Hipster Jack says

I only drink half the water I sip.  Reduce and re-use, man.

PS I'm uploading phone photos taken on my surprise trip to the Junc.  Check out my flickr account later.  Hopefully I'll find time tomorrow to do a recap and share the vids I also posted on youtube. --Rachel

Things I learned about travelling with a baby

• Take the time to count your daily diaper usage for a few days before your trip.  We could have halved the number of diapers we took.
• Apparently the TSA has to check one of each KIND of baby food puree you bring through.  Our DIA guy was nice and told us he would check only one out of three kinds (Beechnut jars, Gerber tubs, and an individual applesauce cup). We also could have checked all but one jar for the flight, but we were keeping the food together.
• If you are lucky enough to get a seat for your baby, use it with the carseat facing forward.  We did rear-facing on the way out.  Although it was nice to have Jack facing me, his car seat was very upright and we were still restricting the chair in front of him.  On the way home we put it front facing.  He had a lot of room to recline and no one in front or behind him was restricted.  With the cramped upright seat to Boston he slept 45 minutes, with lots of head lolling and furrowed brows.  With the reclined seat to Denver he slept 2.5 hours with that blissful pale baby face.  
• We need to teach Jack to drink with a straw.  That's how restaurants serve him water, and it would be so much neater than his sip and spit method from a cup.
• When you have two sleep sacks and one has been used for a week and one has been freshly laundered, take the dirty one.  We took the clean one.  Not sure if it would have made a big difference, but he was pretty freaked out about the strange room and strange crib.  A familiar scent on his blanket could have been soothing.
• We need to teach Jack to leave place mats and plates alone.  We cleared his table space like we do at home when we ate out.  It's works, but I felt embarrassed for the mess he leaves on the table. 
• Umbrella strollers rock for travel.

Happy to be home

And thus ends our epic adventure. Home safe and sound, jack did even better on this flight, slept 2.5 hours of it. We had our usual conversation on I70, professing my love for Colorado while cursing DIA. Chipotle, a lonely cat, and a giant pile of laundry await me. So TTFN!

Last leg of our journey

Please sleep until Kansas.

Shadow friends

Take the train

Apparently you can't walk directly tithe science museum. You can walk in a giant 45 minute loop though.

Cannoli

A snack on the north end, from a shop with a cat.

On the trail

Walking on the freedom trail to the science museum.

Already pushing jacks naps back

Walked to the public gardens this morning. The lake was drained! Boo, I wanted to see the swan boats.

10 months old

Oh right, Jack is ten months old now! fancy photos to come after the travel (maybe).

Out on the town

Cheesecake factory

On to session 2

Inspiring talks so far.

Hotels have cartoons on cable

Drums

This adorable band of boys led us to the exhibition. Wish I could have stayed for the show but I want to see my own boys!

Made it!

Whew! The Boston airport is so close to everything, I made it to the opening session even. Our hotel is beautiful, they even got us a crib! Glory be! Ben took jack to cate and trevors house to (hopefully) nap while I'm here. Then I'll brave mass transit alone to meet them for dinner. What a day!

Bird in an airport

Dia is so hipster ;-)

Ps we landed safe and sound. Jack was a handful but fairly quiet. Can't imagine doing this with a generally fussy kid.

Ready for take-off

Getting the wiggled out before our flight.

A text from Ben while at work

"he made his first fort." Love it. He's total boy.

One more to tide you over

Since I won't be posting much video this next week.