Balloon Race Weekend-Saturday Afternoon

Saturday after all our morning festivities, Eli, Grammy, and I had to go pick up Pop at the airport. Pop had just gotten back from visiting family. We thought it would be a more exciting experience for Eli, going to an airport and seeing airplanes that is, but because of all the security precautions, which I am VERY THANKFUL for, we weren't able to see any planes from where we had to wait. Oh well, he'll eventually get to experience the real thing when he takes his first BIG trip with us. No trips are planned just yet, but I know they'll eventually happen.

We waited for the passengers to get off Pop's plane and Eli was everyone's personal greeter. He was the first person they saw and he waved at everyone as they came through the gates. What they didn't know was that he was actually waving his hands and saying, "Noooo, not Pop! Noooo, not Pop!" to every passenger that passed by us. They just thought he was being cute :) Finally, he saw his Pop and he ran to him with a HUGE smile on his face.

In typical kid fashion, he started going through all of Pop's pockets to see what goodies Pop had for him. Pop had saved his cookies from the plane for Eli, so Eli was content to chow down on those while we waited for his luggage.



We got to the baggage claim area and, of course, my son wanted to climb on the moving belt, which technically wasn't moving when he climbed on it. Can you imagine the fun he would have had if it HAD been moving? Oh dear me! He makes life fun! We quickly got him down off the belt and explained that we had to sit and wait for Pop's bag to come out of the magical door and he seemed content with that explanation; until I, being the genius that I am, explained that this was like the scene in Toy Story 2 when the toys had to go through the magical doors to find the suitcase that had Jessie in it. Yeah, the moving belt became really interesting again. Way to go, Mommy!

Luckily, his attention span is all of ten seconds, so Pop distracted him by asking him to sit down with him on the floor while they waited. Eli thought this was pretty fun and started jabbering away to Pop. His verbal skills are REALLY coming along. He is combining words into sentences and even using some prepositions! I'll post more about that on his monthly update coming soon.


Eli quickly got bored with just sitting and started doing fun tricks that he wanted Pop to do with him. Unfortunately, Pop's body just isn't as flexible as Eli's. Wouldn't this have made a great picture though if they had been doing what Eli is doing?

The magical moving belt finally started bringing out the luggage, so we found Pop's and headed to the car.


Eli, being the little helper that he is, had to push the suitcase all the way to the car for Pop. Luckily, Pop's suitcase had four swivel wheels so it made it easy for Eli and he felt so big and strong for helping his Pop!


We drove to the mall so we could get some food and so Eli could get some energy out before getting back on the road. We tried to get him to eat, but once he saw the carousel, it was over. He and Pop rode it together first. Eli chose the tiger and when I went to take his picture he roared at me :) He kills me....


Grammy and Eli rode it together the second time and Eli chose the ostrich. When I went to take their picture, he kept saying, "Wide, duck! (Ride, duck!) Kack-kack! (quack-quack)." He was convinced the ostrich was a duck. How funny!


After his carousel ride and a quick trip to see Uncle Josh and Aunt Andrea, we headed home. Eli fell asleep on the way and didn't wake up when I put him in his bed. He stayed asleep until the next morning! WOW! He'd had a very, very FUN day!