Stuck in the sun

If you're going to be stranded, I guess there are worse places to be stuck. We've been stuck in Puerto Rico.

Rewind to December 31 - Jared closed his last deal of the year qualifying us for his company's incentive trip set to depart on January 8. Nothing like having one week notice for a vacation. This is actually the third year in a row that we've had the last minute deal closing qualification and we'd always known it would be a possibility but Jared was a little doubtful this year so we weren't exactly prepared. Thank goodness we have ready and willing babysitters a.k.a. Honey and Grandy and we were able to get a sitter lined up for Roons and Kitty so we could avoid boarding them (if you live in San Antonio, I highly recommend Animal Staycations).

However, we had a few challenges facing us. #1 - I'm still breastfeeding Harper. We had a stock of frozen milk so Harps would be fine while we were gone but I had to do quick research on trying to avoid dumping 5 days of "liquid gold". #2 - We hadn't put together our wills since Harper was born. This was one of those details that had been on my to-do list since August 4 but kept getting pushed to the side. Not to mention that Jared had a conference in New Jersey the whole week before we left and wasn't getting home until 6:45pm on Friday before a 6:30am flight on Saturday. #3 - The thought of putting my ghostly pale, post-baby body in a bathing suit made me want to blow chunks. I think I'd rather lick a splintered wooden spoon.

And so the scramble began. Breast milk plan: Take electric pump, hand pump, parts, cooler, storage bags, ice packs, arrange for a refrigerator in the hotel room and pray that we didn't get the extreme TSA Agent while trying to fly home hoarding liquids. Will plan: Contact our attorney Bob Werner to get all of the details sorted out. Side note, Bob is wonderful and came to us at 8pm on Friday night with his wife and daughter in tow to serve as our witnesses. Now how's that for service! Bathing suit plan: Begin immediate, hardcore workout for five days but something that can be done with baby in tow as husband will be traveling for the full week. Breakout the self-tanning lotion, hope it looks natural as opposed to orange and be prepared to smell like burnt crackers for the week due to the lotion. Begin the hunt for the miracle suit that will hide all baby caused imperfections including but not limited to soft and squishy stomach, flabby thighs, puckered and cellulite ridden backside and breasts that, due to pumping, will vary in size through out the course of one day. Hmmm, perhaps I should consider a full body suit.

The plan was laid out, we got all of the details sorted out and we were set to go. Jared and I spent Friday night at my parents house with Harps since we had to leave so early on Saturday morning. I think our little Harvard bound baby knew we were about to abandon her for the first time so she decided to wake up every hour that night needing a personal pacifier replacement. Nothing like getting on a plane at 6:30am after a night of no sleep!

Leaving was a little hard since this was my first trip away from the girl but we got upgraded to First Class on both flights (thank you Delta Medallion Status) and off we went - San Antonio to Atlanta, Atlanta to San Juan. A long flight means in-flight movies - fantastic! Our in-flight movie? Life As We Know It with Kathrine Hiegel and Josh Dummel. The problem? The plot is about a couple that dies leaving their baby girl to be raised by their friends. Awesome. So we just signed our last will and testament 12 hours earlier and this is the movie we get??? Is that a sick joke?

We made it safely to Puerto Rico and the fun in the sun began. Wyndham always does a nice trip for the development team with great dinners and activities. Jared played golf and won the tournament and the long drive competition, I visited the spa and had a long overdue pedicure, we each had a massage, went on the catamaran snorkeling trip, spent time playing in the ocean and sitting poolside and beachside catching some rays. Meanwhile, the great freeze of 2011 was hitting stateside as we caught glimpses on the news. Mom and Steve were having fun with the girl and she did pretty good while we were away, apart from not letting them have a good, full night worth of sleep. They kept us up to date with picture texts so we could keep up with the Squirrel throughout the day. Here are a few of my favorites. Uncle Brentie, fresh off his trip to Indonesia, came to see her for a visit. I'll see if I can get Honey to give a blog post about Harper's vacation...but first, I think she deserves about three days worth of solid sleep!









































On Monday night, it hit both Jared and me. We missed Harper and were ready to see her. Okay, two more days and we'll be home Wednesday afternoon. Little did we know, Atlanta (our connecting city) was iced over, flights were being cancelled all across the country and we were about to be stuck. We got word on Tuesday that both of our flights were cancelled and we were rescheduled for Thursday's flights. We checked the other airlines to see about flying through one of the few un-iced over cities but would have paid $2000 for the flights - um, don't think we have an spare $2k lying around to burn. Normally being stuck in a tropical location in January would have been ideal but not so much on our first trip away from the Squirrel.

So 24 hours to kill and we made the executive decision to spend the day in Old San Juan doing a little shopping and keeping ourselves busy to pass the time. We had our first dinner date with just the two of us since Harp's has been home and called it an early night. We might or might not have looked through our phones throughout the day for peeks at Harper pictures.

This morning came early with a 4:45am wake up call to get to the airport (that's 2:45am San Antonio time) but we are now on the plane (thank you again Delta for the First Class upgrade) headed home with a quick flight change in Atlanta. We are ready to cover our little girl in kisses. Like I told Jared this morning, I take it as a good thing that we're anxious to be home and see our girl instead of preferring the childless life in PR!

And for those that were wondering, the breast milk was a complete non-issue. I breezed through security, no questions asked with 6 days worth of liquid gold in my possession. Funny enough, Mr. Platinum Medallion got stopped instead of me with my overabundance of liquid! We only have the above iPhone photo for now but I'll try to get the few camera pictures we took downloaded and posted to share so as to illicit feelings of jealousy for all that were caught in the cold :)