In the Zone

Greetings from flat, humid Maryland. We took off yesterday morning, flying over the beautiful Rocky Mountains then landed with a quite beautiful view of the Chesapeake Bay as we circled the airport. Fun to see God's creation in two totally different ways.

Colorado was awesome. We spent the first few days down in Denver spending lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa Ritsema, visiting Great-Grandma Miedema and Great-Grandma and Grandpa Ritsema, playing with the Duntsch Bunch (cousins Makenna and Levi and Uncle Matt and Aunt Emily), and spending a wonderful afternoon with long time friends. It's always hard to find enough time to see everyone while we are there so we use every spare minute to socialize.

My cousin, Rachel got married in Estes Park so we took a sojourn up to the mountains for the weekend and stayed a few days before coming back down to the city. Our family has a house up in Grand Lake so we always go there whenever we head for the hills but Estes Park was beautiful! We haven't been there in so long and I forgot how amazing it is. The wedding was outdoors and perfect...they'll have incredible pictures!

Then we did the whole airport thing again yesterday and flew home. Ben really was a trooper for the whole trip. He was lugged around all over from place to place and really did quite well. Even the airplane trip yesterday was relatively smooth. The man we were sitting next to has a 6,4,2 and 10 month old at home so he said his ears were immune to any fussing Ben might have done. It also helped that there were two young kids sitting directly behind us, a crying baby two rows up and a cranky toddler to our left. Unlike the flight out to Denver, Ben wasn't the only youngin on board.

I would like to propose a motion.....that mothers of children under the age of 1 do not need to participate in either Daylight Savings or time changes across the country. Forget Eastern time, Mountain time, Pacific time.....it should all be one time for those with babies......"Scheduled time" is what we'll call it. Who cares if it's still light outside...that's what dark sheets are for. Who cares if it's dark outside already? Two words for you.....Thomas Edison. Time change sucks when you're living with a baby. Poor Ben really only slept about 45 minutes yesterday so I did nighttime routine at around 6:15ish which is earlier than normal but he was so tired. He got a bath, we read a book, he ate and promptly fell asleep. Too bad his body had adjusted to mountain time and it felt like 4:15. About an hour later I hear "meh meh meh meh" coming from the monitor and I walk in to find him sitting up in his crib ripping the animals (velcro) off his mobile. He looked at me as if to say "Nap time over!! Play time!!!" Nope Ben.....it's bedtime out East. Playtime in the West=bedtime in the East. Needless to say...it took a while to get him back to sleep. We hoped that since he thought it was too early to go to bed he would sleep until normal time mountain time as well which would have meant not waking up until 8:30 or 9 this morning. Of course not...up at 6 like normal.

More pictures from Denver to come (by the way Mom and Dad....can you email me a few?? ) :)