Preparing for the Holidays

It is mid-December and we're just days away from traveling back East for the Holidays. We're flying out on the red-eye on December 19. We'll be in Ohio for one day, then it's off to Pittsburgh to catch a train to Richmond, VA. We'll be in Richmond until the 26th, then it's back to Ohio via Amtrak. Finally, we'll be flying home on the 31st.

Traveling with a two (nearly three) year old may or may not be tiresome. Andrew has done well on previous long flights and I'm hoping this will be no different. The first is a red-eye, so I expect he'll sleep through it - I wish I could say the same for myself. The second is a short hop from Detroit to Pittsburgh, so I don't expect any problems. A bigger concern is the fourteen hour train rides that follow the flights. Andrew is a train fanatic - I wonder where he got that from? We've taken him to Seattle and back twice on the Seattle Sounder; once on the special Mariner's train and once on the special Seahawk's train. Then for Thanksgiving, we rode the train to my brother's house and back. Of the six trips, he slept through only one. The other five, he had his face to the glass watching switches and 'ding-dings' (crossing gates) go by or he wandered up and down the aisle, gleefully making the sliding doors open and close. Luckily, our holiday train trip has stops in Philadelphia and Washington, DC, so we will have a chance to get off the train for a bit.

Before we go, I have a few items to take care of. Last weekend, we went to Flower World and shot some family photos for our annual holiday card. I created the card and copied it to a memory card, but I still need to make some prints and get them in the mail! Click the image below to see the Web Album.

Christmas 2006

I also need to put the finishing touches on my Summer 2006 DVD project. I completed it last weekend, but the quality was not up to my standards so I'm reworking it with an older version of my editing software. Then there's all the packing that needs to be done. How many sweaters, jeans, shirts, etc. does one need to take for 11 days? I always seem to take too much stuff. Mom says we're going tubing at Seven Springs, so we already shipped a box with our boots, coats, gloves, etc. a couple days ago. No sense carrying all that extra weight through the airports.