JR's World Tour - Last Stop : America!

Home Sweet Home!!!  After almost a year and a half, I finally got to visit my wonderful homeland, the United States of America!  The land of football, tex-mex, cheap and plentiful shopping, ice cold beer, an absurd number of Starbucks, huge roads, english television, and best of all, friends and family.  The trip was a bit last minute.  We thought after our ten day vacation to Greece and Paris, we would come back to Montpellier and relax for a few days before resuming normal work / entertain baby all day life.  But about a week before we left for Greece, we got thrown a curve ball - a long awaited work trip to Houston.  Not exactly the greatest timing, but we had to make it happen.  Work trips are by far the best way for us to visit home.  We are able to be stateside for a week or so, the hotel is taken care of for us, and we don't have to use any vacation days to do it.

Since we were in Paris anyway for vacation, we decided not to bother coming back to Montpellier for only two or three days, and jumped on a plane Wednesday morning to Houston.  The flight time is a little over 9 hours, plus about and hour for boarding and landing - easily the longest plane ride we have ever done with JR.  And let me tell you, it was rough.  JR had been crawling for a couple of weeks, long enough to really get the hang of it, and sitting still was the absolute last thing he wanted to do for 10 hours straight.  Even now, 8 months in, he still continuously on the go
.  Toys are something to be picked up and dragged around, not something to sit and play with.  The flight left at 10:00 AM Paris time.  This means that JR had a full nights rest under his belt and was ready for a busy day of crawling and exploring, but not sleeping.  I think he slept about 2 hours total during the entire flight.  Fortunately, most of the other passengers and crew were very understanding.  Some people even told me horror stories of times they flew with their babies, including one man who said he hid in the bathroom for two hours because his little girl wouldn't stop screaming.  So, I guess it could have been worse.

In the end, we all made it through.  I am also happy to report that the return trip was much easier.  He slept about half of the flight, and was very well behaved during our 11 hour layover.  But back to our time in America... We spent the first two days resting, shopping, and eating.  Priorities, right?  I had a very joyful (maybe even shed a tear or two) morning when Kerry offered to drive the sleeping baby around and drop me off at Target.  All. By. My. Self.  Did you know Target has an entire aisle of diapers???  In France, we have Pampers.  To tell the truth, it was a bit overwhelming, I'm just not used to that kind of selection anymore.  After our two day shopping spree, we packed our suitcases once again and set out on a long, rainy drive to Baton Rouge.

JR finally got to meet all of his aunts, uncles, and cousins:

And we also took him to his first tailgate.

Sadly, we were so busy chatting it up and having a great time that our camera sat on the sidelines most of the weekend.  So I had to steal most of the photos from Facebook (and thanks to all who shared photos!).

After a full weekend, it was back to Houston once again for a week of busy days at work and lots of visiting with family and friends.  For a last minute trip, it all worked out surprisingly great.  We got to see sooo many people and filled our hearts with enough love to get us through the next six months in France.  We spent two days with grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles:

  

And spent many hours shopping the Galleria, swimming, watching American television and filling up on delicious Tex Mex with friends!

It was a successful first trip to the states for our little guy.  We are always so spoiled by everyone when we come to town, it reminds us of everything we have left behind to have our European adventure, and makes us very eager to be back in the middle of all that love.  But until then... it's a good thing we have a fantastic Christmas vacation to look forward to!