Summer Underway!

Returning back to a full time career with an infant has its challenges. But I love my little (okay not so little) family. We prevail and can pull through most anything. Our most recent accomplishment: our first road trip of the summer!

Each year my work has a national week long summit, but this year, due to funding not all of us were slatted to go. I was one of the ones who initially was not funded. I was elated (but I tried not to let it show)!!

Needless to say, they found money for us to get to the meeting, but by that time there were no rooms left in the hotel. I was told I only had to be at a four-hour mandatory meeting. Fine I thought - I will fly in at 6am and fly home at 9pm. I wouldn't need a hotel room. It will be a long day, but when isn't it? I will be home for the baby that night.

Another very short plan for when I got on the next teleconference I was told there would be another meeting, time and date still to be determined, that I would need to attend sometime during the week. My heart sank. I quickly looked at how to fly with baby Yair and find a day care service that could watch him during the day at a different hotel from the one where my meetings were being held. The logistics started to become overwhelming. I wanted just to stick my head in the sand. I came home from work that day nearly in tears.

As a strong woman, I can usually handle situations like this without it be the end of the world, but today was not one of those days. Then my dear husband, a true knight in shining armor, proclaimed that he would pack up the whole family and they would come with me - ROAD TRIP! Dallas here we come!

In no way did that eliminate the logistics, it simply changed them, but it seemed so much more doable since we were doing it together. The details all fell into place beautifully - we even got to share a most beautiful Shabbat with our dear friends from Alaska who now live in Austin. The kids were able to kick off the summer with a solid 4 hours of swimming in an outdoor pool (something not yet possible in Kansas City). We sampled every kosher restaurant in Dallas and even got to feed the giraffes at the Zoo.

So in the end, my week-long meeting was a blessing in disguise. We got to start our summer several weeks earlier than we would have. Next, I will project movies on the side of the house for our first "drive-in" of the summer.

...and maybe, just maybe, I will get some pictures posted.