Last weekend, Garrett and I hopped on a plane and flew to Ohio for a visit with my family.  And with a little help from Mickey, some new books, and lots of snacks, G was a champ!

Every year I try to make a trip up North to check out the leaves, and get my fall Ohio fix.  Our visit was a little earlier this year, so the leaves had just started to change, but we still saw some colors, got fresh apple cider, and enjoyed the cooler temps.

View at Patterson Farms

 We had a super busy weekend (which we always do when we’re in town) and tried to fit in as many visits with family members and friends as possible and I think we did pretty well considering we were only there for 3 days.  G got some QT with Grandpa Paul on Friday while my Mom and I spent some time at the Salon.

Playdate with Grandpa Paul at Uncle Nick’s Shop

Visiting GiGi

Playing the piano with Auntie Manda

Garrett had his first real run-in with a  younger baby(cousin Lauren’s 4.5 month old Nolan) which for the most part he couldn’t have cared less about, but he did become a little bit curious when I was holding him.

Who is this other baby in my Mommy’s lap??

At the pumpkin patch

Practicing his running!

Snapshot with Grandma Pam

We had a clam bake at my parents house on Saturday night and Uncle Randy and Uncle Jace came out, but unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of G with them (Fail)  However, Garrett loved playing outside and running away from Bodie, he was soooo good with him!

Riding on Cousin Bodie

On Sunday we all went to Mass and attempted to make it through breakfast too, but I think the Priest’s homily lasted a bit too long for Garrett.   He had to make an early exit because with the combination of being run around like crazy, and his schedule being thrown off along with 2 molars coming in and a few missed naps he was exhausted.  So back to Grandma and Grandpa’s he went to nap (while I got busy on some delicious pumpkin bars) to take to meet all of my best girlfriends’ baby girls!!

Homemade pumpkin bars with cream cheese swirls

After G woke up from his morning nap we packed up and headed over to my friend Jess’s parents house to see/meet everyone!  Avery and G were a bit outnumbered, but they didn’t seem to mind.  Again, Garrett didn’t really get a chance to interact with the little babies (between nursing sessions and naps we were lucky to get this one picture all together ) but Avery was nice enough to share his toys so he did get to play with him a little bit.

Erica and Lily (7 weeks) Erin and Alisz (7 months) Jess and Elle (11 weeks) Me and G (15 months) Amanda and Annabel (3 weeks) and Wheezy and Avery (Almost 9 Months)

After our visit with my friends we headed out to see Great Grandpa Brunner and Marguerite before grabbing a quick bite to eat and making it to the airport for our flight

My apologies for the blurry iphone picture, I forgot to bring in my good camera and G was about done getting his picture taken. Either way, we captured 4 generations!

We had a late flight on Sunday evening, so I had a feeling that G would have a hard time if I couldn’t get him to sleep before hand, and of course I couldn’t so we had a good 20 minutes of crying before he finally passed out in my arms on the plane.  Thankfully no one said anything mean (at least that I heard) on the flight and he slept for the rest of the way but boy were we happy to see Daddy waiting for us at the airport!!  Traveling with a toddler is stressful enough, but traveling alone with a toddler while 27 weeks pregnant is a whole different ball game!  I was so lucky that Garrett did as well as he did, but I can’t say that I’ll be doing it again in the near future.

Our weekend away was action packed and lots of fun and it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I won’t be back until late winter/early spring with not just one but TWO little ones (definitely driving) but time with family and friends that you don’t get to see very often is priceless…

…and getting to share this smile with the people who you love makes it all worth while.