I survived my first solo trip with baby!

I hope your weekend is off to a great start!

Max and I just returned from a quick trip to Ohio to visit my mom and sister.  After he rocked the socks off our flights to and from Arizona, I figured I could handle a short hour-long flight to Ohio by myself with my little ginger nugget.  

He did OK on these flights.  It was my fault that the flight out was rough.  That morning, Max went from his crib to his high chair to his car seat to the stroller to the plane with no chance to crawl around and get his wiggles out.  No wonder he was restless.  Lesson learned.

We had a lovely time in Ohio.  We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and my good friend and bridesmaid Amanda (who I haven't seen since my wedding!) picked Max and I up at the airport in Columbus and took us back to her adorable house for lunch and to meet her sweet new bundle, Baby S.  Then my aunt came to pick Max and I up and took us to my Mom's house in Cincinnati.  Max and I enjoyed a couple of hours of downtime before Grandma and Auntie got home from work and loved all over him.

On Wednesday, Max, my sister, and I did some Target shopping and dodged some rain drops while my mom was at work (the weather was so icky while we were there.  Humid and stormy pretty much every day).  Then we headed downtown for Opening Night for the Cincinnati Reds.  Unfortunately, a storm rolled through right at game time and the game was delayed for 2 hours.  So we went to dinner and then headed back to my mom's to watch the game on TV (the Reds won in extra innings, but the game ended at 1 AM!).

This is Max's new favorite face to make.  He was hammin' it up at dinner.

On Thursday, Max, my sis, and I did some more errand running and went to lunch with my mom after visiting her at work.  Then Max and I had dinner with my friends Laura and Matt and their two cutie boys (Laura was also one of my bridesmaids).  Matt made a scrumptious Mexican meal for us, and Max had so much fun playing with their little guys in their cute house.  It was adorable!

On Friday, Max, my sis, and I had lunch with our two aunts and enjoyed some chocolate-dipped ice cream cones from Dairy Queen (my mom's Easter Bunny got us DQ gift cards!).  Max did some awesome napping (he also slept through the night 3 of the 4 nights we were there!) and studied up on his baseball nouns.

Then we went to the Reds game that night.  It was FINALLY a day without rain/thunderstorms and turned out to be beautiful!  My dear friend Becky, her husband, Tyler, and their little cutie Ryan (who is just 3 weeks younger than Max) joined us for Ryan's first Reds game!  The Reds pulled out another win for us, too!

So glad they could join us!  Love these guys!

My sister and I got to spend National Siblings Day together, too!

Best sissy ever!

Joey Votto hit 2 homeruns!

Todd Frazier is such a cool guy...always thinking of the fans!

He looks so devious here!

Max is now called "Cheeseball" and "Cheese-face" because all he does is cheese it up these days.  Exhibit A.

Besties after the game/before the fireworks

Max passed out in the middle of the post-game fireworks.  Then he woke up when we got out of the ballpark.  Because...why wouldn't he???

My mama took Max and I to the airport this morning and now we're back with Daddy/Victor.  It was a great trip, but it's good to be home.

Excited to get home to Daddy!

Window seats are the best.

I didn't have many pictures from this trip to share with you all because I didn't take many.  In fact, at least half of the photos in this post were taken by my sister, which she later texted to me.  At first I was a little sad that I didn't take more pictures, but then I thought about what I was doing instead of taking photos: I was enjoying my time with my family and experiencing it all firsthand instead of from behind my phone.  I'm finding that I'm doing that a lot more lately, and I don't think it's a bad thing.  Sometimes is better to just live in the moment.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!