Bethany is Home... :) :) :)

My little sister, Bethany, has been in St. Petersburg, Russia for a little over 4 months, teaching English to children. She flew out of Utah in January, and then was arriving in Utah after the trip. So my mom and I were going to drive up there to get her and bring her back home to CA. But that ended up being a lot more money than we'd planned on (rental car, gas, hotel, food, etc.) and it ended up being a lot cheaper for me to fly up there, and then fly back with her. But of course I wasn't going to just fly there and back, so I decided to make a mini vacation out of it :)

This was Connor's very first plane ride, and I was REALLY nervous about how he'd be. Now that he walks, he NEVER sits still. He's always on the move! So I brought a million snacks and new toys and even a travel DVD player. He probably ended up using/needing only about 10% of what I brought, lol. But that's ok... better safe than sorry.

Here he is, while we were waiting to board the plane...

Here he's watching the planes...

And we finally boarded the plane... waiting to take off...

and here he is, about 30 seconds before take off...

He ended up sleeping through the first flight, and stayed asleep getting off the plane, walking to our next plane (we had a layover in Phoenix, AZ) and stayed alseep until about 10 minutes before we boarded our second plane. During the second flight, he was VERY good too. He sat on my lap and only tried to get down once, but was very easily disracted with snacks! :)

While we were there, we stayed with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. The last time that Connor saw them, he was only 2.5 months old. So he was basically meeting them all over again. We had lots of fun while visiting with them. Connor LOVED playing in their front and back yards, and had a blast playing "fetch" with Abbey :)

They put the balls that he was chasing after on his shoulders to make him look like a football player :)

Connor with his great-aunt Kim (my mom's sister)

While I was there, we had a little photo shoot with Valerie and Abbey. I tried to get a picture of them with Connor. He wasn't cooperating very well, as always...

Connor loved his great-uncle Rick... almost as much as Rick loved Connor!! :)

playing in the dirt and woodchips were Connor's favorite things to do...

After our visit with relatives, we were able to visit with a family who I love and adore!! The Tolen's used to live in Glendora (where I grew up) and I babysat for them all the time. They moved away about 10 years ago (5 years in Illinois and 5 years in Utah). The last time I saw them, Connor was only 8 days old. So it was fun to catch up, and I wish we could have visited longer!!

Here's Connor and Joey...

For some reason, EVERYONE thought that Connor needed junk food while on vacation. Every time I turned around, someone was giving him something sugary!

He had Moon Pies, donuts, marshmallows, and chocolate(pictured below)...

Connor had SO much fun playing with Izzy and Joey!!!

Joey was taking pictures of Connor with his Nintendo DSi

(Heather told me that the next day, after we left... Joey was looking at his photos of Connor on his DSi and kept asking when we were going to come back. :)

Izzy was SOOOO good with Connor. She even gave him a bath for me after dinner, because he was VERY dirty after playing outside and also from food all over him!

It's crazy to think that I have known Izzy since she was Connor's age and I was about her age! I used to change her diapers and now she's changing my son's diapers. Weird!!!

After Heather dropped us off at the airport, we had about a 30 minute wait for Bethany.

Here is a VERY tired Connor at 12:30am...

And then he got bored...

so he entertained himself with making phone calls....

and trying out all the airport chairs...

And then Bethany arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(after a VERY long and annoying trip, for both Beth and me! First off... she was supposed to arrive at 10:30pm. After literally 20 time changes, she ended up arriving at 1:00am. And the poor girl was already exhaused with almost 40 hours of traveling and layovers! And after she arrived, we still had to wait at the airport for another 6 hours before our plane took off back to CA!!!)

Connor was a little upset with her. He hasn't forgiven her yet for leaving him for 4 months!!!

She's laughing... he's not! :)

I had such a fun time with family and friends, and can't wait to visit again!!