Easter Trip

For Easter, we headed out to Virginia to see Rachel, the Zook-Barges, and the Gnagey family. Creighton did such a great job traveling...it seems that I stress out about him and worry about how he will do and then he doesn't hardly make a peep the whole trip! We got to Rachel's on Thursday afternoon and took Creighton on a walk by EMU...we passed David's old truck parked along the street- Chad recognized it right away and we later asked Rachel where the guy who she gave his truck to lived..and it was him! We ate supper when Rachel got home from work and after Creight went to bed we played Settlers..I can't remember who won, but I know it was not me! Friday turned out to be an eventful day for Creighton- he started walking! He took his first steps because he wanted to play with Rachel's life sized, realistic looking replica of her Black Lab, Afton. This was so exciting to see! It was also very special because Creighton just loved that dog and it turned out to be very motivating for him to walk to, play with, tackle, etc...!

*We were with Rachel in Baltimore when she bought the dog at a toy store...we had left David for a walk and some lunch downtown and saw this dog on the sidewalk that looked just like Rachel and David's dog Afton...we decided that she HAD to buy the dog...and she did, and the dog sat/laid/stood by David and Rachel's side at the hospital and when David came home. The dog also made the trip back to Ohio with us for David's memorial service and visitation...needless to say, I just loved that Creighton was so excited about the dog!

Rachel and Robyn (her roommate) rent from a family across the road with 3 small children...their mom wasn't feeling well, so the kids came over to play on Friday. We all went for a walk and took the real Afton along. One thing you must know about the neighbors is that they all sound like they live in the deep, deep south. Their accents are just unbelievable! Derek, the oldest loved throwing sticks/limbs into the creek behind Rachel's house for Afton swim and fetch. He told me he "just loved watching Afton swim in the water 'terrible good." We made them a snack and he also loved the grapes "terrible good" :)

Here are some other trip happenings:

Farm animals that Creighton saw/touched/pulled on/laughed at:

cows, pigs, horses, calves, sheep, chickens, roosters, dogs

Farm animals that attacked me:

one mean rooster...literally, flew out of the pen, I got my head down and my shoulder up just in time for him to claw/attack my shoulder/arm and then come back and do it all again

*side note...if you are going to be around roosters:

1. do not show your fear of them-, even if you are deathly afraid of birds...and have just stated this to everyone in the car prior to getting out

2. do not wear puffy vests with fur on the hood...they may think you are a larger version of a rooster...in which case they may want to attack you


New things that Creighton did on the trip:

1. first steps

2. walked across the room

3. mastered "So Big"

4. looked at Chad and said "Da, Da!"

5. looked at Afton out the door and said "hi"...it is up for debate as to if he said "hi" with meaning

6. realized we were sleeping in the same room as him and woke up wanting to play from 12:30-3:00 Fri. night...it actually was really funny/cute...he was working so hard to get us to laugh at him...he pulled out all the tricks (throwing his arms up for us to say "so big" and clap, coughing, so we could cough back, chuckling at himself, etc...until we finally laughed so hard we were crying. We can look back and think this is funny because it was a one time event...the kid sleeps 11+ hours straight every night-if this was occurring on a regular basis, I doubt we would have cracked a smile :)


To wrap things up, the trip was wonderful, we had a great time with Rachel- lots of late night talks, it was fun to see and share meals with other family in VA, and Creighton thoroughly enjoyed himself! Here are some pictures from the trip.