CA Trip

It's been 2 weeks since I returned home from CA.  Overall, I would say the trip went really well, but there were a few difficult times during the 6 days I was gone.

Kyleigh traveled great...on the airplane!  She slept for the first 3 hours, I changed her, and then we were on the decent, so I nursed her again.  Super easy!  On our way back to Lodi, we made our first stop at In-N-Out Burger, a must for mommy!  Kyleigh didn't have much to say about it ;)

Thursday was a big day for my little girl.  It started out with a bang...or a blowout, I should say!  While at House of Coffee, meeting with Jessica and Alivia, she had the biggest blowout I've ever changed.  It took me about 10 minutes to clean her up, but we finally moved past that and onto the girls smiling at each other.  Then Kyleigh got to meet Uncle Brandon, Aunt Michelle, and cousins Jacob and Cooper.  After a short visit with them, she met a whole big group of people, including great grandmas, great grandpa, other family, and many friends.  She was quite the trooper.  She didn't mind being passed from person to person.  We had a great time at the BBQ and it ended up not being too hot!

Friday is when things took a turn for the worse.  Kyleigh did not travel so well in the car.  She started out great - sleeping the first 4 hours of our 8 hour drive.  However, after eating at In-N-Out Burger (again, I know!), she didn't handle her car seat so well.  We made it through the Grapevine, but shortly thereafter, she screamed the entire way to La Mirada, which took an hour and a half to get there.  Unfortunately, there wasn't anything we could do, but it made for a very long car ride.  We finally made it to see Beth and she took us on a tour of Biola.  It had been 3 years since I was last there and it was fun to walk around the campus again.  The new Talbot building is beautiful and it was great to just get out of the car for a bit.

Prepping for Jamie's wedding was awesome.  Both Saturday and Sunday were very laid back and relaxing.  Saturday began with mani's and pedi's and then lunch at Big Belly Deli.  The rehearsal at Jamie's house went really well also.  Throughout all of this Kyleigh was giving Grandma Jill a tough time, but they were getting by.  I was definitely stressed about Kyleigh and her being so difficult, but I was also trying to focus on Jamie and the wedding.  Fortunately, Sunday, the day of the wedding went much better than anticipated for both me and Kyleigh.  Mom took her down to San Diego for her family reunion and Kyleigh ate from a bottle (which she refused to do on Saturday).  Knowing that she was fine and not starving, I was able to completely focus on Jamie and the wedding.  Next to my own wedding, I had the best time and enjoyed dancing.  Although, it was a little lonely when the slow songs came on...that's when I headed over to the couches :)  The evening was perfect and it was great to see Jamie and Brandon so in love.

All 3 of us woke up at the same time on Monday morning to head back up to Lodi.  I was a little nervous because of traffic.  Originally, I wanted to get out of LA by 5am in order to avoid the traffic and we didn't pull out of the hotel until 7:25.  However, praise the Lord, traffic wasn't too bad and we made it to the Grapevine in fairly good time.  The whole trip home was not very pleasant.  Kyleigh was still not handling the carseat well.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that out of the 8 hour trip, 4 of those hours were crying, 2 were sleeping, 1 was contentment, and 1 was eating.  Needless to say, it made for a very long day.

I flew back home to my boys on Tuesday.  Before heading to the airport, Kyleigh spent some time with her great grandparents and got to say goodbye.  It was a very calm morning, something we both needed!  The flight back was great; no one sat in the middle seat, so we had extra room!  I think Kyleigh was so excited to see her dad and brother that she couldn't sleep the first hour and a half.  At least she was quiet and content ;)  She did really great on this flight also.  I was so excited to see Ryan and Reagan and give them both kisses and hugs.  Ryan was happy to see me and Kyleigh, Reagan was only happy to see Kyleigh.  While his excitement for his sister was precious, I have to admit I was a little sad he wasn't more excited to see me.