keelyblog

Last week there were several days in a row of absolutely gorgeous weather! Better than I have ever seen the weather here! Temperatures were higher than 85 degrees! Yippee! Then Friday, a week ago today, the clouds returned. Lucky for us, the kids and I already had tickets to fly out Saturday morning to Denver! The flight out went smoothly. When we first go into the plane, T wanted to watch the videos in the seat like we had on our Virgin America trip from San Francisco to Seattle. I had to explain that the videos in the seat were not available on this airplane. After getting T buckled in, I took M to the potty and then buckled us in. M made it the whole flight without a diaper on! Yay! When we landed and went to the potty, I didn’t pull down his pants far enough and he REALLY had to go! He over-shot the toilet and his pants got peed on. The only thing I had in the carry-on bags was T’s dirty pj pants she wore to the airport. So M had to make it to the baggage claim in Strawberry Shortcake pants that kept sliding off his skinny butt! LOL

Maya picked us up and luckily knew how to work T’s new travel booster seat we had shipped to Denver. M’s seat installed quickly and we were on our way! Into the bright, bright, sunshine! We hung out with Maya’s family a bit, then checked into the hotel. The room was gigantic! Bigger than the 1-bed/1-bath apartment I lived in when I met my husband!
Here are some pictures:

Look at this full kitchen!!!
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The bedroom
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The living room. Behind those sliding glass doors is a 4ftX10ft balcony! The kids had a great time all weekend running in and out of the suite onto the balcony. The only thing this hotel didn’t have is free breakfast. So we did end up ordering some room service that first afternoon. Kids were hungry and I was too tired to move!

The whole weekend was pretty great. We went to a street fair and parks, restaurants and groceries. The last few times I’ve seen Maya it has been in Austin and she had a super busy schedule. This trip to Denver, we just got to hang out and watch the kids play together. Really great!

We tried to put the Radian rear-facing in her car. Despite getting it tight enough to be considered legal, we couldn’t get it as tight as I like child seats to be :( The back of her back seat is not quite touching the seat part. When I got back to the hotel, I looked at several seats online. Especially their bases. The ‘99 Forester really needed the childseat base to not touch the seat back. For this to happen, the childseat front has to be inches in front of the base. Having the childseat front and the base about even makes installing easier in any other car I’ve dealt with. Not so the ‘99 Forester. The only seat I could find that would have this weird base-seat dissonance and use of the tether rear-facing was the Britax. I am generally not a fan of Britax, but obviously there is a purpose for them. After looking through all the info on all the modals, we agreed that the new Roundabout 50 would fit Maya’s needs both size-wise and cost-wise. It is about the same overall size as a Marathon, but has a 15lb lower weight limit and an additional 1/4″ of shoulder height capability. I have never met a kid that has exceeded the weight limit before the shoulder-height limit. Because of the lower weight-limit, this seat is $60-$140 less expensive than the 65lb weight-limit Britaxes. Maya was obviously pleased with this! I just wish I could be there to help them install it. :( I feel a bit like crossing over to the “dark side” by recommending a Britax. However, I rest well thinking of how much tighter the seat will be in Maya’s car and therefore making her little one safer :)

The flight back to Seattle went equally as smoothly as the one out to Denver. This time, T reminded me how this plane did not have the video in the seat! LOL There were several loud and cranky kids on that flight, but mine where quiet. M woke up just as we were landing, but stayed quiet at first. Then, just as another kid finally stopped screaming, M called out, “BBBOOOOOOOBBBBBB!!!” in his loudest and whiniest voice! I couldn’t help but laugh.

Speaking of boob, it is bedtime now. I have 1 more blog post I hope to get out tonight, but it will have to wait.