The Lil' Traveller

It has been an incredibly busy week since the last blog entry. Eli explored San Juan with his grandparents, while Shelby and I organized and participated in a scientific conference. We all stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, a very fancy hotel distinguished by its terrific pool/beach and its unbelievably expensive drinks. Eli got to dip his feet in the pool and play a little bit in the sand. Shelby and I also had a few opportunities to escape from the meeting and play in the ocean. The night of Eli and Shelby's arrival, we went out for a business dinner that never quite materialized (the wait at the restaurant was too long and the restaurant too trendy). The next night we went out for a quiet dinner with Eli and my friends George and Katie (and Katie's sister). It was nice to escape from the pressure of the conference and spend time with personal friends. Eli behaved himself for the most part in the restaurant, though he is once again fussing quite a lot at night. Thursday night (note that I am only talking about the nights, because Eli spent the days with grandma and grandpa mostly) we went out to dinner as a family. Eli got fussy during dinner, so I ended up walking him around old San Juan for thirty minutes while he tried to put himself to sleep. The Christmas lights captivated him, and he simply didn't want to sleep, lest he miss some of the excitement. Eventually he went to sleep and I got to finish dinner.

Our meeting ended on Friday afternoon and I planned a kayak tour with my coworkers and colleagues to celebrate. Grandma and Grandpa agreed to watch him so we could tour the bioluminescent bay closest to San Juan. We were gone from about 4:30-10, and it sounds like Eli fussed - loudly - the entire time. So our first Adventure in Babysitting was not terribly successful.

We woke up early the next morning and began the long journey home. We left the hotel at 5 AM and didn't arrive in Madison until 7PM San Juan time. We flew through Miami, had a quick pit stop and Grandma and Grandpa's house, and then drove back to Madison. Eli was definitely more interested in his surroundings on the plane this trip, but he was still very well behaved. While we are happy this trip went smoothly, we are still trepidation about taking him to Brazil in March!

Back in Madison, it is very cold and snowy. The ground is icy and the temperatures hovered around zero for the last two days. These are the unfortunate days of the year when daylight is short and it is simply uncomfortable (and a bit dangerous) to spend time outside. Hopefully these days will pass quickly and it will be spring before we know it. One slightly interesting consequence of Eli's first few months is that we are watching much less TV than before - so much so that we cancelled our cable service this week. Unfortunately we still need to pay the cable company to receive the broadcast networks and their HD signals (living in a valley next to a forest prevents simple antennas from working well), but we will see if we miss not having hundreds of channels (with nothing on).