Elias with Grandpa Smith
Nathan, Elias, and I recently got back from a family vacation to Indiana. I think I’ll write about our trip in three parts. The first part will be about our reason for going….visiting family. We wanted to visit Nathan’s dad and for Elias to meet his great grandparents. It is nice that Nathan has so much family in one place because we also got to visit with Nathan’s Aunt Barb, Uncle Dave, and cousin Teresa and her family.
Elias actually did pretty well on his first plane trip. He fussed, ate, or slept the whole way there, but mostly just slept. On the way home there were five babies on the flight! Elias slept through take-off and landing, but was awake and happy the rest of the time. Nathan and I are feeling like experienced parents now with a plane flight under our belts. We wonder why we were ever stressed traveling before now. Traveling without babies seems like a breeze.
The four generation nap
We arrived in Chicago, and Nate’s dad met us for a day of fun at the aquarium, then we drove down to Indiana for the rest of the week. Elias got to participate in his first four generation Smith Men Nap. Nathan thought that there was a strong possibility of that happening, and sure enough, it happened only a couple of hours after we arrived for the visit. Here you can see grandpa on the left, great grandpa in the middle, and daddy and Elias on the right.
Elias and Great Grandma
After some wonderful home cooking, Elias got to visit with his great grandma, and enjoyed playing pat-a-cake with Aunt Barb. He also got to try out a jumper for the first time. I don’t think he really ever quite got the hang of it because later when we saw Josiah (Elias’ cousin twice removed or something like that) in it, we realized that Elias was definitely not using it to its fullest potential. He did seem to love it, though, and maybe just needed more practice.
Then on Wednesday, we got to go back and see Uncle Dave as well as Nathan’s cousin, Teresa, and her family. Teresa has six children…so there were a lot of people at the house that day. Elias seemed to do well meeting all of the new people.
Now that we are back, Nathan and I are so glad that we went. Traveling can be difficult, but these are the times we will always treasure. Spending time with Elias’ grandpa, great grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins was a big highlight of our year so far and we hope we’ll see them again soon! I’ll write more about our other Indiana adventures in the next couple of days……
Elias and Aunt Barb playing Pat-a-Cake
Elias and Uncle Dave
The four generations of Smith Men (Awake this time)