Category: vacations + trips

do babies need vacations? well, maybe from their parents crazy lives. so that’s what we did a few weeks ago. on august 2nd we flew into boston to begin a week of working vacation, before two weeks of real vacation. on saturday the 6th jack got to meet lots of his parent’s friends and some of their kids as well. many thanks to the guiney’s for letting us have the brunch at their arlington home. that afternoon we headed to maine for two weeks at a house we rented on little sebago lake. jack really enjoyed spending time splashing in the lake, hanging out on the beach, being passed around to all his family, and receving lots of presents.

so we finally get to chicago, check in with hertz to pick up our family-friendly subaru forester, yuck, drive to kristie’s apartment in ukrainian village, get key from mailbox, drop off luggage, drive to target, drive back to kristie’s apartment, and take jack for a walk around wicker park. when “the design man” Finally let kristie go home for the day she was greeted with a big smile from jack. good thing because she would be spending the entire next day with him. friday mom and dad spent the day in a meeting with a new client. we told kristie our meeting would get out at 3pm, we finished at 5pm. oh yea, i forgot to mention that kristie had never babysat before this day. no worries, everybody was glad to see that friday come to an end. of course kristie was wiped out from entertaining jack all day long and then we told her we needed to go out to eat right away so we could get jack home by 8pm to get him to bed. she thought she’d get a nap in before dinner. no such luck. the weekend was finally here and we played. lots of walking around the wicker park neighborhood drinking lattés and checking out some cool shops, including quimby’s, one of our favorite independent bookstores. saturday afternoon we finally got to nap, including kristie, she needed it the most. in the evening we went to the white sox game. we got to the game late, but we ended up seeing the best part, if you’re a white sox fan or pulling for the home team. the white sox came back in the bottom of the ninth to when the game on an A.J. Pierzynski home run. sunday morning we had brunch with “auntie” Carol in downtown chicago. and then we were off to the airport to fly back to denver. it was a good first trip for jack. he got to meet two special people in chicago and got some gifts as well. we should be headed back to the windy city in late july so check back for part 3 of the chicago postings.

wow! what a trip to chicago. lots of excitement. jack’s first trip to the windy city started off with a patdown at the denver airport. yes, you read that correctly. both jack and his father were flagged as security risks by the denver authorities. it was probably the last name. it’s always caused some kind of calamity throughout my life and now i’ve passed it on to my son (kelly was smart not to change her name. besides, whenever we travel to boston the name mcmurray has more influence than st.cyr does). anyway, as i was on my way back to the car to get the child car-seat base, apparently you need this even for rental cars, kelly and jack were going through security when they were ask to see the man in the white shirt. Let me tell you, the man in the white shirt who works for TSA looks comforting from the non-risk line, but when you’re ask to see him, there’s a whole other set of thoughts running through your head. like “what did i do?” in jack’s case “what did i do in my diaper?” Since i wasn’t there to witness jack’s patdown you’ll have to wait until kelly posts a comment attached to this entry. if it was anything like my experience it went something like this.

Security Guard: Mr. St.Cyr, please see the gentleman in the white shirt.
Mr. St.Cyr: Thinking to himself. What the hell is going on? I’m just a regular guy with a bag of designer crap, a G4 laptop, an iPod full of bad 80’s music, a book, and a child car-seat base.
Mr. St.Cyr proceeds along the designated roped-off pathway to the high-risk security area. He knows this because of the funny welcome mats with foot shapes on them, the gang of agents in white shirts, and the group of elderly stripping down off in the distance.
High-Risk Security Guard #1: Please place your items in the plastic bins and walk through the high-risk x-ray machine.
High-Risk Security Guard #2: Please step over here. Please raise your arms. Now, I’m just going to give you a soft patdown.
Mr. St.Cyr: Thinking to himself. These High-Risk Security Guards are very polite with all their ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous.’ Hey, look! There’s all my stuff dumped out into the plastic bins.
High-Risk Security Guard #3: Speaking to High-Risk Security Guard #2 in the presence of Mr. St.Cyr. We found this and this. Do we need to fill out a report?
High-Risk Security Guard #2: I’m not sure. Ask High-Risk Security Guard #4.
Mr. St.Cyr: I forgot all about that Xacto knife and the pencil sharpener.
High-Risk Security Guard #2: You have a few options. We can escort you out so you can mail the items to yourself or you can give them to somebody if somebody dropped you off at the airport or we can add them to the George W. Bush Memorial Collection of Terrorist Graphic Design Tools?
Mr. St.Cyr: George can keep them.
High-Risk Security Guard #2: Let me escort you out.
Mr. St.Cyr: Thanks. Thinking to himself. Good thing I had an escort out. All of those velvet ropes were really throwing my sense of direction off.

when i finally caught up to kelly and jack at the gate i heard about jack’s security experience. maybe i’ll change my name to mcmurray.

jackson just returned from his first business trip. the trip was an eight hour journey from denver to durango, colorado. that included a few stops for jack and his parents along the way in what barely pass for towns.

as his parents made a presentation about one of their latest studio projects jack was fawned over by our client and others hosting the event. that was friday. saturday we walked around historic durango in search of penny squishing machines, people watching and drinking coffee. since we spent all day thursday driving to durango and all day sunday driving back to denver we decided our time was best spent just walking around town. of course everbody who noticed jack commented on how cute he is (yes, i put that line in this entry to embarras jack at some point in the future).

saturday night we had thoughts of going to the Gaslight Theater to see Fever Pitch, but by then the movie had ended it’s run. plan B was to purchase a movie, On Golden Pond, which we watched on the computer in the hotel room. we probably could have gone swimming in the pool, but we didn’t bring our bathing suits. besides, the smell of chlorine could have knocked out an elephant let alone two thirtysomethings and a three month old.

last week kelly’s cousin denni came to visit us to meet jack for the first time. as part of her trip she wanted to stay at a dude ranch, so off we went to sedalia to ride horses in the mountains of pike national forest at lost valley ranch. we arrived on tuesday evening just in time for dinner. meat and potatoes. what else would you expect from a dude ranch. there was salad too. when the rangler came around to the table to ask about our level of riding experience denni said she wanted a feisty horse, kelly wanted a half-dead horse, and i wanted a horse with a cool name. denni ended up bruising a knee, kelly’s horse could only walk, and i rode a horse named sparky. sparky? no self-respecting cowboy would ride a horse named sparky. since i’m not a self-respecting cowboy i rode sparky wednesday morning and wasn’t in too much pain to ride him again on thursday morning. the west sure does look different from atop a horse, especially one named sparky. giddy up!!!