More on Cali

I will note here that while our trip out to Cali was difficult, it was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. Apart from the travel I was very nervous about the girls sleep. A 3 hour time change can be painful! Hadleigh has a very strong internal clock and is a very scheduled child...though a little more flexible than she was as a baby. The thought of getting up at 2.30am for the day just did not sound appealing.

Fortunately Annelise did amazing! The first night she woke up at 4, I fed her, put her back down and she slept until 6. That was the only night she woke up. And to think I was actually afraid to sleep with her! I should have been more worried about Hadleigh. Most of the mornings I had to tell her to lay down, as she was often up bouncing around the room at 4. A couple mornings I woke up to find her face in my face..."hi mama!" Hilarious! Overall they did a fabulous job and although I am still recovering a bit, I would definitely do it again.

It was so fun to see the girls with my parents- Papa and Nana, and my brother and sister-in-law...Uncle Chris and Aunt Rubie. Hadleigh had lots of hugs and kisses for everyone and would exclaim when someone would enter the room/house. "There's a papa," she would say...or "NANA!" I think being with so many people helped push her a bit out of her shy-tendency. The other day Jess came over to watch the girls for us. Usually Hadleigh talks about Jess, but as soon as she sees her, she turns away and acts shy. This particular night she started yelling, "Jess! Jess!" and then jumped up, ran over and gave her a hug. We were both shocked.

We had a fun, fairly relaxing time. My parents live in the same house that I grew up in, which is just a block away from a small park with a large green, a nice, new playground. It is near the foot of Old Boney (the second tallest mountain in the world...everyone knows that Mt. Everest is the tallest). Every afternoon we would stroll down to the park and enjoy a nice swing and slide time before hitting dinner and bath. Mom also blew up the hippo pool and let HC and Annelise splash around.

My parents took us to Garden of the Worlds, which is a cool little park that has fountains, and different gardens...rose, Japanese, etc. I think it is fairly new, in the last 5 years. We also went to Tierra Rejada which is a local farm. Hadleigh was able to put a baby pig, goats, ducks, chickens, etc. I don't have any pictures from that...must rely on Uncle Chris to send a couple to me.

Dad and Mom were shocked by Annelise, not only how big she has gotten, but how different her demeaner is. What a different baby from 4 months ago! She just loved getting hugs and kisses from Papa and Nana.

I have one more post, but you can see we had a lot of fun with family while were gone.