I thought I would have to teach my daughter about the world; turns out I have to teach the world about her. They see a girl who doesn't speak,
I see a miracle who doesn't need words.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Grandma Hayes

I knew flying out Friday morning was probably going to be a challenge with the weather we had been having (and the fact that it was Friday the 13th!) but I certainly couldn't have anticipated the actual events of the day. We got to the airport at 10:45AM for a 12:18PM flight. The flight was already delayed 30 minutes by the time we got to the airport. For the next hour they transferred us twice to two different planes, only to put us back on our original flight that wound up leaving at 2:50PM. Our connecting flight in Philadelphia was at 4PM and since it was only a 35 minute flight we thought we might still make the connection. That was until there was to much air congestion and we circled the Philly airport for 35 minutes. We landed and, of course, missed our connection. To make a very long day seem short, we were scheduled on two different flights to Albany only to have them delayed, delayed, delayed and ultimately cancelled. The final flight was at 11:40PM, but that flight too was already delayed and they couldn't promise that wouldn't be cancelled too. So we finally opted to take a flight into Syracuse, and Aaron's dad (who had already driven four hours to Albany and drove right through Syracuse!) drove two hours to pick us up in Syracuse. Of course, our luggage never made the airport change, so we had no luggage until Saturday. We wound up getting to our hotel in Albany at a little after one in the morning (we were supposed to be in Albany by 5PM). All I can say is that Zachary was a complete angel and I was so incredibly proud of him - and so very thankful that we opted to leave Alex home.

Saturday afternoon we headed to the nursing home to see Grandma and celebrate her 90th birthday. She looks so good!


Grandma Hayes holding the sign Zachary made for her

Zach singing Happy Birthday to his Great Grandma!

Zach, Ryan and my nephew Jack helping Grandma blow out her candles

Aaron, me, my sister-in-law Liz and my brother-in-law Ryan

The Hayes boys with their Grandmother

My mother-in-law, Joan, taking Grandma and Jack for a ride

Zach and Great Grandma Angie

The Hayes Family

Saying good-bye to Grandma

Her birthday celebration was wonderful. So many people came out to see her and celebrate the special day with her. It was really nice for me to put the faces to a lot of the names I have heard Grandma talk about over the past eleven years. Grandma said she had such a nice day that she now wanted to live to be 100! :)


After the party we headed back to the hotel to change before we left for dinner at Aunt Helen's house. The hotel had a pool, so Zach got to swim for about 30 minutes. My in-laws had gotten us a suite at the hotel and had stocked it full of drinks and all kinds of treats and fruit that we like. I can't tell you what a treat that was, especially arriving at 1AM and being able to have a snack!


We headed to Aunt Helen's house around 6:30 for dinner. Ryan, an amazing chef, didn't want to pay for food to be delivered when he could cook in under 30 minutes what we would have been ordering in. So he and Aaron took over the kitchen and made an awesome Italian feast.


While the girls drank wine and watched!
Angelo helped the boys put together the new toys Aunt Helen got them...not to mention the toys Zach got from Grandma Joan and Grandpa, plus Aunt Liz and Uncle Ryan

And Grandpa had fun playing with the new toys!

Aaron got some fun time with our nephew Jack
And Zach got fun time with his Uncle Ryan

By the time we got back to the hotel it was past 11:00 and Zach was exhausted


Although it was a whirl-wind, we truly enjoyed spending time with all of the family. It's times like that I get sad that we are all so far away from each other. My in-laws and Aunt Helen and Angelo are so wonderful to us and so giving. I hadn't seen my nephew Jack since he was about six months old and I so enjoyed watching him running around talking up a storm while I got to catch up with my sister-in-law Liz.

We had a 7AM flight back home so we were up at 4:30AM. Needless to say we were all in bed very early last night!!

When we got home, Alex was very excited to see us! She was outside with my parents and was all smiles when we got out of the car. When we got inside, it was obvious my parents hadn't had any down time the entire time we were gone. Laundry was done, my bathrooms were scrubbed, the light that has been out in my closet for two months was replaced, my oven (which has been neglected for a very long time) was clean like new, the remote for Alex's stair lift that had been broken for a month was fixed, Fall pansies were planted in the front of the house, my mums had been cut back, there were potted flowers on my porch and dinner was made. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Aaron and I (and the kids) are very, very blessed to have such an amazing family, on both sides!

1 comment:

Sherri said...

1. We too are soooooo glad that you didn't take Alex with you. The whole time we were reading it that is all we thought about, how you would have done it with Alex?
2. I can not believe how big Jack is. I remember babysitting his as a baby. :(
3. You truly are blessed by both sides of your family.