California Trip Part 4 - Grandma's House

After our visit with my extended family, we said goodbye and headed to Mark's parents house in Southern California. It was a bit warmer there and Mark's mom had the fans on in the house. Norah decided to "take a drink of air".

She thought it was pretty fun.



We played at a couple of different parks during our time at Grandma's. The one pictured below happened to be near the town where I grew up. We hung out there for a couple of hours so that Norah could play while some old friends stopped by to chat. Norah was so very, very busy at the parks I didn't get many good photos of her at all. Most of the pictures turned out like this one...


She sure did have fun though! Even the heat (which we are completely not used to any more) didn't slow her down, although she did remark a few times, "Mom, I'm really sweaty."


After our time at this particular park, we drove waaaaayyyy down to south Orange County to meet up with some other friends for dinner. I didn't manage to get any photos of that either - what with juggling two tired, formerly sweaty girls - but we had a great time. All things considered (car naps, heat, lots of expended energy) I was actually really impressed that Norah held out until dinner was over to have a meltdown for the day! She did a great job letting Mommy and Daddy have great conversation with our friends before we were forced to load up our exhausted, crying, snotty mess of a three-year-old into the car and hightail it for bed.

Stay tuned... next up is Disneyland!

California Trip Part 3 - More Northern California Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from our time with my grandma in Northern California:

Norah on our first visit to Susie. She ran right up to her and said, "I remember the last time I visited you, even though I was little. Also, we have a picture of you at my Grammy's house!" Susie responded right on cue, "Well I am just so pleased that you remember me!"

We went outside for a little walk (unfortunately none of those pictures turned out). Susie showed Norah a big tray of birdseed that they keep on the deck of her home so that the residents can watch the birds eat. Norah had so much fun scooping the birdseed up and feeling it run through her fingers. She still talks about it. I love that she got to share that first experience with Susie.

My grandmother is struggling with dementia. There are times when she doesn't recognize members of her family - even her children and grandchildren. When she was around Norah and Penny, though, she just lit up. I can't even put into words how precious it was to see her connect with my sweet three-year-old on such an in-the-moment and un-selfconcious level. She and Norah were immediate buddies and stayed that way the whole weekend!

On another note, Penny had her first bite of watermelon at Susie's party.

She was not about to let that thing go!

California Trip Part 2 - The Best Day Ever

One of the main attractions at my aunt Robin's house (for Norah, at least) is the alpacas. They're kind of like small llamas, but they spit a little less. Here's a mostly blurry shot of what they look like when they're all clamoring to the fence to say hi.

At first, Norah was happy just to talk to them and maybe reach out and pet one of the less timid ones. That is, until the bigger kids started pulling leaves off the avocado tree to feed them...

Every time one of them started eating the food she was holding she'd say, "Here ya go, little fella." Pretty funny considering how high she had to reach to get them to take it.

Once they trusted her a little more, she was able to hold the food lower and they would reach their little snouts through the fence to take the leaves and clover. 

I couldn't get a good picture, but there was one baby alpaca who was just about eye level with Norah. The big ones never let the baby get close enough to take leaves from her, but it's probably just as well. My camera may well have exploded from the cuteness if I had tried to snap a picture of my three-year-old feeding a baby alpaca. That's some pretty major AWWWWW! factor, if you ask me.

After we were back up to the house I was helping Norah wash her hands so she could eat. She looked up at me with those big blue eyes and said, "Mom, this is my best day ever. Could we do this exact day again?"

Say it with me people: AWWWWWWWW!

California Trip Part 1 - Susie

The first part of our trip was a long weekend in northern California. We met my parents, who had flown out the day before. My aunt Robin graciously let us invade stay at her house. My paternal grandmother lives just a few minutes from Aunt Robin's house, so we got as much family together as we could on that Saturday and did a fantastic BBQ with Grandma Susie as the guest of honor!

We managed to get a photo of almost all of us. My mom and Uncle Tom are missing because they're taking the pictures. You may notice that Penny is missing as well. No, she was not honing her photo taking skills. She had been so excited by all the new people all morning, she took three naps that day instead of two! She was so asleep I didn't have the heart to wake her up for a photo op.

We did get some pictures of Penny with Susie. We had gone to her place to visit the day before (I'll try to find pictures of that too). When she arrived at Aunt Robin's house for the BBQ the first thing she asked Norah was, "Where's your baby sister, Penny?"

We also got a picture of Susie with all the great-grandkids and a great-niece and nephew in there for good measure too! (My dad had to stand in the back and hold Norah because she didn't want to stand in front.) She prefers that her great-grandchildren just call her Susie. It's so cute to see Norah run up to her calling out, "Susie, Susie!!"

At the end of the day I think Susie was just as tired from all the excitement as the kids were! What a sweet, sweet time we got to spend with our family. It was wonderful to see Norah and Penny with their great-grandma. I'm so glad we were able to make the trip!

There and Back Again

It has been over a week since we got back from our trip to California. While the tiny people I traveled with may not have hairy feet and a deep-seated fear or leaving home, I assure you that our journey was no less epic than than the one Bilbo Baggins took. Although we didn't have to travel to the mouth of a volcano or face any giant spiders there was plenty of talk about stopping for Second Breakfast, so I really feel like I got the basic overview of what Frodo and his friends went through.

All joking aside, we had a great trip and the girls were AMAZING in the car! We got to see lots and lots of family, take the girls to fun and exciting places and spend time shopping doing all sorts of stuff we can't do much of back home.

There's just too much to tell all in one post, so I'll be putting up several installments in the next few days.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of our first days on the road. We left super early (3:30am) made it all the way to Bakersfield on our first day of driving. That's over 13 hours of driving plus stops, if you're counting (and trust me, I was!).

We spent the night at the home of a good friend from college and her husband. They'd given away their play pen and Penny is just too mobile these days to put her down on the floor, so we had to improvise a bed for her that night. The laundry basket worked great!

 

Mark and I slept on an air mattress. Norah and my friend's daughter, C (the Amazon pictured in this recent post), had tons of fun jumping on the bed.



More pictures of our epic adventure are on their way... stay tuned!

Super Baby! (Part Deux)

My dad taught this little trick to Norah when she was about 8 months old. We figured it was time for Penny to carry on the tradition. You can tell by the look on her face at the end that she takes her job very seriously. You can also tell by her face that she's been eating scrambled eggs, but that's a story for another day.

Hooray!

Yesterday, Penny discovered that slamming her little hands together makes a pleasing noise. Guess what she's been doing ever since.

Hey Penny, how do you feel about our 14 hour ride home in the car today?