It’s been over a year since I have seen Oliver in person and I have really missed him. Although we Facetime regularly it’s hard to know if that has an impact on a three year old so I wanted to make sure I was at his house for his fourth birthday. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make the trip work with Lee’s upcoming two weeks of work trips so I flew out solo.

It’s a long day of flying to get from Burbank to Charleston, SC and the three hour time loss didn’t help. Even though I left at 6am PT I didn’t arrive until 7:00pm ET and we all decided that was too late to see him. So I checked into the Marriot Courtyard and got ready to see him at 9am, and honestly I was pretty nervous. His response to me could have ranged from indifference to anger and I just tried to get a grip on my emotions and be prepared for anything. As I said later it wasn’t fair to have a script of the meeting in my head especially since Oliver can’t even read. 🙂

Thankfully the moment went better than even I hoped for and he ran over and gave me a big hug. Jeremy (my son-in-law) captured the moment and I think the picture says it all.

Many of my friends have grandchildren now and according to them Facetime has been a mixed bag. Some kids get it and others don’t but the combination of Facetime and the small gifts I send him throughout the year (about one a month) seem to have made an impression. I tried to take it slow though and we just spent some time doing normal things as he got to know me a little better.

My big wish was to take him to the toy store and fill up a cart and things were going so well Kyrston recommended we go. The toy store was pretty interesting because he absolutely knew what he liked and didn’t like but has no concept of money yet, but it ultimately worked out. I really felt I could splurge because Oliver is Jewish and to honor that we don’t celebrate Christmas with him. I just figured I could double up on birthdays and it would all even out.

In the last year my daughter Kyrston has converted to Judaism and wanted me to go to Friday night service with her. I was thrilled to go so she and I went and got some dinner and then headed downtown. The synagogue is very old and on the historic registry of buildings, but it is also very friendly and I was thrilled to meet her Rabbi’s and cantor. A lot of the service was musical and although it was in Hebrew it was beautiful music. I also liked the sermon and the time where people could pray for those who were sick or say remembrances for the dead.

She is very involved in the synagogue, singing in the choir and even teaching one of the youth classes. Both of the Rabbi’s who helped with her conversion spoke to me about how wonderful she has been and it’s always great being told that you created an awesome kid. It was very special for both of us. I in turn thanked them for helping Kyrston find her faith. Until converting she didn’t have much of a relationship with God and I am so happy for her regardless of what form it takes. At the end of the day their God is also my God.

That was a long day because I didn’t get back until 9pm and the time change was really kicking my butt. The next day Kyrston and I took Oliver to my favorite thrift store at the nearby base and then we went swimming in the hotel pool. I spent a little extra on a hotel with a pool and was so glad I did because we were the only ones there and it was even a salt water pool. Oliver has this awesome swimming vest (wish they had these for my kids) that keep him safe and allow him to swim. He loved the water and we had a blast floating around.

Afterwards we went for lunch and even though it had been a long day he did pretty good. Almost had a mini meltdown over lemonade versus apple juice but pulled it together and we had a nice lunch.

After all the fresh air and sunlight I called it an early day and went back and watched the replay of Women’s Wimbledon tournament. I love watching this every year and didn’t think I would have a chance but they replayed both finals at night and it was the perfect thing to do to relax at the hotel. We spent 7-8 hours together everyday but that still left me lots of time and I was glad I had something fun to do in the evenings.

Sunday we celebrated his birthday and Kyrston got him this cool construction cake. I also got us all Chinese food for dinner (Oliver’s first) and we had a blast watching him do a decent job of using the chopsticks. Then we sang happy birthday and hung out for awhile.

I also worked with Oliver on a page for our scrapbook after stopping at Walgreen’s and getting a few printed pictures from the last couple of days. The Walgreen picture printing worked great (only $2 for 7 pictures) and Oliver helped me cut out the pictures, told me what to write and put the stamps on. I started this adventure scrapbook after our first outing with him, but this was the first time he was able to help. Again went better than expected. He really liked it.

Kyrston had to go to work around 2:30pm (she works evenings and took Friday and Saturday off) and I explained to Oliver that I had to leave to go get on a plane the next morning. He very solemnly gave me a long hug and then a big kiss (he’s not much of a kisser) and it really touched me. I’ll just say it was really hard to leave.

So the trip was nice but when we talked about next year I did share it was tough losing two full days to travel and of course it wasn’t cheap even with just me. We talked about perhaps meeting in a central location and I could rent a house or something and even help with the travel costs for them. It is important to me that there are things for Oliver and I to do though and they said they would think about some ideas and we could talk more about it.

When he gets older and can come stay independently with us this becomes less of an issue but this younger years are kind of tough. I am so grateful I was able to go though and the trip went very well.

Side note, as I mentioned Lee will be gone on work trips for two weeks so not sure how much I will be posting. I am starting my pottery 6 weeks class though and I am very happy about that.

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