Yesterday was a long day. When we arrived at the Fort Myers airport, we discovered that our flight was delayed from 3:30 to 5:00 pm due to mechanical problems. By the time 5:00 rolled around, Fort Myers (and most of the Eastern Seaboard) was getting major thunderstorms with tornado watches and warnings, so our flight was delayed further, thus making it questionable as to whether we would make our connecting flight to Denver in Minneapolis on time (yes, Minneapolis). Needless to say Mommy, Grammy, and Blanden did not want to get stranded in Minneapolis for the night! We considered heading back home to Grammy and Papa's house and rescheduling the trip for today, but in the end we were able to reroute to Atlanta and made it home late last night -- 11:30 pm Denver time (1:30 am Punta Gorda time). Grammy's luggage hasn't yet arrived, but at least we all did, safe and sound, happy to see Dad and happy to be home.
Lunch at Chili's at the airport in Fort Myers.
Playing with his new zoo animals that Grammy and Papa got for him. Shortly after these photos were taken, Blanden's macaroni and cheese arrived. He is working so hard at learning how to use a spoon, and he's come a long way in a short time, but sometimes the process is quite frustrating. At a particularly trying moment, he threw his spoon and knocked over a side dish of ranch dressing all over Mommy's shirt and jeans! Fortunately Mommy had another shirt in the carry-on bag.
After that little fiasco, Blanden was a superstar, stellar traveler the rest of the day. Mommy and Grammy were so proud of him every step of the way, from playing contentedly for hours at the airport in Fort Myers to sitting patiently (and sleeping) through two flights. Blanden could show Ellis how it's done!
We were really lucky on the flight to Atlanta and had the whole row to ourselves, so Blanden got a seat to himself. He thought that was fun!
By the time we finally took off, it was nap time.
And then a little later, snack time.
Picnicking for dinner at the Atlanta airport. We weren't quite so lucky with our seats on the way home as it was a packed flight, but we felt very lucky to have Grammy traveling with us. Blanden slept across both of our laps the entire three hours. He was all smiles again in Denver when he saw Dad at the airport. Blanden says he misses you, Papa, but thanks you for a great mini vacation! (And thank you, thank you for taking him to the neat playground for two hours yesterday morning before we began to travel home!) 
