Phoenix 2010 - Olivia's first plane ride and first dip in the pool!

Last week Chad, Olivia and I took a trip to Phoenix to visit his family, as now that she's off oxygen we can actually fly with her finally. She got to meet her Great Gramma for the first time, as well as Chad's Aunt Ann and Gil, and Uncle Don. We also got to see Gramma and Papa, who were there visiting from Pennsylvania. It was so much fun, especially because they had no idea we were coming. Chad did some excellent sleuthing to determine where exactly they were when we arrived in town, and it turns out we surprised Gramma, Papa and Uncle Don in the window treatments aisle at Home Depot...go figure! Needless to say they were shocked and a bit confused, but they quickly moved on to being thrilled, and I think it was approximately 1.3 seconds before Gramma scooped Olivia up and held her for the rest of our time there!

Olivia with Great Gramma

Olivia with Great Aunt Ann

Olivia with Daddy, Gramma and Papa

As for Olivia, she did great! We were so impressed with how well she traveled. I had been pretty worried that her ears might hurt her on the plane (mine sure always do), but she didn't seem to be bothered at all with the pressure changes. That was a relief. And she slept a good portion of both the flight there and the flight back. No horrible traveling with baby stories here! Just one sort of funny story though...On the way back home I took her to the bathroom on the plane to change her diaper, and somehow for a brief second she ended up on the changing table with no diaper underneath her (my mistake). Of course during that brief second she decided to pee all over the place! Her shirt was soaked, as was her back, the changing pad, and even some of her hair! This was a dilemma, as I didn't bring her diaper bag into the bathroom with me--just the bare necessities. I opened up the door to try and flag down a flight attendant to go get Chad for me, but none were around. Fortunately a really nice woman with a little boy waiting to use the bathroom offered to help, so she went to get Chad, who then brought over a clean outfit. After lots of mopping up and changing into a clean onesie, Olivia was a new woman! The best part was that she was smiling throughout the whole ordeal...I think she was pretty pleased with herself! I couldn't help but laugh. :-)

I guess I'm going sort of out of order here since I've already talked about the plane ride home, but while we were in Phoenix, we had a wonderful time. Lots of relaxing and just enjoying family time. I got a couple great spa treatments courtesy of Chad (for Mother's Day), and we had some good outdoors/pool time as well. The hotel grounds were beautiful, so we did lots of walking around exploring with Olivia.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was that we got to take Olivia in the pool for the first time! The first day we tried it she didn't seem too thrilled, but it was overcast so the water was not very warm. The second day the weather was much nicer so we tried again, and this time she seemed much happier. We got her submerged up to about her chest, and she seemed pretty interested--she was even kicking her legs around some underwater! Overall it was a good first introduction to the water. We figured she'd like it based on how much she enjoys splashing around during her baths! On our last night there we just hung out for a long time in this great outdoor area where people can eat, drink and listen to live music. Olivia was in a great mood and was just laughing and smiling the whole time while we relaxed and played with her. It was a perfect way to end our trip!

Chad's "black & white & color" masterpiece of Olivia, lovingly created on his iPhone on the plane ride home!

That's it for our trip, but here are a few more random pics from the last couple months, since I hadn't posted anything in a while!

Olivia's first Easter--doesn't she look beautiful in her frilly dress?

Easter bunny ears, courtesy of Aunt Lisa!

"Eating" her glasses...a favorite pastime when she pulls them down!

Being fawned over by Aunt Lisa, Papi and Honey on Mother's Day weekend...she was hamming it up for them and they were eating it up!

Staring at her awesome new overhead gym that Daddy made for her out of PVC pipe and random toys! (she's also enjoying her favorite toy, her finger, at the same time)