A Dada and his Boys

In fairness, since I did a post for my weekend alone with the boys, I owe Thomas a shout out for handling part of a weekend on his own, too.

Last week I was in Amelia Island, Florida for a work conference. Yes, yes, I know it sounds amazing and beautiful, and it was, but alas, I was working, and our schedule was full so I literally did not step foot on the beach and didn't see the pool other than a view from my hotel room balcony/sliding door. Womp womp. 

So anyway, I was doing some of this:

Eating lunch at T Ray's with my dad, Phyllis and Jerry
on the afternoon before the conference started that evening.
Phyllis and Jerry live in Fernandina Beach, right next to Amelia.

Setting up our booth for the Solution Fair

Checking out this beautiful sunrise from my hotel room,
and yes, this is basically the only sun I saw all week.

Taking pics with a Jack Sparrow lookalike at an evening event
*he's a REALLY good impersonator, no???

And then....some of this.

I was supposed to get home around 8 pm on Friday evening. We had it all worked out that Thomas would really only have the boys on his own for a few hours after school on Friday since MaSha was going to help him throughout the week whenever she was available. So on Friday evening, Thomas was going to feed them dinner, get them bathed, and then they were all going to come and pick me up from the airport. I was so looking forward to having this welcome committee to meet me at baggage claim. But alas, it was not in the cards this time. Delta had what was essentially an epic meltdown at the main hub in Atlanta. I'm not totally sure about the reason, but I think it had something to do with weather related issues from earlier in the week and trying to sort through all the delays, stranded passengers, missed connections and so on. Anyway, I knew it wasn't a good sign that every flight to and from Atlanta, where I was supposed to connect, was getting cancelled or delayed, delayed, delayed. I ended up not making it out of Jacksonville on Friday, so I went back and stayed at my dad's house (and had a nice evening with a steak dinner and went to the movie theater with my dad to see The Zookeeper's Wife - very good). I was up and at 'em again early Saturday morning to get on a flight but continued not making the confirmed list, since I was flying standby, waited through multiple delays, hearing that cancellations were not being rebooked until Monday or Tuesday, due to the backlog of stuck travelers - yeah, not a great sign - I ended up getting my checked luggage pulled and I rented a car and drove home from Jacksonville. I didn't get home until 8:30 pm on Saturday night, more than 24 hours after my original arrival plans. That meant that Thomas was on  his own for pretty much the whole day on Saturday. And guess what! He owned it. People are amazed when they ask me who is taking care of my kids while I'm gone and I respond that it's my husband. He's awesome.

Thomas got to go to Doughnuts with Dads
at Ryan's school on Friday morning

This pic was sent in a text that said:
"patiently waiting for Mama to get home" :)

Hanging out in the backyard while Dada got
some yard work done

I still got a welcoming committee to meet me at the airport, but instead of hopping off a plane and straight into hugs, they met me near the rental car return area after a long, exhausting day on the road driving up I-95. 

The boys were well taken care of and Thomas was a rock star to not bat an eye when my travel plans got derailed. I missed everyone so much and was so disappointed when I didn't make it home on Friday. I knew they were in great hands and our reunion was even sweeter on Saturday night with an extra day of missing each other on our hearts. 

Traveling is pretty much a bummer, with the exception of fun vacations, but I'm glad that Thomas and I have worked it out pretty well to back each other up to make it work when needed.