eternally chaotic

It only took most of the summer, all of the fall and the early part of winter but we finally made it out to meet the newest member of the family, Hunter Brian Scheckles. Best of all we got to do this over Thanksgiving and were able to see not only Hunter but also Dad and Mom…oh yeah and those other three people as well.  

The trip over from Atlanta to the middle of nowhere was much quicker than expected once we were well out of Atlanta (the leaving Atlanta part took two of the ten hours to travel the required 600 miles).  Carol loaded up my new shiny work laptop as well as our family one (not so shiny or new) and a pile of movies.  She put the movies in and played the sound over the car speakers and until dark I think for the most part I kept my eyes mostly on the road – after dark I am not so sure but we did arrive unscathed.  I did get to see the majority of one of our favorite movies, Phantom of the Opera as well as some of the Love Actually and Avatar.  We had just started National Lampoons Christmas Vacation when we pulled up.

Hunter was adorable to see.  He was still tiny and little but cute and full of coos and slobber.  We got to see him play a bit, mainly by eating his hands or a few different toys, roll over, which we heard was something new, and generally be happy – all the things babies do that are cute…and the absolute best part – well other than getting to see the happiness that Hunter has brought to Brian and Kim –  was being on the visiting end instead of the mommy or daddy end…sorry Sis but it was great to sit back and let you take care of feeding and diapers and all that other “fun” stuff that comes along with the cuteness..especially the morning parts where we got to sleep in…I should stop now while I am ahead.

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Piper received a pair of pink princess roller skates from Aunt Autumn for Christmas.  Today was the day she got to try them out.  She reminded us all day that we “promised” a trip to the park so she could skate like Minnie and Daisy, or at least start to learn.  Along with the skates came knee and elbow pads to help on the falls that were sure to happen.  We picked a park with a flat running track as a good starting place.  The temperature was in the low sixties but very windy – there were two guys on the track playing with very large stunt kites.  We bolted the skates onto Piper’s shoes but left off the pads since she would be holding our hands the first few times, or until she was confident enough to think she didn’t need our hands anymore.

It was interesting to see her reaction, and I wish I would have brought the camera.  Walking in the skates didn’t really pose her much of a problem and she was able to move them around as needed for stepping but as soon as one would start to roll it was splitsville each time.  Since she was holding onto either me or Missy during all this she didn’t fall but certainly would have and I think she realized it as well.  After a few mishaps like this, even though they weren’t too bad she was through.  We coerced her to the grass where she kept walking in them, basically just letting her get used to them on her feet before heading home.  Even a little discouraged she still wants to keep practicing.