The first leg of our journey led us back to familiar territory.
I have mentioned before the church that the Sisters were baptized in; it's the same one J (and much of his family, all the way back to the 1700s) got baptized in.  Naturally, to carry on the tradition, we wanted Little Mister baptized there, as well.  Unfortunately, we had a really hard time making it happen. It's a long story, but the problem was some red tape.  Catholic red tape is particularly red, after all.  A deep, dark red. Blood-into-wine red, you might say.  After months of trying to get through it, we finally were able to schedule His big day- so long as it was yesterday.  Good thing we didn't have anything else going on, like a move or a big family vacation or anything.
The morning of the baptism, we woke in our hotel to blinding rain.  So much rain, that the place J was supposed to leave his car during our trip was flooded. Yikes. So we ditched it at the airport, sat for two hours at the entrance to the tunnel (good riddance to you, Virginia Beach tunnels!  You, I will not miss.  Not even a little.), and finally made it to the church.
The family that was able to get off of work at the last minute on a Friday was there, and the priest who baptized Miss drove all the way from his new church in DC just to baptize Mister.
Even after a long, hard day, Little Mister was every bit the angel during the whole thing.  Ever the little water-bug, He actually smiled and cooed as the cool water was poured over His head.  During the parts where the priest asks questions of the parents and godparents, Little Mister congenially joined the conversation,  goo-ing and giggling and blowing raspberries.  He grinned at His adoring fans.
He got baptized, we took some pictures, and celebrated it all with a dinner out at a favorite family place on the water, right by the house J lived in as a child.  We stayed with J's aunt, and Little One stayed up WAY past bedtime playing with Her cousin.
It was worth all the trouble it took to make it happen, and turns out to have been a great start to our trip, despite the most thoroughly exploded diaper imaginable, thankfully at the very end of the day.   Oh, well, Peanuts.  Hopefully His soul stays cleaner than His fancy white outfit.  As for J?  Who picked Him up out of the car seat?  I guess you could say he got "baptized" too.  Who says the Big Guy doesn't have a sense of humor?

It was pretty funny, wasn't it Mr?


Photos from the day:

Ready to get some baptizing on

"Bathtizing" each other with holy water. Puppy got bathtized, too. 

Playing at the restaurant

These two crack each other up.  And me.  

She looks a little different since he baptized Her, two and a half years ago!

Our sweet angel boy.