California

I keep saying that I’m going to start blogging again … well, here goes another attempt.  I know it’s been a long time because I’ve returned to the WordPress dashboard and don’t recognize a thing!  Hmmm, hoping I can figure it out again.  So rather than go back and blog about all the other blog-worthy events that have happened in the past 6 months, I’ll just start from where we are now.  We just came out of a very busy time with lots of out of town visitors, several out of town trips as well as the regular busy-ness of life (including some short-term contract work I took on during the month of July).  Whew!  We are ready for some downtime!

The last of the whirlwind activity was a 6-day trip to southern California.  My cousin, Ginger, has been engaged for over a year and she asked shortly after getting engaged if Kate could be her flower girl.  When she asked, Kate was neither walking nor talking so we had a hard time imagining her walking down the aisle dropping flower petals!  Ginger knew that Kate would be just over 2 years old at the time of the wedding, so we made tentative plans for her to be the flower girl knowing that she could very well be having a bad day and it just might not work out.  But with tentative plans for her flower girl debut in the works, we decided to turn the wedding trip into a little vacation for our family.

Day 1: We had an EARLY (6am) flight out of Colorado Springs to LA.  Although it’s a pain to get up so early, Kate usually sleeps on these flights which makes life easier for everyone, so that was what we were planning on.  We should know better than to make plans though, right?  She fell asleep about 10 minutes before we landed.  And I should add that Kate had been on 24 flights in her short two years of life up until this point (which means 24 flights of sitting on our laps).  This was her 25th flight and her first time to have her very own seat … but guess where she ended up sitting for most of the flight??  That’s right, on my lap.  No matter … we made it to LA safe and sound and made our way to our hotel in Anaheim – stopping off for some Mickey Mouse pancakes at Mimi’s first of course.  After too short of a nap, Kate was ready to go swimming and wait for Yeh Yeh and NaNau’s arrival.

Mickey Mouse pancakes at Mimi's

Day 2: Disneyland!!  I grew up going to Disneyland and was excited to take Kate for the first time.  When we were pondering whether or not we should take her, some friends wisely advised … “Just take her!”  And I’m so glad they gave us that advice.  I really don’t believe anyone is too young to go to Disney.   She loved it!  We started introducing her to Mickey Mouse a couple months ago and she was well-acquainted with him by the time this trip came around.  She also had learned about all his compadres by watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse just a couple times.  For some reason, she’s a big fan of Goofy.  I really thought she’d only want to see the characters from a distance and not get too close but she proved me wrong on that one!  So after spotting Pluto and requesting to stand in line to meet him, she kept her eye out for the other characters as well.  We lucked out and saw Mickey coming off of his break so we were able to meet him in person without too long of a wait.  While she was waiting for Mickey, she spotted Dale (don’t ask me why she thought it was Dale and not Chip) and was ready to make a bee-line to give him a high-five and fist bump.  I was surprised she was so eager to meet the characters and wasn’t scared of them.  (She didn’t quite know what to make of Cruella DeVille though.)  I am thankful that she is not yet in a “princess” stage so we didn’t have to go searching for Cinderella, Snow White, Belle or any of the others.  She enjoyed the carousel, Dumbo and absolutely loved It’s a Small World.  It was a great day for her and we enjoyed getting to see it through her eyes.  (I think this is the first time I’ve gone to Disneyland and NOT gone on the Matterhorn, Space Mountain or Indiana Jones!)

Kate is ready for a big day at Disney!

Such a fun day!

Day 3: We made a stop in Chinatown for some dim sum before heading up to Santa Barbara for the wedding festivities.  Kate has been a fan of dim sum since she started eating and can order some of it herself in Cantonese!  She will usually ask to eat whatever she sees on the table – this time that included jelly fish and whole prawns (eyeballs and all).  I’m very proud of my adventurous eater!   We made it up to SB barely in time for the rehearsal.  I should say that I had been very skeptical that Kate would actually walk down the aisle by herself.  Ginger wanted me to escort her (which I agreed was a good idea), but I had the feeling that she’d just want me to carry her down the aisle rather than walk between lots of strangers.  We started practicing at home a few days before this trip and she had mainly thrown the flower petals all over the place and then ran across the house.  So we really weren’t sure what she’d do.  Well, she surprised us all and walked herself right down the aisle not at all concerned about where I was.  (Of course, there wasn’t anyone in the chairs the night of the rehearsal.)  Only issue we had was that she really wanted to pick up the flower petals after dropping them and threw a fit about having to leave them on the ground.

Kate goes for the whole prawn!

Day 4: Wedding day!  We had to be at the chapel at 4pm which is prime napping time for Kate, so the morning consisted of tiring Kate out with the hopes that she’d take an early nap.  We walked through downtown Carpenteria (which was a lovely town) and headed to the beach.  It was actually pretty cool that day and not at all beach weather, but she was still happy to sit and play in the sand.  The early nap plan worked and we made it by 4 with a happy girl in tow.  The wedding was beautiful and Kate did a GREAT job … so much better than any of us expected.  She didn’t need me to escort her at all (I don’t think she hardly noticed that I was behind her).  She walked confidently down the aisle (I did have to remind her to drop the flower petals … we had not practiced with real flower petals, so I think she was more interested in feeling how soft they are).  But with a little reminder, she did begin to drop them.  She dropped 2 or 3 in the actual aisle and then dumped all the rest of them at the front.  But we were so proud of her and could not believe that she did such a great job at such a young age!  The only thing she did not do was pose for pictures (which was no surprise) so all we have are candid shots.

Kate flower girl debut

Day 5: After breakfast at a fun local diner with my parents and aunt, we headed down the coast towards Malibu and back to LA.  Of course, we had to stop at one of our favorite eating spots – Malibu Seafood – for some steamed shrimp for me and fish & chips for Russ.  (Kate opted for the fried shrimp.)

aka The Fish Shack

Day 6: We headed to the Santa Monica Pier and beach.  We’ve been to our share of beautiful beaches and Santa Monica isn’t exactly what one would describe as “beautiful” by any stretch of the imagination … but it is still fun and there is some great people-watching to be done there!  Kate enjoyed playing in the sand and even got in the freezing cold water up to her thighs.  She also enjoyed the playground and gymnastics equipment that is set up there.  In typical Santa Monica beach fashion, we had hot dogs and lemonade for lunch topped off with strawberry shakes from our favorite shake shop that we discovered on our first trip to Santa Monica back in 1999.  We roamed around the Pier a bit and let Kate ride on yet another carousel (although I think this one is pretty famous dating back to 1922).  She wasn’t tall enough for the ferris wheel unfortunately, but she was pretty much done by that point anyway so we headed home.

Day 7:  We were up bright and early for an early flight back to Colorado.  We actually missed our flight (very first time for either of us to miss a flight), but thankfully they got us on another one just an hour later which gave us time for a stop for hot chai.   And this time, Kate stayed in her seat and slept the whole way home.

We had a wonderful vacation and were so thankful to be able to celebrate David and Ginger’s wedding day.  Kate is now a veteran flower girl and is available for any future gigs.   One thing I have learned about vacationing with a kid … I am ALWAYS ready to come home!

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