The exciting new adventure for this episode is Half Calf took his first airplane ride. Since our family goals involve a lot of travel, which we will be sharing on this website in the next few years, this is an important “first” for Half Calf.
Daddy was going to Austin Texas for a major letterboxing event, which is one of his hobbies. However it is a hobby in which Momma does not really participate but she had never been to Texas so she wanted to come along too. Daddy was expecting to be at his event from approximately 6am to 12am everyday therefore this is really a post about Momma and Half Calf in Austin. While there, Uncle Hai, Auntie Sa Nhan, Auntie My My and Cousin Blueberry were going to fly in from Atlanta to Austin to meet Half Calf since it is much closer than Anchorage to Atlanta (what is with all these “A” cities?!?).
The trip started off fairly well. We deliberately booked “normal hours” flights unlike the usual overnight ones from Anchorage to Seattle since we thought that would be easier for Half Calf to stay on a somewhat regular schedule. For the first flight from Anchorage to Seattle he did great. He mostly slept and when awake was a generally chill baby with a little nursing and a little talking. After a short layover in Seattle we continued on to round two. It did not go quite as smoothly since he was more awake and therefore more fussy but we again survived (Daddy thinks we did pretty well with some minimal crying and fussing, Momma thinks it was not so great with significant crying and fussing and his skin acting up due to dry cabin air so since we have no consensus, we opted for “survived”).
Finally we arrived in Austin. But instead of heading to our hotel, we spent an hour waiting at the airport. An airport which had no water due to recent flooding having contaminated the water supply. I know, right? Why wait in the airport? Especially when we could not even refill our bottles. And it was late (after 11pm) so nothing was actually open for us to purchase drinks either. Well the reason for waiting was that Auntie My My was flying in from Atlanta at about the same time as us (by design). The problem was that our flight arrived early and hers arrived late so we had more than an hour to kill at the airport instead of the intended 10-15 minutes. Plus we learned while waiting that the shuttle to our hotel only ran until 11pm (it was pushing midnight by the time I called them when I was having trouble locating their shuttle). Umm, that is annoying since the fact there was a shuttle was part of the logic in SELECTING that hotel… so far Austin was trying to ruin our fun with no water, late flights and no shuttle but come on, this is vacation!!! Luckily since we were flying east the wait at the airport was not really all that bad for us since it was not late in OUR time zone. To fix the shuttle-less problem we just had to get an UberXL and pack well since we had three adults, a car seat, a couple suitcases (Half Calf needs a lot of stuff already) as well as backpacks and a stroller. The water had to wait but once we got to the hotel they had bottles at the front desk so we picked a few of those up as well. See, we figured it out. We finally got to the room and met up with Great Aunt Diane and friend Myra, who had also come from Atlanta for the event with Daddy, but they drove instead of flew. So there was a small amount of visiting before calling it a night. We did pack Half Calf’s white noise machine of which Myra was a big fan (in case anyone reading this has her as a Secret Santa or something).
In the morning we noticed after getting Half Calf up that his skin was super dry, super flaky and super red. We assumed it was from the dryness of being on the airplane but since the water was contaminated, we also could not give him a bath until arriving at the AirBnB, which would not be until the following evening!!! We did improvise as best we could with some of the bottled water and the microwave to warm and sterilize in order to be able to wipe him down. After breakfast, the crews started to split up. Due to car logistics, Daddy drove Momma, My My and Half Calf into Austin to drop them off in one of the parks along the water. Their general plan for the day was to wander around and explore then meet up with the rest of the family who were flying in that evening. So I dropped them off close to the famous Congress Street Bridge (where the bats live) and headed back to the hotel to pick up Diane and Myra to drive out of town to check into the AirBnB and then go a few miles from there to our event. Well just before arriving back at the hotel Momma called me and asked if I could drop off Half Calf’s hydrocortisone along with his anti-yeast medication since he now seemed to have a yeast infection around his neck (which has happened before, hence the fact we already had medicine). Stupid airplane rules; we packed most of that stuff in the suitcase just so it didn’t run afoul of TSA. I realize that medical items are generally allowed but since he has lots of lotions and creams and oils as well as medicines, we just kept all of them together and in the late night daze, we forgot to repack things properly. Oops, parenting fail. One of us should have noticed that it was in the wrong bag still.
This is where the story telling gets fun. Daddy is still writing but was not actually with Momma and Half Calf for the next couple days other than late at night. What you are about to read is based on conversations with Momma about what she and her family were doing as well as her proofreading and adding additional information. So for the ease of typing I will still use “I” and “We” even though it isn’t “me”. To be fair, no one TECHNICALLY knows which of us is writing each post since we don’t say anyway. So had I not told you that, you might not even know the difference. But then again, Daddy rambles when he writes and Momma doesn’t so it might have seemed obvious to folks who know both of us pretty well…
After Daddy, Great Aunt Diane and Myra left, My My, Half Calf and I walked along Lady Bird Lake, which is a section of the river in downtown Austin that has been dammed and is a major recreation area in the middle of the city. Since we had most of a day to entertain ourselves we had a picnic in the park and My My and I just spent some quality time catching up with one another; it isn’t always easy when the oldest and youngest sibling are trying to find common ground but I think My My reminds me a lot of myself so it works well for us. We walked until we were hungry and as often happens when any of the Le siblings are traveling, we went to have some (as it turned out, subpar) phở at a restaurant walking distance from the river. Then we just hung out in the park, had a picnic and caught up on each other’s lives. We actually had a really good time since. When the rest of the family’s flight arrived and travel logistics were sorted out, we met up with them for dinner. Finally Half Calf got to meet his other cousin, Blueberry (we met Cousin Parker in a previous Project). Well technically he also got to meet Uncle Hai and Auntie Sa Nhan too I suppose. Of course the dining choice was another Vietnamese restaurant because we can never have enough of them. Unfortunately this place was not even Anchorage good other than their fried rice. A short explanation: “Anchorage Good” is a term we use in Alaska to describe restaurants that are some of the best tasting locally but would be, at best, middle of the road quality in the Lower 48. At least Cousin Blueberry was hungry so he ate a lot. We then drove out of town to the AirBnB and gave Half Calf his long awaited bath. It was his first time in a full sized bath tub and he really enjoyed it. This one was even a fancy claw footed tub.
The adventures of the next day were more of the same. We all took the car back into Austin intending to spend the day along Lady Bird Lake again. It was nice to just wander around and spend time along the water and in the grass with the warm sun. For lunch we ended up going to a Food Truck Taste-off event which was perfect for us since we all like to eat. However we were also too cheap to purchase the $40 pass to sample all the vendors, plus we were saving our stomachs for hot pot dinner. So instead we got a general pass and purchased some tacos, hot dogs and other Tex Mex food to hold us over until dinner. We walked along the river some more, but the sun was out and it was hot so the adults were concerned about the children so didn’t do a lot of exploring. We have no problem taking Half Calf out for hours at a time in Alaska but 80 degrees seems more dangerous for him. For dinner we had Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot, probably the best hot pot any of us ever remember having. Finally, something not subpar or just Anchorage Good!!! After a nice day in town we drove back out to the AirBnB and played some games before going to bed.
On Sunday we really took it easy. In the morning we mostly hung around the house and then met some friends of Auntie Sa Nhan for lunch for Texas Barbecue. Then we went looking for a Boba Tea shop and once we got there, we were told that they couldn’t make it due to the water ban. Since we were in the Asian district we went to another shop and they were able to get us our milk tea. They told us they had boiled their water first and since none of us got sick, we assumed that was true (and didn’t ask a lot of questions). We also bought some food to take back to the AirBnB for dinner. Unfortunately we picked what turned out to be probably the worst fried rice any of us have ever tasted. Daddy and friends also came home from their event earlier than expected so we spent a couple hours visiting and playing cards before bedtime.
After a couple days in Texas, it was time to head back home. We actually had a really early flight back to Anchorage, leaving at 6am, so had to get up super early and head to the airport. On the flight home Half Calf got his wings. It never occurred to us to ask on the flights south but luckily one of the flight attendants offered them to him on the flights north. And on the first leg of the journey back home he mostly slept again. What was amusing for us was at about the halfway point of the flight we went to the bathroom at the back to change Half Calf. Then the drink cart came out and they seemed to have zero interest in us going back to our seats. So we honestly spent about thirty minutes hanging out by ourselves at the back of the plane waiting for them to move. We used the changing table as a play table. We used the jump seats when we felt like sitting down. We played with Half Calf. The only problem with our little escape was that we could not get anything to drink since there were no people and no carts back there!!! On the final flight back to Anchorage it seemed that Half Calf finally had enough. Again, Daddy didn’t think he was horrible (but it was definitely the worst of the flights) while Momma thought all the people sitting nearby hated us. He actually was fussy enough that multiple people took him to try and get him to calm down. All we know is one lady took him, walked down the aisle and came back fifteen minutes later with a sleeping baby. We have no idea of her secret powers but would have loved to learn them.
So all in all this was a “hang out with the family trip” for the most part. Not a lot of Austin was seen by Momma and Half Calf and pretty much none of Austin was seen by Daddy (since his event was about 40 miles out of town). But it was a successful trip which was what mattered. Half Calf traveled on the airplane, got his wings (hopefully the first of many) and we successfully navigated the first experience of traveling with a child. Thanks for joining us on this journey.
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My husband would kill whatever Secret Santa got me the white noise machine. Also, I can’t believe I never got a picture of myself with Half Calf!
I do like these updated. They’re fun. I also miss babies.
I think I’m stealing your term, “Anchorage Good.”