California Vacation

Ahhh…vacation bliss. This week long vacation in California was the most well deserved vacation for us. More deserved than ANY OTHER vacation in either of our lives. After our crazy and exhausting move to our new house, we got onto the plane exhausted and ready to not think about anything at all. I forgot to mention that Tommy passed his oral boards (of course!). He found out the day before we left for California and seemed so relieved to finally know that he had passed. Of course I knew from the beginning that he had passed! ;) So we were both mentally prepared to unwind and really and truly relax!! 

Owen did AMAZING on the plane. We had a 2 hour layover in Chicago and he pretty much slept the entire way there from RDU. It helped that our flight was bright and early, so he was ready for a long nap. We had United Club passes that we could finally use so we sat and waited out our layover there. We even skyped everyone in California while we were there! They watched Owen eat a healthy helping of his baby food I had brought with us! The Chicago to LA leg of our flight was just as amazing and Owen slept almost the entire flight as well. I guess we were up way too early that morning and he was catching up on sleep!

We arrived to LA and thought we were in HEAVEN when we stepped off the plane. We've had pretty mild weather in NC this year and it's honestly been really pleasant, but holy cow….the LA weather was INCREDIBLE. We stepped off the plane and felt like we had just won the lottery!! Most of my Mom's family live in LA, so we knew it would be a good vacation to plan after Tommy's boards. None of the family had met Owen yet and I really wanted my 94 year old Grandmother to meet him too. We arrived to my Aunt's house after a long day of travel and Owen didn't even have a single melt down…until we got to the house! Once we got there, I handed Owen to my Mom and wanted to collapse on the couch. Unfortunately, Owen felt too many people were staring at him and passing him around and he started to cry uncontrollably. I can count on one hand how many times I've truly seen him cry with such fear. I guess he was just as exhausted as us and having crazy great aunts cooing and ahhing and acting cuckoo around him was not the best idea right off the bat!! I felt so bad! He really just wanted his Mom and afterwards settled in after a proper introduction to everyone. My mistake for thinking he remembered Grandma!!

My Aunt (also my Godmom) made an AMAZING dinner for us that night. We got to her house at 5pm (8pm East Coast time) and were starving. We had been eating like crap for the last week with the move and to have a home cooked meal upon our arrival was simply something we couldn't put into words. We ate like royalty! Amazingly Owen was FULL of energy that first night. It must have been those long naps on the plane and just the fresh air that kept him awake!!

The rest of our trip in LA consisted of relaxing outdoors and eating REALLY well. We went to Laguna Beach for brunch one day and took in the views and got some pretty cool family pictures. While we were there, we got to visit my cousin who has 4 kids and they LOVED Owen! Owen LOVES older children who can talk to him. He will straight up laugh out loud when they get down on his level and speak to him. He had such a blast! Since we had so many babysitters, Tommy and I got to escape one night to go to Griffith Observatory and watch the sun set. We also got to hang out with Tommy's cousin Anne and did a day of hiking in Malibu at Point Dume and walked around Venice Beach. Owen spent countless hours outside playing and perfecting his sitting position. 

It was one of the best vacations we have ever taken considering all that we had been through just a few days before. Thank you to our entire LA family for showing us so much love and hospitality. We had such a great time and can not wait to come back for another visit!