From Aiden's Point of View

This morning on the drive into work, I asked Aiden if he had a good weekend.  We did a ton of Christmas related things so I was interested to see what the highlights of the weekend were to him.  From the mouth of babes:

Setting up our Christmas tree and decorations

Trimming the tree

Tree trimming audience

Aiden's favorite: St. Nicholas Square Coffee Shop

Aiden's first Advent calendar

Dickinson Festival of Lights

My co-workers' kids and Aiden thoroughly enjoyed the lights and cookie decorating.

Playing at the beach after taking our Christmas photos

Playing in the cold water.

Texas Snow Angels

Setting up the new Christmas train

Travis got a late-90's Lionel Train from his mom and Rich.

Mommy's favorite: Enjoying evening life in the warm glow of our Christmas tree

Bottle fed and ready for bed.

Aiden's Current Obsession: Trains

Sunday afternoon, we took a break from the wall to go see the Galveston Railroad Museum. They closed down after the hurricane to make repairs and only opened back up a few months ago. My dad went a couple times before the hurricane and he really wanted to take Aiden because of his current obsession with trains. I would really like to go back for the Harborside Train ride. They have this mini-version of a train that can drive on the road. It was in the 4th of July parade we saw last weekend. Aiden would LOVE it. I would also like to go back when we have more time. We only spent an hour there, but there was so much more to look at!

Inside the terminal, there are a bunch of life-size statues of people. They are all white, which gives a ghostly aura to the giant room.

Then there are the trains...

Aiden ran frantically from train to train. He was so excited he wanted to see all of them at once! We would be standing in one train and he would stick his head out the window and point to another train he wanted to go see. I'm not sure if he grasped the concept that we were actually INSIDE the trains he so badly wanted to see. Either way, he loved it. He seemed more interested in the steam engines than the passenger cars.

They have trains from many eras, so there is a lot to see. Some of them are like monstrous pieces of metal art and others would be at home in a Steven King movie.

"Allllll aboard!!!"

This crane car was built somewhere around 1914 if I recall correctly. I can't imagine living in a time when it was normal to work on a train like this. There are so many places to get injured that it gives me hives thinking about people being anywhere near these machines while they are running. I suppose thats the worrywort mom coming out in me.

This car was really cool. There were cloth seats below and giant pull-down half-circle beds above. It was probably a luxury in it's day.

This next one smelled like rotton green olives and belonged in a Steven King movie.

Best Sunday Ever

I have been so tired. I can't really remember not being tired. I've been trying to figure out why and I've decided it's because I don't sleep well. I was talking to my dad about this problem while I was sick and he recommended taking NyQuil to help me get some rest that might help me recover quicker. The thought of taking a drug that would knock me out gave me anxiety. Travis doesn't wake up for anything. He doesn't wake up for Aiden screaming, he doesn't wake up with me pushing him, he doesn't wake up with his own alarm! His alarm wakes me up, then I wake him up.

Because of that I am convinced that if there is a fire, or something wrong with Aiden, or someone breaking into our house, it will be up to me to wake up Travis and to take care of the situation. I finally broke down this weekend and asked Travis if he would let me have drugged sleep once a month so I can catch up a little. So now, every fourth weekend, I am going to take a Benadryl before I go to bed on Saturday night and Travis is going to get up with Aiden in the morning.

We gave this a try for the first time this past Saturday and it was A-MA-ZING. I set my alarm for 9 am (I didn't want to sleep the day away), popped one Benadryl, threw on a sleep mask (GREAT recommendation Alexa!) and laid back to enjoy the ride. Usually I get up at 6:45 with Aiden. On Sunday, I woke up at 8:30 to Aiden talking in his bedroom. I decided that I felt rested enough that I would just get up with him and let Travis sleep in longer. Sleeping in until 8:30 meant almost two extra hours of sleep and I was happy with that.

I rolled over to make sure Travis wasn't getting up and HE WASN'T THERE. Travis got out of bed and I DIDN'T WAKE UP. We got lucky and Travis was up going to the bathroom when he heard Aiden talking, so he didn't have to worry about Aiden not being able to wake him up. I was a little disoriented when I realized Travis wasn't even in bed. I can't tell you the last time he moved in bed without my knowledge.

I decided I would just lay back and wait out my 9 o'clock alarm. At 8:45, I was awake, but was still feeling the relaxing effects of the Benadryl so I turned off the alarm and just laid there, staring out the window. I finally rolled out of bed at 9:05. NINE OH FIVE. Ugh, it was sweet bliss!

I got dressed, went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and do the morning deed before heading out to the living room where Travis and Aiden were watching Thomas the Train (worst children's show ever, but Aiden LOVES trains). I took Travis' spot on the couch and he ran to McDonald's to grab breakfast for us. It was such a lazy thing to do, but I just happened to be feeling lazy. Actually, lazy isn't the word for it. I was rested and relaxed. Not tired, just relaxed. Not stressing about what the next step in our day was, not rushing around packing bags to go somewhere. Just sitting and enjoying it.

We ate breakfast at the kitchen table, then headed outside to enjoy the cool weather. Travis quickly got to work on the patio. Aiden followed him around with his Home Depot tool belt and tools from Blair's birthday party this year.

I was looking back through my posts and I've come to the conclusion that Travis started digging the trench for the drainage system that will divert water away from our usable yard on April 23rd. Three weeks later and the patio is complete!

After the patio was dusted with sand and watered, Travis grabbed a beer and collapsed on the ground. We let Aiden cool off by playing with the water hose.

Now all we need is the privacy wall to block us from the street view. I realized Sunday evening that we will still be able to enjoy the patio without the wall because we can watch Aiden can playing on the concrete drive while we sit in the shade of the patio.

We christened the new patio with a grilled dinner of Buffalo wings, pasta salad and melon. Aiden was a bit cranky by this point because he refuses to nap these days, but we still enjoyed our meal. I think we both will appreciate not having to walk around the fence to get to the patio. Also, it will be nice to leave our patio furniture out there all the time instead of packing it back in the garage at the end of the day.

I felt like we've been working on the yard renovations for months. Years maybe. I am so grateful to have Stage 2 done. (Stage 1: Drainage system. Stage 2: Patio. Stage 3: Stucco wall.) But, I think Stage 3 will be the most stressful. There are so many decisions to be made about the foundation and the inner make-up of the wall. If we make the wrong decision, the wall might sink and/or crack.

My dad emailed me the post layout yesterday, but I think we'll take a few days off before we get started on that. I need to take advantage of all that rest I got Saturday night!

The rest of the weekend

Aiden screamed for the first 10 minutes on the drive home from Gatti Town. The last part of our drive was scream-free, since he fell asleep. In the car! Isn't it amazing?

We let Aiden sleep right up until it was time to leave for dinner. We attempted to go to a BBQ place that they said was amazing, called Salt Lick. Turns out, that place is hoppin' on a Saturday night. There was a two hour wait. Just looking at that parking lot, I cannot believe that the wait was only two hours. There was a constant steady stream of cars pulling into what seemed an endless parking lot. It was so thick with cars that cops were directing traffic.

The restaurant looked really cute. It's in the middle of nowhere, so the surrounding area is beautiful and green. They had a band playing and it's BYOB. If we didn't have cranky kids in tow, we probably would have stuck around for the wait.

Since we DID have cranky children (and by this point, cranky Nikki), we headed back towards Sara and JR's house. We tried another BBQ place (our mouths were watering for BBQ after the aroma from Salt Lick reached our cars), but they were packed for Crawfish Night. We finally found a place a couple blocks away that looked like a giant warehouse. There was only one table of people when we walked in the doors. I've decided that these hole-in-the-wall places can be the most gratifying.

We pushed a bunch of tables together so we were seated like you did in the cafeteria in grade school. The food was awesome, and this was another BYOB place, so we popped open a bottle of wine and the guys cracked open a beer.

I INHALED my chipped beef sandwich. After trying Travis' brisket, I was bummed I hadn't gotten that. I didn't grow up around brisket, so I always forget it exists. Aiden happily ate away on the other side of Travis, over by Logan and his cousin Isaiah. We went outside when a train went by, since Aiden's current obsession appears to be trains and large trucks.

After dinner, we all went back to Sara and JR's for a game of Apples to Apples. We had 11 people playing. I'm pretty sure that's a record for largest group for me to play with. We still had a great time.

Travis, Carol (JR's mom), JR, Wheldon and Casey (Sara's parents)

Kyle (Vanessa's date), Vanessa (Sara's sister), Isabella, Sara and Brittany (JR's sister)

The only person not shown is Sara's other sister Randi Beth because she left the party early. The next morning, they made us breakfast and we hung around drinking coffee. Aiden got up at his normal 7 o'clock, so I was pretty exhausted by this point. We stayed up late every night, got up early and had full and active days. I was WORN out. This was the first time that it was just Logan, Landry and Aiden, so it was cute to watch them interact. Aiden followed Logan around, examining all his big boy toys. Landry and Aiden played with some foam letters together and then we let them run around outside for a bit. Of course, Aiden's ears seem to be tuned in for trains these days, so he loved it when a train went by somewhere in the distance.

For his birthday, Logan got a new bicycle with training wheels. Aiden really loved this bike, but he was entirely too small for it, so we had to help him on and off.

We had the car loaded and were on the road at 11 that morning. We had seen a Steak 'n Shake the previous day. That restaurant was all over the place when we lived in Illinois, but we have never seen one in Texas. Since it was lunch time, we decided to make the short detour north to eat there. It was interesting to see the slightly different menu, although the staples were still there. They offered a Guacamole Burger and a Chipotle Burger. Both of which are not available in Illinois. Travis got the Chipotle Burger and I got the Frisco Melt. We had enough food to just share with Aiden.

Of course, we both got shakes for the road. It was amazing. I was STUFFED. Actually, writing about this is making me hungry. Travis drove halfway home, while Aiden slept. I drove the last half, after Aiden woke up. Aiden was ready to be out of that car, so the last 30 minutes were pretty stressful for me.

It was good to be home after such a busy weekend. But it was worth it!

Freight Train

The house I grew up in had train tracks that ran through the backyard. As a parent, the thought of that stresses me out to no end. Apparently my parents were numbed to the idea since they moved in before I was born. I'm sure it helped that they taught us to respect the trains.

When Ariel and I were little, we used to run into the backyard when a train stormed through and scream at the top of our lungs. The rumble of the train would drown out our screams and it was exhilarating. No one ever told us to be quiet when we screamed as a train passed. We could be as loud as we wanted without any consequences. If we were feeling extra zealous, we would run to the edge of the hill that the tracks stood on and make a motion with our hand like you do to make a semi driver honk his horn. Most of the time, the train honked back. Excellent memory.

I like to think Aiden's getting a little taste of that every time I vacuum.

Vacuum Fun from Nicolette Ward on Vimeo.