It was a long day of travel, but we made it to Salt Lake City, Utah for a much needed vacation! We left our house at 3:45 on Thursday, June 19th in a car service, headed to JFK airport. It took us almost 2 hours to get there because of traffic (it's only 34 miles)! It's a good think we allowed plenty of time, since our flight didn't leave until 7:10 PM. Reagan slept in the car on the way to the airport, but it was a relatively short nap for her. We were hoping that she'd be tired enough to fall asleep on the plane.
Here's Reagan on her seat before we even left the gate ... she curled up in the blanket to lay down. After we left the gate, we sat on the runway for a while, since we were departing from Delta's International terminal and there were many flights that had to take off before us. We had 3 first class seats, so Reagan and John sat next to each other, and I sat across the aisle with Avery. This turned out to be a disaster ... when Reagan started getting tired, she wanted to sit with me. If we'd been in coach, sitting together, it probably would have worked out a lot better. We did learn a valuable lesson about flying with a 2-year-old: fly during the day and don't expect her to sleep on a plane! Reagan never ended up sleeping. As we were making the initial descent into Salt Lake (still about a 1/2 hour from landing), we told her she had to put her seat belt on and she completely freaked out. She was SOOOOO incredibly exhausted at that point that she screamed as loud as she could! John and I just sunk down into our seats ... it was horrible! Of course, everyone was asleep and I think she woke up the entire plane! For those of you who have traveled with small children, I'm sure you'll understand the stress it can cause ... and for those of you who have cursed screaming children and their parents, try to be understanding next time you fly!
Isn't this a cute picture of Reagan asleep on John's shoulder?
Avery and her cousin Samantha had fun watching the girls play dress-ups. Samantha (08-29-07) is just over 9 weeks older than Avery (11-02-07). This was the first time we had met Samantha, which is pretty sad since she's almost 10 months old! They are just about the exact same size, between 19 and 20 pounds. Samantha is Makenna's little sister, both daughters of my younger sister Camille.
Here's Samantha and Avery in the Pack-n-Play. Aren't they adorable together??
Blake was having a birthday party the next day, so they had borrowed this blow-up waterslide/pool for the party and figured we'd try it out. As you can see by the pictures, the kids had a great time!
Here's Camille's husband Brett with Avery , then Avery and me.
As the sun went down and the pool part was in the shade, Reagan started getting pretty cold. The pool was filled up just before we arrived with water from the hose, so it was freezing cold! I couldn't even bare to have my feet in it. In the above pictures, Reagan's lips were blue!
Here's my dad Rod and my mom Michelle and Avery
Just before dinner time ... Brett, Rod, Michelle, Samantha, Doug at the grill, Alyssa, Camille and Benee 
The kids table: Reagan, Blake, Alyssa and Makenna
So ... I took the above picture of Alyssa, Makenna and Reagan swinging. Then I was watching the screen saver on my parent's computer and I noticed the following picture:
I took this picture one year ago when we were here visiting for our annual Moon Lake trip! I just thought it was pretty funny that the 3 girls were in the exact same spots and I took almost an identical picture without even knowing.
for Blake's birthday party. My mom has always been a very talented cake decorator. She's now made it a tradition to make a cake for each grandchild's birthday. When she was in NJ for Reagan's 2nd birthday, she made her an Elmo cake. One year she made Alyssa a dinosaur and she's done plenty of princess/barbie cakes.
Avery and her great-grandparents
Here's where they presented the flag to Frances, Jack's wife. Frances has been through more than anyone should have to go through in the last four months. My Grandma Great was her mother who died in February. Then in April, Fran lost her sister Ethel. In May, her 43 year old daughter Karen died suddenly of a very aggressive form of lung cancer. Now it's June and she just lost her husband Jack. I honestly don't know how a person can suffer so much loss, especially in such a short amount of time. She's lost the 4 people closest to her, her mother, her sister, her daughter and her husband, all in 4 months. To top it all off, Fran has cancer and has been undergoing chemo-therapy. She's lost a ton of weight and we have no idea how long she'll be able to fight off the cancer. My heart goes out to her, as well as my grandmother Betty, who also lost her mother, her sister, her niece and her brother-in-law.
My father spoke at the service and so did this 19-year-old boy named Brady. Brady was Jack's grandson. His mom was Karen who died last month of lung cancer. This poor boy just lost his great-grandmother, his mother, and now his grandfather to whom he was extremely close. He's been incredibly strong throughout these major trials and I admire the way he's handled it all.
