Thomas' Orlando vacation - aka Griswald Feb. family vacation

Day 1: Saturday

Get up at 5:30am for our 8:20 flight. We had a vm from American Airlines at 2am letting us know our flight was delayed until 11am. Ok cool, first time an airline has ever called to let me know that and I get an extra couple hours of sleep. Always a good idea for Cara Jane. Once we got to the airport everything was smooth to Florida. Madison was an angel on the plane, as usual, and everyone told us how beautiful she is. Tell me something I don’t already know! Once we got to baggage claim in Orlando it took almost an hour for our bags to come out! C’mon already! We finally get to the hotel 5 hours later than planned, but hey…vaca just started it’s ok. Brent talks to the check in guy and we head up to our room. Only to notice that it’s an outside view room. If you’ve ever been to a Gaylord you know that you have to face in. Gaylords are like Embassy Suites on crack. They always have a beautiful atrium. Our outside view was of a Publix (Florida grocery store), no thanks. So after almost biting Brent’s head off I ask (instruct is more like it) him to call down and get our room changed. No problem says the hotel rep, someone will be up in a few minutes with your key. An hour later we finally get the key. It’s ok, we get to our inside view room on the 4th floor 6 hours later than planned. At that point I had to go to Publix to get diapers, wipes, baby food, formula, baby water, snacks, etc… I thought I was being smart by not packing that so we wouldn’t have to carry it around. We finally get that done and it’s after 9pm. Time for vacation to begin! However…I was exhausted. Rewind to Thursday…wake up and the throat hurts a little. I ignore it, I snore and thought it was a lil raw due to that. Friday morning, wake up….throat hurts a lil more…denial, I’m NOT getting sick the day before vacation. Fast forward to present Saturday evening ~10pm, throat hurts pretty damn bad. We head down to the sushi restaurant at the hotel for a late dinner. Some of the best sushi I’ve had in a long time. The $12 martini was helpful too…

Day 2: Sunday

Wake up and I can barely swallow. I realize that I have to go to the doctor to get it taken care of ASAP so I can hang for the rest of the week. I go online, google ‘urgent care facilities’ and find ‘Centra Care of Florida’. I didn’t think much about the name, but they had locations ALL over Florida. Put it in the Garmin, 5 miles away…cool. I get there and let me tell ya…shady is the only word that came to mind. On the FRONT DESK are candy bars and cokes for sale, and I’m not talking in a vending machine or anything. Just what you need when you’re sick. I check in and the lady tells me it’ll be an hour wait. If you know me at all you know that I’m not exactly the patient type…and I’m by myself. I sit down, try to calm myself and look around for something to read. Not one magazine in the entire waiting room is in English, everything is in Spanish. Ahhh, the name makes sense now, Centra Care of Florida. No biggie, I have an iPhone and the app store. Oh, and to show you how ghetto this place was...all of the patients in the waiting room were taking smoke breaks while they waited. Are you serious??? My name finally gets called and my nurse is a senior aged Hispanic man…my doctor, early to mid 20’s, 4 ½ ft tall Pilipino man with hair 3x as long as mine. Comical in a way, I felt like I was in a sitcom. Diagnosis, strep…but I got antibiotics and that’s all that matters, 24 hours and I know I’ll feel better. On my way back to the hotel I call my best friend who has been calling me all morning....she's ENGAGED! SO SO happy for her and sad that I didn't find out as soon as it happened. Damn throat, but fun wedding in September!!! Congrats Tiffany Jill!

Get back to the hotel after Brent and Madison have toured it without me...not cool. I suck it up for the rest of the day and hang out with my family. We ate dinner at Sam’s Fish Camp…it’s a boat that sits inside of the hotel, awesome. We had nice scenery, good conversation and dinner ends with Madison dumping an entire glass of wine in Daddy’s lap. Hilarious walk back to the hotel room!

Day 3: Monday

POOL DAY! Took Madison swimming and she had a blast. I never thought 3 hours at a pool with a baby would result in a 3 hour nap. Bless her heart, but she had a great time and Momma got some much needed sun. People stop me to tell me how beautiful Madison is, if they only knew she’s as sweet (if not sweeter!) as she is pretty.

We headed out to City Walk for dinner. We used to live in Tampa and have been to City Walk a million times…love love love that place. After walking around for a couple of hours we decide to eat at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. We’ve partied there in our past lives, but never eaten there. Yummy dinner, tasted good going down. I had shrimp and corn chowder, then we shared calamari and ribs. Interesting combo huh? You have no idea…

Day 4: Tuesday

7am: wake up violently vomiting. If you know me you know that I hate throwing up more than anything in the world. I’d rather hang out with Dookies while eating nails and chugging gasoline rather than puke. This goes on for 5 straight hours. I can’t remember the last time I felt this bad. Brent wasn’t doing too well either…thanks Jimmy Buffet! I’m in bed ALL day. 7 PowerAdes, only the last 2 stayed down. Bless Madison’s sweet, precious heart. She pretty much entertained herself with her toys on the bed all day. Brent had to work more than we thought. He was sick, but pretty much gone all day. Me? I just rolled around the bed in pain.

*disclaimer* stop reading now if you have a weak stomach. I was so sick I got vomit all over the walls, the floor…the bathroom looked like a crime scene. I made Brent call down to housekeeping to explain the situation and ask them to bring in the toxic waste crew. I felt too bad to get out of bed, so I laid there (with my back to the front door) in complete embarrassment as they brought in the heavy artillery to clean. My face is red as I type this, I wanted to crawl down the biggest hole I could find.

Day 5: Wednesday – supposed to be Disney day

Brent’s trade show is over, FINALLY! We planned on going to Disney, but my stomach still sounded like a mini war zone. We decided to stick close to the hotel and spend the day at the pool. It was absolutely beautiful out there. We swam and played all day, it was so nice. We made reservations at Emeril’s a month ago for tonight’s dinner. Since we were traveling all day on Saturday we decided that Wednesday night would be our V-day. We went to Emeril’s for my birthday back in 2003. At that time we weren’t…let’s say, well off. We budgeted for that dinner. The couple behind us had the 4 course tasting menu and we made a deal that night that we’d come back when money was better and have it. Well, finally we were able to do it. Our first course was lobster ravioli with black truffle sauce. Yummy. Our 2nd course was blackened grouper with saffron risotto. I’m redneck enough to admit that I’ve had grouper 1000+ times in my life, but it’s always been fried. Guess what?? Blackened is just as tasty. Unfortunately my stomach still wasn’t at 100% and I only made it halfway through that course. The 3rd course was leg of lamb with apple mashed potatoes. Brent said it was good. I was so ticked I couldn’t eat it, but flashbacks of Tuesday held me back. 4th course was dessert, boxed that up and never ate it. Emeril’s is such a beautiful place and we had an excellent late V-day.

Overall it was a very nice, Griswald like vacation. Brent worked his butt off and I’m very proud of him. Through all of his work at the trade show he still took very good care of me and the baby. He’s my other angel from heaven and I look forward to a vacation where the Blackberry cannot be turned on…keep your fingers crossed.

Long time!

It's been awhile! It's hard to balance work, new baby, hanging out....and find time to blog! :)

Things are going well, it's been a busy fall season. We just had Halloween with Madison, her first. She dressed up as a monkey and we walked around the neighborhood. She was completely oblivious to what was going on, but Mom and Dad sure had fun! Strange story...so Brent started to walk down the street with Maddie in her stroller. A cop car came speeding down the street and Brent yelled for him to slow down. The cop stopped and proceeded to tell my husband that he was trying to find a man dressed up as a genie, apparently he is chasing children around the neighborhood throwing acid on them. CRAZY! Never found out what happened and I didn't see anything on the news, so I hope it was just a hoax. Nothing that crazy ever happens in 'Tang!

I'm going to NORTH CAROLINA this weekend! Can you tell I'm just a little excited?!!? I fly in on Friday, either going to Jacksonville for the weekend or my Granny's house in Burlington. Then I'm headed to Bobby's place in Charlotte until Tuesday. I've got a work thing on Monday and Monday night. I'm flying with Madison alone, Brent has to be in Austin for a planning session. I'm SO nervous, I just hope she enjoys it and doesn't get fussy.

That's about all that's interesting right now. I will definitely blog after I get back from the greatest place on earth and tell ya all about it. KNOW that we'll be stopping at Smithfield's as SOON as I get there so I can get some REAL BBQ. (not this crap the midwest calls BBQ - it's drowning in red sauce, ick!)

Life in the Thomas lane

Long time, no post...I know, but I've been busy. Something about having this kid makes me 10x more focused at work. No time to screw around b/c I have to get out of there by 5:30. So, what's up outside of work? Much o' nothing. We went to the fair with Madison last Saturday night, just in time to see the scary people of OKC on the last night of it all. I've never seen so many people smoke with babies in their arms, crazy. Next weekend our friend Lynn is flying in from Houston to enjoy some electricity at our house. Bless her heart she's been without it since the hurricane, but her work has it so she has to go in. Don't wish I lived in Texas right now! We're going up to Stillwater for the OSU/A&M game...Maddie's first football game! And we're camping out, hopefully, on the lake that's actually on OSU's campus. Dumbasses don't take reservations so we'll probably have to pay for Monday thru Saturday even though we're not going until Friday afternoon. At least it's waterfront and from the pictures it doesn't seem to be a red lake. Could have been expert photoshop work, but let's hope not.

Brent is gone again, now he's in Florida. Destin Beach...lucky s.o.b. Lucky for me he's not there to sightsee. He's flying in tonight at 10:30 pm and he's home tomorrow night by 9:30. He's such a dedicated Father. I'll tell you most AE's don't book travel as efficient as he does. However he's gone Monday thru Thursday next week. And he has to fly on a private jet 4x with the company he's going to visit. NOT HAPPY. Do you know he's flying in the same area as the Hendricks jet did? If you're a fan you know what happened to most of Rick Hendrick's family. So, I'll be a nervous wreck for those 4 days. What's new?

Maddie got her 4 month shots today. She is a tough girl, she only cried for 10 seconds. I cried for much longer :) And she's up to 13 lbs, 3 oz, 50th percentile. That's a long way from the 5th percentile she was born!!! And the doc said she can start eating real food anytime I want. How cool. I hear the poopies get 10x worse....ouch.

Not much interesting to report. Although I did get a call from a friend who is taking a job on the east coast. Will miss him and his fam very much, didn't take advantage of the time I could have spent with them. However, I wish them all the very best. If you have the opportunity to live around family jump all over it. Life will take care of you, it always has.

Til next time....holla back.

Life as a working Mom

So, Brent is out of town tonight for his 1st of 5 trips this month. This is his busy month of the quarter, and I'm ok b/c he didn't travel much in August. All I have to do is get through this month and then I have a 4 day weekend in Tulsa camping with Brent, Maddie and our friend Lynn! Not sure where we're camping yet, there's not a lot of lakefront choices. We're also going to the A&M/OSU game, Maddie's first football game!!!

We bought season tickets to the Thunder last night. It's cool b/c we got row 1 (and the only row) in the balcony of section 329. We are seats 1 and 2, so no one is in front of us or behind us, and seats 3 and on can get to their seat from walking behind us. Perfect for taking a 5-8 month old to games. And there's a section right behind us for a small stroller, a family bathroom outside our tunnel and NO steps to our seats. Good thing b/c I'm not that coordinated when it comes to stadium steps! God forbid I drop a baby trying to get up and down steps made for someone 5ft tall.

I went and visited Maddie at her daycare today, it's right behind work. While I thought going to visit on my lunch break was a good idea...it's not. I couldn't stop crying! When I walked in she was in a crib bawling her eyes out. According to DHS rules daycares can't let babies sleep in bouncers or elevated in cribs...both of which Madison does at home. It's going to take awhile for her to get used to it, and I'm not going to be there daily to observe it. It was too much. I called my Dad when I left...Brent was on a plane and my Mom was at her new school getting her classroom ready. I'm taking his advice, he said to let her be at daycare when I'm at work. It will only get harder as she gets older and recognizes when I come and go. Just to hear the stories of him leaving me in daycare growing up. When I was 2 and 3 I wouldn't talk to him the whole way there, or the whole way home. He said it broke his heart. Not looking forward to that! And most would ask...'Cara, why not just stay at home?'. I'm thinking longterm. Brent and I could afford to live off his income, shoot most of America does. But what do I do when Maddie, and the future Cole, go to school for good?? I'd go insane at home, my lil brain couldn't take constant PTA meetings and 'Mother's day out' (that actually sounds painful), God forbid being called a 'Soccer Mom'! So, I'll bite the bullet for now and hope it pays off in the long run.

I'm trying to keep Madison awake right now. She didn't sleep a lot at daycare, for obvious reasons, but I would LOVE for her to sleep through the night. Have you ever tried to keep a sleeping baby awake? Not easy! And I would love to watch Big Brother, only TWO episodes left, but Brent asked me to wait until he gets home. UGH - damn AEs and damn hotels with no DVR.

Life is good, even with it's daily ups and downs.

Sonicville, Oklahoma

Wow, another exciting week in the Thomas house. Yesterday my Nanny texted me at 9am telling me Maddie was gagging on bottles, ok, that's NEVER happened. Then texted that she was running a low grade fever, and then said she vomited all over her kitchen floor. I fretted for 2 hours then finally decided to go home with her. Got home, her temp was 97.5 (what it always is, not sure what was going on at Misty's house) and thought she was ok. I fed her a bottle and not 30 minutes later did I experience projectile vomit in my kitchen (thank goodness it was on the tile!). So, for the rest of the afternoon I laid down with her hoping she would get better. Now I'm filling out her paperwork for daycare on Monday and realized I need a local contact in case of emergency. Here's where Brent and I fall short of having lots of friends. We've isolated ourselves for so long b/c we are refusing to call here home. I trust the Forshays and the Forshays only with my child if I'm not available. Thankfully Chris was ok with that, and I'm sure Emily is too. Ok, onto Sonic-ville....they are building a new fast food restaurant in Mustang. To most towns this wouldn't be a big deal, but for here...I got excited. They didn't put a sign saying what it was in front...something I think should be a law. So, for the last 2 months I've been excited, thinking we were getting a new joint to eat at! As construction progressed I started guessing...maybe it was a Bueno, or a cute burger joint. No, friends, it's not. It's a Sonic and guess what? There's a Sonic right across the street from it. I hate Sonic and only Oklahomans would build a Sonic right across the street from another Sonic!!! So friends and family, welcome to Sonic-ville, Oklahoma. C'mon economy, let's get better and create some decent jobs in N.C!!!! Sonic-ville, it's now Thunder-ville. We don't have thunder here...we have tornadoes, oil and horses. Not sure why they chose Thunder! We go on Monday for a preview of season ticket holders. I think we're going to do it, how exciting! Not sure how it will affect Maddie being out so late, but I'm determined to make her a B-ball fan!!! On a good, closing note...I will soon be an owner of season tickets to the NBA!!!

Labor Day weekend

This is my first holiday weekend with my new fam. It's been pretty chill. We took Maddie out shopping today, went to the Sam's Club in Edmond. It's MUCH nicer than the one in OKC. Although everyone wanted to stop and comment on Maddie. Brent had her in his Baby Bjorn. I know she's cute and all, but why does everyone touch her!??! It drives me crazy. Some lady told me that I was only allowed so many kisses in one day...guess what...ALL of those kisses are mine. Maddie was good, as always, and loved to look around. She's either a genius or just the most aware baby God ever made. Right now she's in her Daddy's lap watching the race. I'll make a sports fan out of her if it kills me! Tomorrow is another chill day. I'm trying to talk Brent into going to the Mustang Co. pool for an hour or so, but he has issues with public pools. I hear the Mustang pool is the nicest one around, so I guess I'll have to use my best sales pitch! We bought Madison her first Halloween costume today, she's going to be a monkey! Mom didn't like it too much, but I do. She looks adorable in it. One week until NFL kickoff!!!! Next weekend should be a blast.

The first 2 weeks of work are finally over...

What a 2 weeks its been. First we had to replace the transmission on my Honda (4 months out of FULL warranty)...my first day back at work. 2nd day we have a rancid smell in the back of the house and THEN Maddie gets her first cold on Wednesday! All is good now. I work with an amazing team and they had my back, although I was super nervous. Maddie is getting bigger every minute of the day. She's finally fitting in 0-3 months size, I NEVER thought I'd see the day. I remember shopping months ago and thinking no baby ever gets that big. Well, my baby did and I'm happy to see her getting chunky. Our Nanny is flaking on us, she was getting taken advantage of by the other family she nannies for, so she's taken a full time job at a daycare while she pursues her Directorship degree so she can open her own daycare. Brent and I are back at sqaure 1, but we'll figure it out. As he always says, things happen for a reason and they always seem to work themselves out. I trust him, he's my rock.

Brent travels every week in September, so I'll have my first overnights with Madison by myself. Every Mom who's married to an AE has to do it, and they do....so I guess I'll be ok. We'll miss his help. Boy, is he help. Ever since I've been back to work he's really stepped up and taken the lead. Bottles get washed, get made, the baby gets fed and dressed....it's amazing, I haven't done a midnight feeding yet! I appreciate it b/c I've been trying to get my head back around work. I tell people I've got training wheels on, and they have to come off eventually. I don't know how much longer the 'I've been gone, can you help me' excuse is going to work!

Thank god the weekend is here. We'll have 'chicken y beer' day tomorrow or Sunday!!!! OUCH!