Just Now Coming Down...

So for a long time we were looking forward to some family vacation time. First we had my brother's wedding in Alabama. We were looking forward to this as well as dreading bringing the 2 kids on the airplane round trip. We didn't know quite what to expect but it seemed like a worthy adventure. More to come in a minute about that...

Two days after the first trip, we set out on a drive to Southern California for Hubby's cousin's wedding. The 2nd wedding was one week to the day from the first. It felt like it was a month later or something though since there was no down time in between.

THEN, the day after the 2nd wedding we set off to a little further Southern Cali to meet up with some dear friends and go to Sea World.

Kind of exciting to do all these fun, crazy things in a week's span, but it also makes it a bit hard to blog about since it's all sort of a lumped together blur. I'll try though:

First of all, in almost anything we do.... we need to prepare Kat ahead of time. She doesn't like surprises much (unless it's m&m's or something... ) Anyway, we talked about these trips for weeks and weeks before hand. We even bought her special luggage... a 3 piece matching Ariel set with her name monogrammed on it. I know, she's spoiled. Oh well. Back to the story... so she was very well prepared. She knew that Bear might cry on the airplane because it might hurt his ears. She informed me, though, that she wouldn't be crying on the airplane because she was WAY TOO EXCITED!

So the day finally came. We opted for a red eye flight hoping that the kids would sleep the whole time. I have to say... they did terrific! Kat was awake for the first 45 minutes of the first leg of the flight happily looking out the window and making her usual observations.... "right now we're taking off because the plane is going like this" (holds her hand at an upward angle). Then, she crashed. And she stayed that way through storms in Dallas and changing planes... almost all the way to the end of the last leg of the flight. Awesome! And even Bear did excellent. We bought him a front carrier ahead of time so that we could hold him without holding him the whole time. He woke a couple of times during the process, but he would nurse or eat his food and go right back to sleep like a good boy. What a relief!

The stay was nice. It was good to see my brother again, as it had been years and years! (Geography) And it was nice to meet Mrs Brother for the first time. We had only exchanged emails and had 1 phone call up until this vacation. We also got to see my mother and my mother's sister and some other out of town family we never see. It was a family reunion and a wedding all in one happy little bundle.

Although I do NOT love the heat or the gross bugs in the good ole south, when it was time to say good bye I had to choke back tears. I had a nice time with my family and I don't know when I will see them all again. And my kids love their grandmother. They got so spoiled living in her house for a week! But at least we left with lots of happy memories and looking forward to seeing each other again hopefully soon.

So the flight home wasn't as easy as the first, but still not too bad. Kat slept for a good part of it again, but Bear was awake for most of the flight. He wasn't bad, just awake, which is a bit high maintenance.

The day after we got back, I worked. And the next day. And then the following day, we set off on the cluster fuck of a lifetime trip to SoCal. We decided to take HWY 1 because it's so gorgeous and we were driving during the day. We figured we weren't in a huge hurry, why not take the scenic route? Man, did we take the scenic route and a half that time around! Due to the fires burning in our state, HWY 1 was closed a couple of hours into our drive. No biggie, right? Just take the detour.... which was TURN THE F*** AROUND AND GO BACK ALMOST ALL THE WAY TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM! So we landed in LA right at good ole rush hour traffic time, wich hungry cooped up kids and not in too good of moods ourselves. We swam at the hotel and ate dinner though and all was forgiven.

The next day we had the wedding and though it was beautiful, it was more like church camp than a wedding. (Nothing against church camp... it's just different than a wedding) It's all good though, we got to see some out of town family and Kat had a ball dancing the night away.

OK, so the next day we drove another hour south and met up with my dear friends who we haven't seen in a couple of years. They got to meet Bear for the first time and I got to play with their baby who is about 19 months old now. We played catch up and talked the night away, and we went to Sea World. This portion of the trip was super fun because AH and I always get along like we were never apart. We are ourselves in front of each other and it's so nice to fart or over eat or whatever we feel like doing, without worrying that we're being judged.

Then we drove home. Another cluster fuck. We got it into our heads that leaving at night would be good because the kids could sleep the night away and wake up at home. OK theory until you gab your asses off and don't leave until 10 at night. Come 4:00 AM we were hallucinating and decided to stop at some flea bag hotel for a few hours and sleep. Then we woke up, splashed water onto our faces and drove the final 3 hours home. We showered, napped, and took Kat to her first musical theater class....

We're just now starting to come down from all these vacations! I will blog more, with pictures, on each trip individually but that's the skeleton synopsis for now. Meat to follow :-)