Back from the whirlwind trip to Dallas. It started out a little rough and rainy and ended quietly with puddles of water resting everywhere upon our return. Ya see, I'd never actually used the Park 'n Ride part of the Tucson airport. I've been past it plenty of times, but never actually had to get my vehicle into the place in the dark...when it was raining. I thought that I was going to self destruct when we couldn't find the correct entrance, were running late, and were running late. Did I mention that we were getting there behind the schedule that I'd attempted to set. We made it to the plane with about 10 minutes to spare. I learned some things on this trip.

Lessons learned:
Pad time 45 minutes - 1 hour
Pack everything into the fewest number of bags humanly possible
Britax Boulevard car seats are built strong and as such are HEAVY
My wife would be a saint if she believed those kind of fairy tales
Carry cash, so you don't have to stiff someone after they load heavy things on a bus

We made it into Dallas on time and happy and the nice folks at Hertz had everything lined up and waiting. CP did well on the plane and only started getting antsy when she couldn't exit the plane when she wanted. It took me a while to get the car seat into the car. The seat tracks on the Malibu that we got were typical American car stamped-metal cheapos that weren't set up to accomodate the front strap of a rear-facing car seat.

Lessons learned:
Hertz Rocks!
Ask for a Japanese car if you're given a choice

Trying to find Gramma's house turned out to be an almost knock-down-drag-out affair thanks to the lovely folks at Google Maps. The directions were so far off of the mark and convoluted that I would bet that the best cartographers would need a valium or two if they were forced to follow them. When CP started screaming we had to pull in behind a strip mall and just vent a bit. It wasn't pretty. All of us calmed down after a bit and the LW called her aunt to save our bacon. We made it to Gramma's shortly after and were met by air conditioned air and huge smiles by Gramma and one of the LW's cousins.

Lessons learned:
Google maps still has a bit of de-bugging to do - cross reference with other map offerings
Stop the car when the baby really goes ballistic and you're hopelessly lost
LW can soothe baby in short order, but also inflames tired husband with similar expedience

The weekend went really well. We stayed at a Homewood Suites in Bedford, TX and that place was nice. It's really the same four stick & stucko walls that you get anywhere, but the staff were top notch. They transferred us from MIL's "holding" room to our other respective rooms after the cleanup crew got them ready and everyone got settled in. They even had a crib set up and waiting in the room when we got there.

Later on, CP got to meet and snuggle with her cousins and other relatives. The LW and I tried to lay low and get some relaxation time, but there wasn't any of that. When planning this trip, we sat around in a dream-like state thinking of how we would hand little CP off to some of the anxious relatives and sneak back to our room for a nice nap together (since we haven't had one since May 3rd). You can almost hear that big buzzer coming........ ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. That didn't happen. CP's schedule was a bit off and this meant that her naps were shorter and more frequent than usual.

Lessons learned:
Pay some baby-eyed, but baby-less relative to watch baby so that you can nap with the LW

The weekend was full of laughter and eating. Two good things in equal portions. The LW soaked up all of the time with her family and it was good to see. It seemed like all too soon when Monday rolled around and we had to pack it all in. We arrived home to find our town dealing with flooding due to rain measured in inches, not just in hundreths of inches as it has been for the last few years.