  Malin and McKinley are 6 weeks old, and we spent Thursday holding them, playing with the Munchkin, and eating like KINGS.  Seriously - Steve Markham is a COOK OF LEGENDS, and the rare steak covered in roquefort was BEYOND DEEEEEEELICIOUS.  Talk about a great night.

We made it an early night, heading to the hotel before 10 so that we could get Munch Munch down.  She slept like a champ, and Saturday morning found her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the drive back to their house.  Steve and I then picked up Kim and Matt (they flew down for 31 hours to be part of the action - how cool is that?) before returning to Copper Ridge for a day of laughs, incredible food, spectacular beer, and more tremendous photos than you can shake a stick at.  We had 6 pairs of hands for 3 babies, so the good news is that everyone got a break.  And the twins slept quite a bit as well, so we really did get some quality adult time (read:  CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY).

Sarah says that she's got a "little Kimmy and a little Jenny" -
one's got brown hair and the other is a red head!  Boys of
Valrico - beware!  Too cute...

The amazing thing was how teeny and fragile the twins felt after holding Kaitlyn.  She's almost double their current weights, and her head control is amazing compared to how they just flop and sag (Steve calls them the woodpeckers for how they slam their heads against your chest when you're holding them.  They slept in the most HILARIOUS positions, and the noises they made were SO CUTE - definitely brought back some good memories!

The master chefs conducting a seasoning session ahead of smoking 13 pounds of brisket.  Jenny's comment:  "Why don't you go in there and learn a few things instead of taking the photo."  I love you, too, sweetheart! :-)

Just another typical Saturday with the Taylor - Markham - Hunsucker Team (linked by Tacy women).

Again, Munch Munch was amazing ALL DAY, especially considering that we kept her up until about 11 PM (she still woke up at 7:30 on the nose - amazing!).  Seriously - that kid is resilient, and this trip was great for us, as we saw how far we could realistically push the boundaries and still keep her on (more or less) a reasonable schedule.  We pushed our luck again a bit on Sunday, but by and large she kept to the schedule, ate the normal amount, and continued to sleep like a champ.

Double the trouble - twice the fun!

The house is SO QUIET right now - this whole "life of a bachelor" thing is for the birds.  I miss my girls!  But I am sure they are having a blast with Julie, Steve, Juliana, and Reed (whom I got to hang out with last night), and tomorrow they'll see Katie Colley and the fam, so that should be great as well.  Hard to believe that we'll be on a plane to Seattle in just 11 short days - just in time for the opening game of college football - Tarheels vs. the Gamecocks, baby!!!!!!  Oh yeah!!!!!

Okay, this guy is EXHAUSTED and is going to pass out.  Chat soon!

Love,

Sam and Jenny