Traveling with twins

New York! New York! It's a helluva town!

And so very far away, one must hop onto a plane and fly there. To be honest, we did consider driving originally, but one more 5 hour trip to the mountains to visit Grammy convinced us that that way lay madness. Madness, I say!

So instead, we just went crazy and flew.

So we packed 2 bags for checking, 3 carryons (one entire bag dedicated to snacks), all three kids, one DVD, and books I knew we'd never have time to read and headed out. As I mentioned yesterday, getting through security was hellish, but once they were on the plane, they were fine. Logan sat in Eric's lap, while I held Emma and Caitlin sat next to me. Logan started grabbing at everything until he noticed the touch screen in front of him and then spent many long minutes pressing every button he could find. Eric was worried he was going to continually hit the call button for the flight attendant, but Logan couldn't reach it. Emma was just happy flipping through the in-flight magazines and reading a book about kitties.

And eating snacks.

We didn't have anything for them to suck on as the plane took off, so I was a little worried about the potential for screaming, but apparently if you're stuffing your face full of veggie straws, it works just the same.

The twins traveled beautifully!

Except that they didn't nap all day.

Eek!

We got to our hotel and then popped over to my sister's house to see the family. Mom was off baking the cake at my aunt's house (Apparently rueing the day she offered to make it in NY since no one has the gear for massive scale cake baking that she does at home. Well...except me, of course.) so we never saw her the first day and the bridegroom was suspiciously absent.

I got to meet my one and only niece whose shower, birth, christening and first birthday I completely missed out on (Sniff!), since she lives far, far away Canada. However, she forgave me once I turned on the charm and tickled her cubby little chin.

Cheek squeezing! Cheeeeeeek squeeeeeezing!

Let me put her into perspective:

"Tasha, I got dis remote and dis phone. You want 'nudder 'mote, you gotta get from Logan. Is OK, he big push ovah!"

Emma and Logan are 3 months older than she is. She outweighs them. Not collectively (Unlike some people! I'm lookin' at you, Mr. O!), but she is a hefty chunkalunka, as Jenni would say, and she is so incredibly sweet and soft and squishy you just want to eat her up with a spoon! The curly red hair! The velvety soft skin! The great big blue eyes! Eeee!

The twins never for a moment were concerned that I'd ditch them for the red haired one, though. Instead, they were busy exploring Dawn's totally-not-safe-for-children house and each was busy figuring out what they could and could not get into.

Emma discovered she could not get into my lap while I was taking pictures.

"Gimme up! Gimme UP!"

Logan discovered that Dawn had 2 or 3 remotes, each of which he was allowed to wander around with, so long as Emma didn't notice.

"Mine! You get you own!"

They also discovered my dad, who was a total sucker for Logan's patented "Ehn!" with "pick-me-up" extended arms.

Remarkably calm as he attempted to watch TV while Logan kept pressing the on/off button.

Dad kept marveling over how beautiful the twins were and it struck me that there's at least one upside to Alzheimer's. You can continually be amazed at the nice things you notice! He mentioned it several times, so it was clear he was really impressed by them. It was interesting to watch him respond so well to Logan who took to my dad straight away. There must be something about older guys - Logan is also madly in love with Grampy, here in Colorado.

We spent several hours chatting with my sisters and my brother-in-law until the twins made it clear that we needed to get outta there before they turned into piles of screaming goo on the floor.

The second day was a repeat of the first, and still there was no napping.

Traveling is hard on nappers! However, so long as someone was willing to hold them every time they wanted to be held, they were fine.

Oh, and the sleeping arrangements? One very small hotel room, five people, a queen sized bed, two cribs and a fold out couch. It was tight. However we all managed to sleep at least a little...just not the first night. The twins woke up at least 4 times and Caitlin tried sleepwalking for the very first time ever. Fortunately for us, the top latch was on, so she couldn't get out.

That's right. Sleepwalking.

I don't know where she was going, but it could have been very bad.

The second night's sleep was better and the 3rd night better still. Especially once the guy walking down the hallway cursing and playing loud rap music at 3 am checked out. Whew!

Isn't staying in hotels fun?!

Even though there aren't many photos from the first two days, rest assured that Caitlin did come with us and had a great time bonding with her cousin Daniel over DVDs and race cars. I was a little busy carrying a baby around. Sometimes even my own!

Then...on Saturday there was the wedding!