How the trip came about may be hard to grasp, but here's the short version. I met a group of ladies back in March 2007 when we were newly pregnant on an online chat board. After a number of months together, we broke away from the chat board and started our own board. We have "been together" for 2+ years now. Earlier this year, two of the gals (Wanda and Katie) and I started talking about possibly going on vacation together. Since Wanda lives in Illinois and Katie lives in California, it seemed perfectly logical for Wanda and I to fly out to California. I mean, who wants to visit the Midwest in the summer anyway?
So, we began planning our trip earlier this spring, and finally it took flight this last week.
I posted Wednesday morning about Julia's clingyness; well, once we were in the car, she was good to go. We drove to Omaha to fly out, and it only took one stop for lunch and three plays of They Might Be Giants "Here Come the 123's" to get there.
We parked in long-term parking and our shuttle driver was a big help... especially when I realized I had forgotten my cell phone and he whipped the shuttle bus around and took us back to our car.
Our flight to Denver was fairly uneventful; Julia did well on the plane for the most part, and threw a tiny fit at the end which was basically her I-want-to-go-to-sleep-and-I-haven't-done-so-on-your-lap-in-over-a-year-and-I-don't-know-how-to-get-comfortable fit, and sure enough, she fell asleep about 10 minutes before we landed. She was a bit dazed and confused when we reached Denver, but she quickly snapped out of it when we met our friends Wanda and her son Xander in the bathroom (completely unintentional but it worked out great!).
(Xander is two days younger than Julia.)
This was the first time Wanda and I had actually met each other in person, so it was a good time and lots of hugging ensued. Since we had a long layover, we decided we'd feed the kidlets in the food court. After dinner, we strolled down to our departing gate and let the kids run a bit, since the second flight was supposed to be 2.5 hours long.
We arrived in Orange County after a longish flight (on which the kids did relatively well, and Wanda and I chatted it up a bit). The flight included witnessing a preteen girl vomit in the aisle right before landing, which caused us to wait a bit before deboarding, since she was only a few rows in front of us.
Katie from California, who is quite wonderful, met us at the airport. Another round of hugs ensued, and after finding the luggage, we headed out. I waited with the kids while Wanda picked up the rental car and Katie went and got her car, which contained the car seats we were borrowing for the weekend.
This is a picture of the kids maybe looking not so enthralled at the time. This was the beginning of Julia showing off her possessive behavior as well.
Both kids fell asleep in the van on the way to our hotel, and Julia pretty much didn't wake up until we tried to get everyone to bed. It was a hard first night of bedding everyone down, and we ended up having the kids sleep with us the first night, but it was a good first day all the same.
In this picture, I had brought Julia in from the van and laid her on the bed while we unpacked and settled in. The noise and lights didn't bother her one bit. She balled up and stayed asleep.
More to come...!
erin
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