Adam typically goes to the Bay Area and NYC Maker Faires. I typically tag along for the Bay Area one, but I miss out on the NYC one because of timing with school and flights. Adam and I skipped the Bay Area Maker Faire this year due to me being super-ultra-mega pregnant. This ended up being our first Maker Faire of the year, and Henry’s first Maker Faire ever.

We left on Friday morning. It couldn’t have worked more perfectly with Henry’s schedule. He was just starting to get hungry as we pulled away from the gate. He ate and then slept for almost the whole plane ride. I think we heard noise from him twice during the flight.

Friday night at Maker Faire is a special invite-only event for the makers. It’s one of the only times where the makers get to socialize with one another and see each others’ work without the public around. Henry got a little overwhelmed by all the noise from people talking combined with noises from construction equipment still setting things up so I took him back to the hotel.

We were able to spend the whole day at the fair on Saturday; Henry was quite a trooper all day long. Adam didn’t have a booth this year so he was able to take his time and see the whole fair, and have a chance to talk with some of his maker friends. He also did a presentation on combining Arduino and Lego Mindstorms NXT.

On Sunday, Henry was a little tired of the fair and being either in his stroller or carrier. I had to duck out for a couple of hours to give Henry a chance to relax in hotel. Adam gave two talks today, another on Arduino and Lego Mindstorms NXT, and one on choosing their pick-and-place machine. Once Henry and I got back to the fair, Adam and I took Henry around to a few of the iconic Maker Faire exhibits and took his picture in front of them.

Once the fair was over, Adam and Matthew wanted to take Brian and I to Joe’s Shanghai, a Chinese restaurant that they had been to last year and was well-known for their soup dumplings. I wasn’t too excited about taking Henry on the train so close to his bedtime, but I’m glad I did go because the food really hit the spot! We ended up having 6 orders of soup dumplings and a fried noodle dish with chicken.

Our plane ride back to Minneapolis on Monday was quite the opposite of our flight to NYC. Henry was hungry as we were boarding the plane and he had no problem letting everyone know it. I had to drop all of my stuff with Adam, Matthew, and Brian, and hurry down the jetway while trying to feed a very crabby Henry his bottle.

Once we left the gate, we still had to wait in line for take-off for close to 30 minutes. By this time, Henry was done eating and starting to go to sleep. He slept until we reached cruising altitude, and then proceeded to tell the whole plane how badly he just wanted to be home. He screamed and cried until with landed in Minneapolis. Adam and I took turns bouncing him up and down as that seemed to be the only thing that would distract him from his crying. Of course, everything was better once we stepped off the plane. I’m guessing that his ears never fully popped because he didn’t want to eat or suck on anything while we were in the air.

Despite having a crabby baby at the end of our trip, I’m glad we got the chance to have our first family trip with Henry at a young age. We want to be able to do a lot of traveling with him so it’s important to us that he gets used to being out and about at a young age.