posing with the tree
Originally uploaded by brappsToday was the second full day back in England after our fabulous 3 week holiday in Southern California with my family. Now, I'm not saying I was naive about what havoc jet lag will play on a 19-month-old's sleep schedule, but it is vastly different than the effect it had on James when we had our trip to SoCal in October 2007 when he was 4 months old. I am hoping that tonight will be more normal. We shall see.
The trip was so much fun! It was great to be away with Ben for 3 weeks, and to be around my parents and siblings, to see them all interact with James. The obsession my boy had with my dad for the few weeks before the trip was met with a bit of shyness from James at first, but once my dad operated the train around the Christmas village, James was his biggest fan again. I'm still hearing the chant of "Papa, train" to this day. I know he misses them, he keeps saying "Papa, back - Gaga, back" because he wants to go back and see them. Any time we mention Uncle David, he says the thing David taught him to say: "Do-do-do-dooo, OW!" and he talks about his Hotwheels cars cos Uncle David played cars with him and crashed them so he makes crashing sounds. When we mention Uncle Tony he says "Toe, Toe - nano, nano!" cos he associates him with the piano and he gets so excited when I talk about Auntie Amber, he says "Amer, AMER!!" We've been trying to get James to say "Hi, my name is James" and he's doing pretty well at it, but if we ask him, "What's your name?" he says "Audoo" because he got used to us asking him what Uncle Tony and Auntie Tiffany's dog is named, and that's how he says Audrey. So we'll have to work on that one a bit, but it's super cute! When we talk about my parents' dog Eva, he says "no,no,no" and wags his finger cos that's what he would do when she'd bark at her. And he called her "Abby". I think it's great that he got to know my family so well. We chatted with my parents and David on the webcam last night and he really enjoyed it. So did I, but I miss them so much now!
Like usual, there wasn't enough time to see everybody as much as we'd have liked to. We didn't spend as much time with Annie, Chris and Roman as I would have liked to, and also didn't see Vicky as much as I'd hoped we could, but it was still great to see them and Annie gave me some good makeup advice. We also got to see my grandparents in Visalia for 2 days and did the road trip with Amber which was really fun, it reminded me of the good old days. My grandma gave James rides on her motorized scooter and he loved it! He also adored my Aunt Ginger's cat Smokey, whom he called "Moke". Tony and Tiffany visited the first day we were up there and my parents and David and the dog Eva went the second day, and my Uncle Bill came over too. So it was a real family event.
We had a day out at Disneyland early on in the trip, that morning James fell over into the coffee table at Tony and Tiffany's and sported a black eye for a few days. We went with Rebecca, Mike and Kate Harutunian and Tony and Tiffany. It was a great day! James loved the submarine ride with Finding Nemo, and It's A Small World as well as Sleeping Beauty's Castle. We also went on the Haunted Mansion ride with Nightmare Before Christmas decor and The Pirates of the Carribean. Mike and Ben took Kate and James to the Innoventions while Rebecca, Tiffany, Tony and I went on the Space Mountain ride. James' favourite thing by far was the Monorail, he kept pointing at it and saying "Mommo" and when we went on it we got to ride in the front of the train with the driver, it was so cool! During the whole trip when we would drive under a freeway overpass, he'd point up and say "mommo", I guess it looked like the Monorail to him!
A few days later, we went on the Amtrak to Oceanside to go to Legoland for a couple of days with Mike, Rebecca and Kate. We had a condo in a hotel right by Legoland that we all shared and it was so nice! We checked in and went to Legoland for a few hours, where Kate and James got obsessed with the duplo blocks in a play room and Kate kept saying "I make a tower!" The next day when we returned, it was quite rainy so we spent a lot of time in that room again. We were concerned that the kids wouldn't get to go on many of the rides as a lot of them had height restrictions, the minimum for some rides being 34" and James was only about 33", but we put a hat on him and he got to go on all of the 34" minimum rides we attempted. We bought lots of souvenirs but I was impressed by Ben's restraint. That evening we took the train to San Diego and stayed in a hotel there. The following day was spent looking around San Diego, mostly on the Naval Vessel the USS Midway. We had a late lunch and then got the train back to Burbank. We got in our car and drove to Simi Valley that night to stay with my parents and David. It was a great lead-up to Christmas, despite the fact that Mom, Dad and David were recovering from the flu. Tiffany had also gotten it, but we managed to stay illness-free until Visalia when the three of us got the sniffles. James also cut one of his canine teeth, so that could have accounted for his very runny nose.
We wrapped up the trip with visits to Andrea's house and then to see her parents, Lupe and Amador. It was great to see them, they were having a surprise birthday party for Andrea's brother Alex's girlfriend Danielle's birthday. The whole family was there, and James played with Andrea's 2 year old nephew Lucas and seemed to enjoy that. Another day, my cousin Ginette and her boyfriend Evan came over to my parents' house. It was great to see them, I hadn't seen Ginette in 5 years so it was wonderful to catch up, and my mom was glad to see her again too. We had dinner out with Tony, Tiffany, and Tiffany's parents Joyce and Bill. James was being very cute and calling Bill "Papa", a title he gives only to my dad, my grandpa and Santa Claus! I guess he just has that grandpa look!
Our 6th Wedding Anniversary, New Year's Eve, was spent at Mike and Rebecca's house in Santa Clarita playing Rock Band and watching them set off fireworks in their backyard. Amber came with us, too, and James stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, it was really fun!
Our last days were spent seeing Vicky, and shopping for the last minute essentials like an extra GIGANTIC suitcase for all of the toys James got. We had lunch with Tony before we headed for the airport, and got to LAX nice and early to check in so we could plead our case of how Expedia.co.uk had messed up our booking when we bought a seat for James as well, but they say we didn't (long story, let's just say that part of the trip wasn't so nice, and either was having our luggage not arrive in LA for 2 days after we did - but we survived!) and we managed to secure seats at the bulk head for extra space, James even scrunched up in one of those infant bassinets they clip into the wall in front of you and he slept for most of the flight back.
We got home safe and sound, to very cold temperatures (we had snow this morning that hasn't quite melted away) It's good to be home, but it was such a wonderful trip, I wish it could last. But all great things must come to an end.
