Logan and I are on Vacation! I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a trip that wasn’t to visit family in ill health (Alfred) or since Logan’s been born one that involved doing things she and I wanted to on our own time frame. But this year it occurred to me that if I wanted her to grow up knowing her cousins and nearly-cousins out here in the mid west, where they’ve conveniently congregated, I needed to do something about it.

So here we are. I don’t have the pictures to put up yet, but we go Greta, Logan, Ryan (one every six months) then a break, then Wolf and my house fire the same night, then a shorter break, then Devlin. Dev is now two and a bit, and Greta eight and a bit. They all played at the MO Botanical Garden yesterday and had a great time. I haven’t gotten all the adults I came to see in the same place at once, but they are meeting in bits and pieces, and that works well enough.

Aunt Jane and Uncle Cary picked us up at the airport Wednesday, and helped us get through the saga of a lost carry on suitcase and booster seat. They’d turned out to not fit well on the first, very small airplane, and then, even though they were gate checked, we were never permitted to retrieve them. I’ll be checking them for the way home all the way through, or beating people with my cane along the way. Possibly both for good measure. The booster seat has never reappeared, but the suit case surfaced by Friday, after much worrying about the teddy bear in it and rough sleep at night. United sounded very helpful on the phone, but was very slow. I’ll be writing them a letter when I’m home. Logan is happy with her new booster — United didn’t replace it. We did. They told me they’d send $50 travel vouchers, but those haven’t come either. (they said they’d send them by email.)

Jane and Cary facilitated all that at any rate, and got us fed, before taking us to their place to decompress a little, and then out to Alan and Pegs where we’re staying. I slept two or three hours the night before, and a little on the plane, so I was in a daze, and seem to have lost my time sense completely for the trip. It actually makes it a nice trip. Things happen and I go along with them The schedule isn’t too important.

Logan took a day to settle in, and we were both tired Thursday, so we stayed closer to home for that day. Friday we met Erin and went to a Children’s Museum in St Louis called the Magic House. Greta had school that day, but the other four kids ran wild and had a ball. The museum has three floors with different activities and things aimed at different interest and abilitiy levels at each. We probably spent the longest on the first floor, where there was an interactive play area. Logan spent a while checking out purchases in a grocery store. Everyone dropped fish in the water and followed them along a stream covered by a glass sidewalk, in order to fish them out at the other end. There was a mail box, constantly being filled with plastic ice cream cones — I didn’t figure that one out. I sat on a bench and called United about the suitcase in that area. There were also big climb in, up, and around areas. Some were aimed at smaller children, but signs said siblings were permitted, so with Dev and Wolf, Ryan and Logan passed. Three mom’s and four kids worked fairly well, and we just kept counting heads.

It’s time for me to wake Logan up, so I’ll have to write more about other things in another post. Vacations should be longer than this. I’m coasting along doing nothing but fun stuff, and not driving! And seeing all the folks I haven’t seen in five or ten years to boot. Having visited out her in 1990, give or take, it’s like being back home again, except this time there are even more familiar faces. And kids too.

Filed under: life, family