The Second Baby Helms: First Road Trip

Aveline made it to North Carolina even earlier than Elsa, at five weeks of age. Elsa was eight weeks, but she also got to stay at a cabin in the mountains and go hiking at Grayson Highlands. This trip was not made for fun and leisure. Unfortunately, we went for Jarrett's grandmother's (on his mother's side) funeral. Grandmom Craven was a sweet, graceful, giving woman. And she will surely be missed. Thankfully we can rest assured that she is now in a much greater place. We look forward to seeing you again one day, Grandmom!

Despite the circumstances, we still had a wonderful time catching up with extended family, including some we had not seen in years. We headed up on Wednesday, meeting my dad at his place of work in Gastonia to drop off Merckx so that he and my mom could watch him while we were in High Point. The drive up was not nearly as excruciating as I feared. I drove the whole way, which meant Jarrett had pacifier duty. He did a fine job, though probably had a nearly dislocated shoulder by the time the six-hour drive came to an end. Really, though, the girls did well, and we reveled in the 15 to 20 minutes of complete peace we had when both of them were asleep.

We were at Jarrett's mom's house for four nights, going out and visiting various other relatives during our stay, including Dad and Susan and Grandmom Helms. Bethany and her fiancee, Rob, were in town, and it was great meeting the boy everyone has been speaking of -- we approve! And Stephen was around quite a bit, so it was great to spend some time with him. Elsa had a grand time running around in the great expanses of land outside, including some time with Jarrett's cousin's (Jason's) kids while they were in town. My brother, Billy, even made it up to visit on Friday afternoon, which was a special treat. Elsa really tried to give him a workout, and even requested he change her diaper at one point. Sadly, he declined.

We visited the local farmer's market (me, for the first time) and another local farm's roadside shop, which had a fantastic selection of organic veggies, fresh baked bread, milk in glass bottles (with even an option for raw milk), eggs, flour and grains, spices, grassfed beef and pastured chicken, and even some gluten-free options! I was quite impressed.

The drive home was not completely horrendous either, though we did have one questionable span of time. It went something like this:

Aveline was crying and Elsa decided to act roughly with the iPad, so I took it away from her. This offense, combined with the emotional trauma of Avie's crying, sent Elsa into the screaming fit. I just stared out the window, attempting to ignore her, and Jarrett followed suit. Until he started laughing. And then I started laughing. Then he said, "If someone would have shown me a video of this prior to making the decision to have kids, I may have decided against it." That prompted me to pull out the small camera and take the above video for prosperity's sake. I better not show it to the girls when they are older or I might not end up with grandchildren in my future.