The Merrills: November 2011

I snapped this while walking back up to Adelai and Jason, I found it so sweet...

Well, as I predicted, school and life has gotten in the way of updating. I apologize...but tis life!

So, here is the beginning of a series of posts about our wonderful vacation!

Jason, Addie, my Mom, and I left Wichita Falls on Sunday, September 18, 2011 to head to Plano to stay with Tori, Colin and Brendan before we headed out on vacation. After two days of pure madness in preparation, where murphy's law hit the Merrills in every conceivable way. First, I ordered a new golf travel bag from Amazon with two-day shipping. Come the Friday before we were to leave, it still had not shipped. Yet Amazon in its infinite wisdom would not let me cancel said golf bag order, so it arrived a week after we even left. (Let's just say that it was returned with a strongly worded letter...) Then we found a golf travel bag in Wichita Falls, got it home and it was covered in MOLD! Seriously. So after taking it back and having to get the display model, as it was the only one left..we were finally set. Or so I thought, as a storm rolled in Saturday night, which caused a leak in our dining room. Water was everywhere...only to us folks, I tell ya. Only to us.

Anyway!!! We just happen to be visiting on Colin's birthday! So the 7 of us, naturally, had to celebrate Colin's birthday! We wound up going to Top Golf in Allen, and we had a blast. This place is possibly the coolest golf driving range ever, it is hard to explain it, but needless to say we enjoyed ourselves. And Colin had a wonderful birthday!

Tori, Brendan, Addie and Mom hanging out at Top Golf

On Monday morning, after a night of not sleeping due to a) Addie sleeping in Brendan's crib and Sly (their cat) constantly threatening to hop in the crib with her, b) excitement over Addie's first big trip and c) fear of missing our plane, we finally somehow managed to make it to Dallas Love Field. Where all insanity set in.

Imagine me and Jason with Addie in hand trying to carry two large suitcases, her carseat, a small suitcase, a golf bag, a diaper bag, and a backpack with both of our laptops (as I am in school right now and Jason is in over his head in fantasy football). We did not really think it through and thought Colin could just drop us off curbside. Yeah, that did not work at all. Colin had to park and helped us get checked in...thank God!

Getting through security with a baby was not as bad as I expected. We got sent to the front of the line, and everyone was so helpful. Except TSA decided to open Addie's bottles of breastmilk and proceed to spill some on their table. I found this kinda funny, but the TSA lady was pretty grossed out. It is what she gets for opening it...

One thing that was pretty fun was strolling through the airport keeping Addie entertained. She was pretty happy watching everything. And it was pretty awesome having everyone comment on how cute she is. Something I know, but is still fun to hear everyone say it repeatedly.

Addie was not even bothered by the airplane. As soon as we took off she passed out. I was worried she wouldn't sleep on the second leg from Houston to Charleston, but she did:

Addie is a fan of Southwest Airlines and their free baggage allowance!
It puts her at ease and allows her to relax while flying!

We landed in Charleston and took off to see the sights! Our wonderful friends the Broussards were stationed at Charleston AFB, and were incredibly jealous we were visiting. But Dallas was kind enough to recommend some good eats and fun places to visit! I am in love with Charleston and it would be wonderful if we could be stationed there someday--I doubt it will happen, but I totally get why Dallas wants to live there forever and ever amen.

Now for some pictures of Charleston to conclude this post about Charleston!