California, Here We Come (Part 1)

We're in California this week with my entire family to attend my brother Stephen's seminary graduation! In honor of this occasion, I just had to post a favorite "I Love Lucy" clip:

OK, now that that's out of the way, here are some of our adventures so far.

The plane trip to Phoenix was not easy. Katie had a hard time napping and did a good amount of fussing, especially on the first 3-hour leg. I thought the second leg would be shorter but it ended up being about 3 hours as well. I almost did not get on that second plane once I realized how long the second flight would be. Thankfully, due to sheer exhaustion, Katie fell asleep sprawled on her back across my legs near the end of that second leg.

We were so glad to finally arrive in Phoenix! We flew there to visit some close friends -- Jaime was my roommate before I married John, and her husband West really gets along well with John. They have two children, Ava (nearly 4) and Logan (nearly 2), and Katie became instant friends with both of them. We had a delightful time for the nearly two days we spent with them. Katie was so inspired by the older children that she did a new trick the very first day: Standing without support!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our visit.

Monday morning we left at 7:30 am to try to get to Palm Springs, CA in time to watch the last half of the collegiate lacrosse championships, which John's favorite team had made it to against all odds. This was a last-minute change to our itinerary, and I Googled "Palm Springs sports bar" to find what ended up being a hole-in-the-wall place inside a strip mall that didn't even serve food. And in the end, all our racing across Arizona and California was to see a very disappointing loss for John's team. Bummer. But I did manage to get another funny photo of Katie on the way. I've never seen her hair stand up quite so much!

To be continued...

Playing a Little Blog Catch Up

Here are a few fun items I never got around to blogging about.

April 17 and 21 -- Katie "helped" Daddy put up the safety gates on the stairs. No more climbing stairs for Katie!!

April 18 -- Several of my high school friend "mommies" gathered at our house for brunch. It was so fun that we're starting to do it on a regular basis.

April 24 -- Katie watched cartoons for the first time. She seems to be enjoying it, don't you think?

April 29 -- Katie and I waited in line at Ben & Jerry's for Free Cone Day. She skipped the spoon when trying to eat her Strawberry Kiwi sorbet. Yummy!

Sunday, May 4 -- My organist father-in-law invited me to join his church choir when they sang John Rutter's "Gloria." I sang that 3-movement piece twice while a senior in high school and enjoyed singing it again with them (although it didn't take me long to realize that I'm no longer the soprano I was then!). Katie and John watched from the back of the church, and I could see Katie clapping during the song and I could hear her trying to sing along. Here's a photo of my father-in-law and I after the performance:

May 11 - John had already showered me with blessings for my first Mothers Day (he replaced my wedding ring with an even better one, plus he babysat for 6 hours on Saturday so I could have girl time and go clothes shopping for the first time since Katie's birth!). So I was happy to spend Mothers Day doing his favorite activity: watching lacrosse! And this time, Katie got to come along!

Here's a hysterical video of her cheering with us:

YEA!! Katie's first lacrosse game!!! Well, unless you count the game last May when I was a week and a half overdue and Katie cheered from my belly while refusing to come out:

The two best things to come from that game? Our team won the National Collegiate Lacrosse Championship that day. And I didn't have to deliver Katie in the middle of Ravens Stadium.

Lacrosse Day!

Yesterday we gathered at John's parents' house for lunch before going to a lacrosse game (which our team won big -- hooray!). While John's parents watched Katie, we had special guests at lunch and the game: John's friend Eric and his two daughters, ages 5 and 3. John and Eric are HUGE lacrosse fans and this was the girls' first game, which was very exciting for them. (I doubt Katie will have to wait till age 3 to go to a lacrosse game -- in fact, she may go next week.)

Anyway, the 3-year-old and Katie had much fun with each other. Here are a few photos, and I've posted many more fun ones here.

And in case you were wondering about Katie's onesie, it's a gift from Eric's wife and it says: "Eat. Sleep. Lacrosse." That's pretty much the motto of Katie's daddy every spring! :-)