The Longest Day, pt II - Time Change Boogaloo

So, I know I just invited a bunch of people, so I should just tell everyone that you should START FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. Seriously, if you just start reading from this post, it will be all out of order. I'm not being bossy, but this will mess up the story for everyone except my mother, who reads the newspaper from the last page of a section forward, which has never made sense to me. Ever. It's the weirdest thing she does and is much, much weirder than my weirdest thing, which is not letting different foods touch each other on my plate. Which, honestly, is the ONLY way to do things. Dad says that it all gets mixed together in your stomach anyway but I don't have tastebuds there.

This is beside the point. We're in Vancouver. After leaving the house at 7am, a long wait at the Atlanta airport because we were absurdly early, a four hour flight to Salt Lake City, a short layover and a two hour flight to Vancouver, and a SUV ride to the condo, we arrived at the condo, a scant 13 hours later.

On the flight to Salt Lake City, I had my Miss Misery moment twice. Once with Hughston, who had a Buzz Lightyear action figure, two matchbox cars (Lightning McQueen and one he calls Dynaco) and a large plush Diego all in his little fat hands. He kept dropping them, which led to a wail of horror from him, which led to me going hunting for them in the space between our seats in economy on Delta, which is like the space between two of the huge 20 ton stones in the pyramids, which according to everything I've ever read, is a marvel because you can't get a playing card between them. Anyway, economy class doesn't have much legroom, seriously. All of this dropping led to me issuing the following edict to Hughston - "YOU CAN HAVE ONE TOY. ONE!" This edict was issued in the vocal equivalent to all caps, complete with me holding up one finger. ONE! Hughston also enjoyed kicking the chair of the person in front of him. I don't think the man in front of Hughston enjoyed his nap because of this. Sorry, man in front of Hughston.

My second moment was with Shelton, who, every 45 seconds, would slam closed her tray table to dig something else out of her backpack, which required my assistance, which required my shutting my book and putting up my tray table. After an hour of this, I issued my second edict, which was "ANGEL (I called her angel with my words, buy not with my tone), I WILL GET YOU ONE MORE THING, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET ANYTHING ELSE FOR 30 MINUTES."

Sometimes, being a parent means setting arbitrary time frames. Being logical sometimes goes out the window when you're 6"5" and crammed into the space of a phonebooth with two children, aged 7 and 3.

Did I mention that Jennifer sat across the aisle and was no help? To be honest, she offered to switch places with me, but I preferred the martyrdom. Besides, on the second flight I sat with Hughston who slept preciously, and Jen sat with Shelton 10 rows back. Shelton steadfastly refused to watch a movie, instead preferring to talk the entire time. Jen seemed to enjoy this.

I read a biography of Keith Moon. I seemed to enjoy this.

Anyway, we like our condo.


This is the master bedroom.



This is the den/family room/common area. The HSBC building is our constant companion, and, come Monday, the people at work will be able to see us hanging out on the balconies. Naked Tuesdays, a family tradition in Roswell, will have to be adjusted.



We have some really nice views. This is actually the view from Shelton's room. It stays light here until...well, I don't know exactly. We went to bed at about 10pm, and it was still light outside. It was also light when Hughston woke me up at 5:30am. Maybe it's always light here. I have no proof otherwise.

NEXT POST: Jen turns 36 and it's our first full day in Vancouver, so of course we turn our kids over to a complete stranger!

Summer Solstice - THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR

Our flight to Salt Lake City (first leg) left the Atlanta airport at 10:55am, so we had a car service scheduled to come pick us up at 7:00am because I am OCD about being early to the airport.

Jen and I awoke at 5:30. That's AM. We had packed the previous night, ensuring that each of the five bags that we were checking weighed just under 50 pounds, lest the airlines take one of our precious offspring in return for overweight baggage. If you're keeping score at home, and I assume you are, we have 5 bags to be checked, two car seats, my computer bag, Jen's carry-on, Jen's purse, and Shelton's backpack. All in all, well over 250 pounds of stuff that we are schlepping almost 3000 miles. I don't know what that is in kilometers, but I guess I should found out because, you know, METRIC SYSTEM!

I wish I had taken a picture of all the stuff we had.

The alarm went off at 5:30am. Jen informed me that she had been up until 2:30am paying bills and watching TV and piddling around. June 20, 2008, the day I take two kids, nearly everything we own, and a sleep deprived zombie to a semi-foreign country.

June 21st is Jen's birthday. By traveling to Vancouver, she gets an extra 3 hours to be 35!

It was at the airport that I finally decided to start taking pictures. That way, my wordiness can be broken up every now and then with some images, which will also give me something else to talk about. Anyway, AIRPORT!


The Boo wanted to wear his new Buzz Lightyear and Woody shirt for the third straight day, but the Atlanta airpost is very clear when it comes to traveling with hazardous materials. So, we negotiated him down to his Superman pajama top. We got about 100 "Hi, Superman!" comments. Hughston has taken to responding with "I'm Superman. I come in peace."

This is sometimes true and sometimes not.



This picture is taken approximately 8 seconds later, when I was informed that there would be no more pictures. This picture is taken about 1 second before Superman's peaceful intentions are cast to the wind, his fury sparked by the flash of the camera, defying his ban on photography. That isn't common red-eye from the flash, it's Superboo charging his heat vision.


Shelton actually does come in peace. Her only demands are pizza and M&Ms.

Next post: We get there!