As Will Smith Would Say, "Welcome To Miami!"

I will admit, a cross-country red eye with a 9 month old sounded daunting. But of course, my little world traveler fell asleep like a little angel within the first 10 minutes of the trip. I didn't sleep a wink because she is just like me and tosses and turns all night, but she slept the entire 4.5 hours to Miami. We arrrived at 5am and were greeted by a sleepy, but excited G-Daddy and Mor Mor. Ashley was pretty excited too and stayed up the whole drive home and was so excited to meet Wade (she is their cute dog) that she wound herself up and was almost immediately past her jetlag!

I said goodbye to Ashley that afternoon for my conference and she got to spend Monday-Thursday with just her grandparents and the dog! It was pretty hard for me - I had never been away from her for so long, but she sure seemed to be having a blast everytime I checked in! (Mor Mor had gone above and beyond to have everything ready ... from formula, bottles, diapers and food all the way to toys galore! Ashley felt right at home!)

Here are some great pictures from the trip...

And she would not be my daughter if she didn't just LOVE the Johnny Jumper!


Sunday evening we headed to the airport for our flight home. By the time I got us and all of our gear through the security checkpoint (This is a pain in the you-know-what when you have a kid with you! A girl can get pretty sweaty in this process!), Ashley had taken her 2nd diaper opportunity, so I headed to the DIRTIEST bathroom I have ever seen to change her. I took her out of her stroller, only to have it then tip backwards and her diaper bag and cooler with her formula went crashing down onto the dirty floor. In the process, two of the bottles of formula broke into a million pieces of glass. Sweaty, trying to change Ashley without having her touch anything while holding the stroller up with one foot, I must have looked just like the calm, cute mother I have always aspired to be ... NOT! Anyway, once I got us through this ridiculous escapade, the pre board was already over and we were boarding with everyone else. So much for having time to get ourselves situated. The weather was less than perfect and we were delayed an hour on a tarmac. Ashley was not bad, but I will admit, I was working HARD to keep her content. Let's just say I got over any germophobia on this trip. If girlfriend wants to sit on the floor of the plane to play, then girlfriend will sit on the floor! All in the name of sanity! After 7 hours of air travel, we finally returned home. Her daddy was sure excited to see her!

We were so lucky to spend the time with G-Daddy and Mor Mor. We don't get to see them often, so it was a lot of fun for both of us! Thanks for the wonderful hospitality and we hope to be back sometime soon!