Flying with an eleven month old baby is a mixed bag, and it's best to not plan too firmly on what you'll be pulling out of that bag. We planned a red eye flight from Anchorage to O'Hare and arrived early to ANC to take advantage of the new nursery room. Henry loved meeting the two girls that were there during his 1 hour visit. One girl was in the midst of a 3 plane trip from Fairbanks to Arizona (our 6 hour non stop flight to Chicago looked better and better). We anticipated a very tired boy after the excitement of new babies and much crawling, and in general that was true. The only hitch is that he is quite the wiggly guy these days and enjoys moving around throughout his sleep, which makes sleeping in mom's arms tough at times.  He had 2 moments of fussing during the flight and was more curious than anything else. Mom and Dad did not sleep at all, but what can you do? Grammy and Grandpa Turek picked us up and shot some juice into a jet lagged Henry and everyone was off for Indiana. Henry promptly fell asleep and Dad hit the diet cokes. Mission accomplished.

Even though the midwest was not as brutally hot as it has come to be today, it was plenty hot for these Alaskans. Funnily, I realized out of habit that I had not packed any shorts. I'll have to do better than that the next time we travel to a beach somewhere. Jeans will not cut it there. We were soon in the habit of throwing a coat of sun tan lotion on Hank and turning him loose for the day.

He's an expert crawler these days and as you could imagine exploded in curiosity in the new place he was able to explore and investigate. The cool kitchen tiles were perfect for slapping, the screen door was wonderful for leaning and tugging, and the front windows were just the right height to observe Grandpa killing moles in the yard.

As Henry gets more and more mobile he is transitioning from a baby to a little dude. His personality and smiles grow every day and the world just gets easier to reach out and touch. 

Hurricane Henry along with Becky and Grandma and Grandpa Barnes arrived back in Anchorage yesterday. Given the 7 hour flight, tight seats, and hungry little boy, it went very well. Henry smiled at everyone on the plane, babbled here and there, enjoyed all the stories that were read to him, and even napped a few times. No fussing whatsoever. He was a gem.

Our home is still an explosion of luggage and laundry, but that will get smoothed over very soon. Henry promptly tore around the house checking all of his toys and real estate, smiling and giggling for over an hour. I'm told cows bound into the fields on the first day of release from a long winter in the barn. Henry is no cow, but he did crawl and joyously cruise around like a boy reborn. He was away from the Last Frontier for 3 weeks and had a great trip, but he is happy to be home.

I was able to pull all the photos from the camera up to our flickr account last night, so if you'd like to dig through the pictures without the forthcoming stories, please have at it.

For Turek flavored pictures of Henry in Indiana and Wisconsin, please click here and here.

For the Barnes variety of things from Wisconsin, try this set.

If you prefer to drink from the fire hose, here is the beginning of all 350 odd pictures.