Houston

The trip to Houston went really well. We left at about 10:30 in the morning and thank goodness, Marley slept for the first two hours of the trip! She woke up when we stopped for gas and was luckily in a great mood for the last 20 minutes of the ride. We stopped and ate lunch and wasted an hour before the meet started. I fed her in the car and then we tried to let her stretch her muscles as much as we could.

We got to the meet with an hour before the start, so we played around and tried to waste some more time. (We would have left Nacogdoches later, but I thought we were going to be stopping a lot with Marley.) We brought in the huge stroller, the diaper bag, the toy bag, the camera bag, the video camera bag, my purse, Asa's bag... we were loaded down. Luckily, we found a spot where we could spread out. Marley didn't really enjoy the meet a whole lot. It was hot and humid and noisy. Not good things for babies. So, we took her into the lobby area a lot and let her spread out and cool off. She dozed off a few times, but never slept more than 20 minutes. She did discover that she likes to fix people's hair from behind... that was fun. She also spit up on someone's bag while Joel was walking by them with her. They didn't notice... and I didn't say a word.

After the meet, we went back to Grandma Karen and Grandpa David's house for dinner and bed. She screamed for the entire one hour trip to their house. She would fall asleep, then two seconds later her hand would float by her face and yank her pacifier out. Then she would scream all over again. It was the most miserable car ride. Even worse than the trip to Austin for Thanksgiving. However, once we got to the house, she was a complete angel. She talked and smiled and entertained everyone while she played on the couch. Then she went to bed without a fuss.

The next morning we met Aunt Julie, Uncle Andy and Alex for breakfast. Marley got to chew on some spoons, drink a little water, and Uncle Andy experimented with making things cold for her. She likes her teether on the rocks. Asa and I really wanted to go to Babies R Us (ok, maybe it was just me that wanted to go). So, we left Marley with the family and went by ourselves. We bought Marley a Jumperoo and something to keep her bath toys in. I tried out a glider that I really wanted, but we didn't really have a way to get it back with us. I hate out glider though, so I still really want a new one. When we got back, we decided we would try to get home that afternoon and pray that Marley would sleep. Well, it worked and she slept the whole way back. Even with the 45 extra minutes it took because of traffic. She really made me happy.It was a good trip, but I am glad to be home in our bed.