California Part 1

I just returned from one of those GNOs that reminds me how lucky I am to have the friends I have. It was just the thing I needed to pick me up from the buzz kill of flying in to Seattle last night to gale force winds, rain and temperatures more than 30 degrees lower than the ones I'd woken to. Having now fully adjusted to being back home, I'm ready to share some photos of our trip. There are many, so I think I'll post in a few installments.

On Sunday, Jeff took us to the airport and we checked Edie's car seat and my giant bag with all our clothes. When Jeff said goodbye at the security line, I was seized by a moment of sheer panic, but it was all for nothing. We managed to get the only empty seat in the plane next to us, the flight ran perfectly on time and Edie slept for the last hour, maybe more (I didn't have a watch) of the flight. We did have a minute of unpleasantness while boarding when Edie decided she wanted out of her stroller. Since I was planning to abandon the stroller in about 10 feet anyways, I let her out. But when she ran back up the boarding ramp and I picked her up, she protested by half moaning, half crying while everyone stood around me thinking, "GREAT. We haven't even sat down and the kid's miserable." Thankfully though, a woman standing in front of us (who will now have great karma) distracted Edie by asking about her backpack (I bought her a tiny monkey back pack for the trip so she could carry her snacks). She promptly snapped out of it, and there was nary a tear or tantrum from that point on. She happily watched videos on the iPod that Jeff had downloaded, snacked on pretzels and read books until crapping out for the last 1-1.5 hours - proceeding to even sleep through the landing and unloading of the plane. After all my anxiety, the worst thing that happened was a malfunctioning sippy cup - it pressurized with take-off and the milk started coming UP the straw and dripping EVERYWHERE. The cup was hermetically sealed from the pressure and I couldn't get the lid off for the life of me. Thankfully I had thrown about 5 one gallon zip locks into my carry on at the last minute and just sealed the whole thing up and chucked in back in my bag while it oozed milk for 2 hours. Gross.

Here we are waiting for our flight, watching the planes go by:
Excited about Aunt Katherine picking us up (with a balloon):
Waiting for our bags:
We didn't take pictures that afternoon/evening, but spent the time getting situated and dining out with some of Katherine's friends who were also visiting from out of town. My favorite (aside from my brief celebrity sighting) was when 6 year old Helena saw Edie fall down a few times and get back up and said, "She's like a tiny warrior!" Helena and Edie were fast friends for the one night.

The next day was a fairly mellow one: hanging out on Katherine's roof deck,
feeding her "pet" squirrel (big highlight for E - we spent much time in the following days talking about the squirrel), shopping for Edie Necessities at Target, getting tasty burritos and eating them in the park
playing at a nearby toddler playground
eating dinner out with another friend at The Grove and just generally enjoying the weather.