Part 4

The return trip... started very early! When I bought tickets over the summer, I chose the 7:30am departure time. However, the airlines changed my flight to 6:30am! That meant we were all up at 5am. Ick! But Ashton did very well. She ate breakfast on the first short plane ride to Chicago. Then we played at the Chicago airport and made friends. On the next plane, I used Benedryl because I did not want a repeat of the first trip. She settled down pretty quickly and took a nap. It was a short nap but she was really calm and relaxed for the rest of the plane. I will definitely bring Benedryl on future flights. It was well worth it! We did run out of diapers on the plane so that was f.u.n. I used lots of Kleenex and a plastic-y diaper changing pad as a makeshift diaper to get us through until we landed. Once we got our luggage, I could put her back in a cloth diaper. She was soaked though as was I.

Typical Ashton, reading books

Looks like she's about to sneeze.

Once home, she thought it was Christmas with all "new" toys. She has chosen different books as her favorites now, which is nice because I was getting tired of reading, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" 500 times a day.

Her first thing to do was take all the toys out and look at them.

Scored this fun bath toy from Barnes and Noble with a gift card I had for the last few years. Ashton isn't nearly as amused by it as we are.

The day after we got back, Ashton and I went to the county fair. It was their free admission day. Normally, it costs 10 to 15 dollars a person so that is too expensive for us. I took Ashton to the petting zoo (one of the only free things at the fair) and she LOVED it. I was nervous that she would get scared by the big animals. But she warmed up to them pretty quickly. We had a blast.

How I thought the entire visit would go. But this lasted just a few moments