Worth it

Yesterday, Sierra and I departed at 11:00am EST for our journey, which ended at midnight (10:00pm MST) ... phew!

First up: 90 minute car ride to the airport (thanks to Daddy/Jason for making the round trip to get us safely there and himself back home).

Step 2: Flight from DC to Dallas. This is not a short flight, though it was made more bearable by the fact that Sierra and I had a entire row of 3 seats to ourselves. Yes! There was a guy sitting there with us, but the flight wasn't full, so he went to sit with his buddy. Probably better because Sierra spent most of the flight squirm and sitting and standing and leaning and rolling and squirming and wiggling and ... well ... you get the idea. She finally fell asleep for about the last 45 minutes (maybe it was closer to an hour?).

Step 3: Three hour lay-over in Dallas. Gah! Three hour lay-over! With a toddler. Oh, wait ... 3.5 hour layover because our flight was delayed. Booooo! We managed though. First we had to walk through the airport then take the people tranporter/train thing to another station, then walk more ... phew! Finally found our gate and went to get something more substantial to than cheddar bunnies and fruit snacks. We sat across from a woman, who (I guess) must have looked similar to my mother because Sierra said "Hi Nana" to her. She confirmed that she was, indeed, a nana and seemed amused with Sierra. Then, when the woman left Sierra called out, "Nana! Nana! NANA!" Funny. Clearly, we need to see Sierra's nanas more frequently!

Step 4: Another long-ish flight from Dallas to Phoenix. But, lightning does strike twice! Again, we had an entire row of seats to ourselves! Sierra slept most of the flight, not surprising since we didn't leave until after 8:00pm "our time."

Step 5: Drive to Monica's place. Not to bad, really, once we figured out how to navigate out of the airport and get on the right road. I was in dire need of a snack by the time we got to Monica's place and got to sample her home-made pizza. Wonderful! Then, to bed!

Not surprisingly, Sierra was up at 5:15am because of the time change (ugh!). I managed to coax her back to sleep by letting her nurse on and off for the next hour, but she finally went back to sleep.

But the long trip, and the crazy first night of sleep was totally worth it to be in Phoenix in January. This is the time to be here; it's lovely. We went to the park today with the girls (Monica has a daughter 11 months younger than Sierra) and Sierra had an awesome time on the slide. I started out going down with her, but she was too quick for me once and went down by herself. She's so little and the slide was steep enough that it just flung her off the bottom onto the ground. The ground is squishy, and though she looked shocked, she got right back up to do it again.

Back at Mark and Monica's, Abbie napped, then we had lunch, then Sierra napped, then Abbie had lunch ... two little ones on different schedules take up a lot of time napping in the afternoon. We managed a quick outing before Abbie's afternoon nap and then Sierra and I played outside while she slept. I went for a run with Mark this evening, which was fantastic. Such a nice change from the 20-30 degree weather I've been running in in Virginia! Probably a good idea to get myself acclimated before my race this weekend anyway.

I think Sierra has already adjusted to the time change because she went to sleep at a "normal" time this evening ... now, if she'll just stay asleep, we'll call it more-than-great day!