A few things that happened

Ben went swimming.
The pool at the Embassy Suites is only 3'9" and that is awesome. Ben and I went in the pool and he had a blast walking around and climbing on me. He was so happy he was giving me kisses. We were in there for a long time.

We saw some old friends, met some new friends
Lori arranged for us to spend time with friends on Thursday and Friday. We hadn't seen them much at all in the past 10 years, but it didn't feel like it when we met with them. Both were awesome times we really needed - Rachel had new friends to play with and Ben was well-behaved and Lori and I got to spend some wonderful time relaxing and eating and hanging out. (Though on Friday I wasn't able to be as engaged because I was coordinating the escrow payment wire transfer.)

Ben flew on a plane again.
The second flight went a lot better. We got the last row at the back of the plane and we introduced Ben to the flight attendant who was hanging out at the back of the plane. Turns out she has a teenager with autism and her other job was working with special-needs children. Ben did really well. No head-banging, no yelling or fussing. During the first flight it was difficult to get him to eat anything, but during the second flight, we kept him eating and drinking the entire time and we really suspected that it was his ears on the first flight.

(delayed, this was written in 2016 but only got posted in 2018)