During the week of Valentine’s Day, Ava and my mom and I flew to Colorado Springs to visit my sister, Christina, and her house full of boyness. (Jon had to be in Wendover for a conference during the same time so he didn’t get too lonely.) It also happened to be Christina’s birthday while we were there.
Ava generally enjoyed the flight over, except for the part where the doors were shut and the plane was aloft. She kept crying and saying “Out” and pointing for the door. I’m sure it didn’t help that we were on a commuter jet, making things feel even more enclosed, and also the fact that it was past her bedtime. Heck, we survived, and without the bonus of rotten tomato smears from other passengers. The flight back actually went much more smoothly, probably owing to the fact that she was able to sit in her own seat and put M&Ms in the little cup thingy on the tray table.
Anyway, I think Ava and I single handedly managed to throw the Gleason household into even MORE chaos during our stay. Clayton (age 4-nearly 5) is such a sweet boy and absolutely adores Ava. He calls her his little A-V-A. He always wanted to play with her and could hardly resist constantly hugging her, much to Ava’s chagrin. In this era of her life, Little Ava’s personality contains a chunk that inexplicably causes her to run and scream at the approach of any other child, regardless of whether that child is ignoring her or smothering her with affection. I have seen her delightedly run up to gigantic furry dogs and then come screaming back to me when she realizes that the dog is accompanying another kid on his walk. Seriously, Ava. Her reaction to her other cousin, Samuel (age 18 months), was similar. Sammy could really care less about playing with her, but they are close enough in age that they like the same toys. Ava never gets aggressive, takes toys from others, or pushes kids away; she just grips her toy with desperation and runs in terror. So you can imagine the scene every time Sammy showed his cute smiling face.
However, once the kids were adequately corralled, we adults managed to enjoy each other’s company. We made an aborted trip to Outback Steakhouse for Christina’s birthday dinner; I’m sure we made the other diners’ experience more authentic to the Australian outback than they would have preferred. But hey, we tried, and the meat was just as tasty back at the Gleason kitchen table. We all exchanged Valentine’s gifts and had a blast doorbell ditching each other. We had lunch out one day and Clayton, Ava, and Grandma painted some lovely garden rocks.
The weather was nice enough one afternoon that we even made a trip to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The highlight of this zoo is the giraffe habitat, where an elevated boardwalk allows you to wander through at giraffe eye level. The kids had a blast feeding them crackers, never mind their long purple tongues. We counted at least 15 giraffes, including several babies. There was also a budgie display, meerkats, tigers, and Ava took her first ride on a merry-go-round.
So all in all, really a great trip for us, thanks to Christina and Ross for being so accommodating and just so friggin’ awesome.
As tradition holds, everyone in the family gathers for an afternoon at String Lake. We eat lunch, paddle in the canoes, catch frogs, and jump off rocks. I bought Ava a little blowup floatie shaped like a spaceship and was rewarded with a big, beautiful perma-grin on her shining face. But mostly she just loves to throw rocks in the water and wade around in her Tevas so I’ve learned that toys are just baggage when there’s splashing to be done. We took our turn in the Keowee and Ava even let Jon paddle for a bit.
Erin was dressed as the unstoppable Harry Potter and Jeffrey was the Mario half of the Mario Brothers. He even had these great white gloves which unfortunately didn't make it into the picture.
I know that Dad and Sallie have many happy years ahead. You guys can get married any day, just so I can have more of these....
