At Home and Abroad

In the last 2 weeks Audrey and I traveled close to 5000 miles! Whew! Thank goodness for airplanes, strollers, awesome rented minivans and comfy shoes! For now we are back and taking it easy at home before our next big adventure to the west coast in 2 weeks!

We got to go to California for almost 2 weeks to visit my side of the family (and Mitchell's wonderful grandmother). It was a great time!! Audrey was such a trooper to patiently and happily endure all of the busyness and travel. Her curiosity was an asset with all of the new places and people we visited too! The first few days of our California vacation were absolutely PACKED with visiting. We visited my dad at work so I could get an eye exam and new sunglasses and we got to go to lunch with my grandparents and sister Lynn and niece Summer. We spent an evening with my high school BFF Jahmese (why didn't we take a picture?!!?) and of course played games with Mom and Eileen. On Friday Audrey and I drove to Palo Alto for a quick visit with Grandma Peterson. It was so nice to get to visit, AND it was her first time meeting Audrey in person! Audrey loved her Great Grandma! Thanks, Grandma, for such a nice visit, sorry we couldn't stay longer!

Grandma Peterson and Audrey

We were even able to squeeze in a baby shower for Lynn since little Ricky will be here before we know it! We also got to see so many friends as we attended an open house in honor of a wonderful woman and a wedding reception for a great girl.

Then on Monday of last week Mom, Eileen, Lynn, Summer, Audrey and I piled in our rented mini van and headed to San Francisco for our 'Girls Week.' It was a blast! Here's the run down:

Monday. Pros: Drove to SF in our sweet van. The floor of the van actually lifts up for massive storage! Sweet! We checked out our awesome suite for the week and had a dinner at a little Italian place. Cons: The restaurant owner (with ash tray breath) kissed Audrey on the mouth. I wanted to deck him.

Tuesday. Pros: Drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, enjoyed a beautiful warm sunny day, met up with my friend Kim and her cutie Sam, played at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. The museum was AWESOME! The kids loved it. Especially the water station. They were soaked and so happy! Cons: Audrey's unprepared mother did not bring her a change of clothes so she had to spend the rest of the afternoon in a onesie after soaking herself from head to toe playing in the water station.

This was us checking out the little stream before the babies (and innocent bystanders) got wet

So FUN!

Do you see Audrey looking over to copy whatever Summer is doing? That was the standard procedure all week! So cute!

The Girls

Wednesday. Pros: We had a picnic on the beach!! It was another gorgeous warm sunny day (with a little wind) so we took advantage and sunned ourselves on the beach! I will put the large flock of seagulls under the 'pros' category because Audrey and Summer had a great time chasing them around! Also, they were respectful and refrained from dropping any bombs on us while we were eating our lunch. Cons: Audrey was fascinated by the warm sand and decided to give it a little taste, and by 'little taste' I mean a WHOLE HANDFUL! Gross.

Happy beach girls

Thursday. Pros: We spent the day in San Francisco! We rode Bart (commuter train) from the airport to Powell Street then took a cable car through the city to Fisherman's Warf. We got a free sample of Ghirardelli chocolate and had delicious clam chowder in a bread bowl while overlooking the warf. Serious PRO: we found the best deal on clam chowder bread bowls in the whole city at a cute little 50s style diner. Yum! Cons: Audrey hated the cable car ride, she cried the whole time. It's tough to be a tourist!

While we enjoyed our clam chowder, Audrey enjoyed a new food. A dill pickle!

Mom was in Grandma heaven!

Friday. Pros: Free breakfast at the hotel, well that was a pro for the whole week. Audrey tried to copy everything Summer did all week so she actually ate food! Pancakes and yogurt for breakfast! I'm pretty sure her grandma was clandestinely passing her fruit loops too! We got all packed up again and headed to the East Bay to visit the Oakland Temple! How wonderful to be in the temple! Eileen got to do baptisms while Lynn and I got the little girls situated. Then Eileen, the BEST baby sister out there, watched both girls while Mom, Lynn and I did a session. It was divine. THANK YOU SISSY!! After the temple we headed back home to Sacramento. As per tradition we stopped at Nations for a delicious burger. Cons: Everyone was so full from the burgers that no one wanted pie. :)

It was such a fun girls week! BIG thanks to Mitchell for letting his girls run off for nearly 2 weeks without him. I don't think he'll be letting us out of his sight for a while now that we are finally back.

While in CA I also got to finish the quilt I have been working on for quite a while! My grandma has a fancy long arm quilting machine that she showed me how to drive and she let me at it! It was awesome! I am really happy with how it turned out!

It looks like I am giving a thumbs up but really it was such a powerful machine that I had to grip it pretty tight to control it! It rattled my whole body! Sure beats quilting by hand though.

Mitchell took the day off work yesterday so we could have a family day! That was such a fun surprise! We ended up sleeping in, having a yummy breakfast and taking Audrey to the Madison Children's Museum. It was such a fun day! Oh and by now you have probably all heard about the rallies going on at the Wisconsin state capitol. It's pretty crazy. Today was day 16 of protests and absent legislators. No one is really sure how this is all going to resolve, we'll all find out eventually I guess. Since the Children's Museum was just around the corner from the capitol we decided to make a detour and check out the excitement! Imagine the deafening sound of whistles, drums, screaming, yelling and chanting and marching all around the capitol. Craziness.

Audrey was so happy to get to play with her daddy! We had so much fun!

Maybe I could teach her to pull weeds this summer! Yeah slave labor!

One more thing to add to this mega long post! She's well on her way...