California, Here We Come (Part 6)

I promise, this is the last of the California posts! I need to finish them up so I can move on to more current happenings in KatieLand. :-) For other California reports, see here.

Saturday, May 31 was a HUGE day. It was my brother's graduation day! It was Katie's 1st birthday! And we also spent a lovely evening in La Jolla to celebrate our last evening in California. I'm going to tackle these photos in that order.

Seminary Graduation

First of all, my brother Stephen graduated with an M.Div. from Westminster Seminary. While I would have loved to have heard R.C. Sproul deliver the commencement address, I couldn't hear much while chasing a crawling Katie around the lobby. We came back into the ceremony in time to watch Stephen receive his diploma -- and quickly wished we hadn't.

Stephen decided to goof off during his moment in the spotlight. In the first photo below, you can see him clapping as the gentleman in front of him receives his diploma. In the second photo below, John tried to capture Stephen's big moment -- and as you can hopefully see, all eyes are on the floor, where Stephen landed after "tripping" and sprawling. Afterwards he "limped" to get his diploma, as the audience expressed pity and worry that my brother might be hurt. The seminary president reassured them with, "You all obviously don't know Stephen Roberts."



Here are photos of the graduate with (1) John and Katie, and (2) his new fiancee Lindsey.

We were also surprised and happy to run into two of John's college buddies and Christian brothers -- on the other side of the country from his alma mater!

Katie's Birthday

While we were saving most of Katie's birthday festivities till we got home, we managed to sneak a few things in. First, the waiters sang "Happy Birthday" to her at lunch:

Secondly, and most impressively, my sister-in-law Sharon spent her ENTIRE last California afternoon driving around the area looking for any store that would personalize a birthday cake on the spot. It literally took her hours! I was so touched when she surprised us with a cake that afternoon:

Here's a video of Katie enjoying the cake:

Here are a few more cute photos of Katie on her birthday:

and an adorable video of her waking up in the car, cuddling her favorite stuffed animal Eeyore, and eventually trying to eat him:

La Jolla

After resting for a few hours, most of our family headed to La Jolla for one last glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. My brother Jason had never seen the Pacific before, so he decided he would brave the water even though it was freezing:

Lindsey's mom, who had flown in for Stephen's graduation, gave hugs to her daughter and my daughter:

I gave hugs to my husband and my brother Stephen:

Katie cuddled up with my mom and with me:

Lindsey cuddled up with Stephen, and then with Katie later that evening after giving her a birthday gift of animal-themed tights!

The next day we all flew home except for Stephen, who had to drive cross-country to get his car and belongings home. What a wonderful and exhausting trip!

California, Here We Come (Part 5)

Our day at the San Diego Zoo was fantastic. We saw many animals much closer up than we have seen at the National Zoo -- elephants, pandas, giraffes, zebras, peacocks, gorillas (esp. one's butt), hippos, camels, and meerkats are all represented in the photos below. The highlight for me was seeing koala bears for the first time -- I wanted to take one home so badly! Katie enjoyed seeing all of the animals, and she especially enjoyed the petting zoo, where she pet several goats. Well, "pet" isn't the right word. She "pet" the goats the way she "pets" our dog Bella -- in other words, she hits them with both hands like a drum. :-)

My mom was my hero that day (as she usually is) for holding Katie while she napped in her arms. We rode in a ski lift over the zoo, which was much better than having to walk all the way back to the entrance. And it was a blast spending getting to know my future sister-in-law Lindsey that day -- she and Stephen had gotten engaged the week before, and the Zoo was our first time to spend time together in person. (She is currently staying with us this week as she hunts for a job and apartment in our area.)

She's Walking!!

On Sunday, June 8, just a few hours after learning that her best friend Daniel (7 weeks older) was walking, Katie decided she couldn't let Daniel outpace her and walked for the first time! She took three steps to get to a toy. So exciting! While I couldn't get a video of the first few steps (we were watching National Treasure 2 at the time -- how dare she not give us warning beforehand?), here's a video taken shortly afterwards which shows a step or two.

And while I'm sharing the good news, let me share a few more highlights from this past week:

While we were dodging tornadoes, my friend Amy and her daughters took advantage of the regional blackout to come over for a fun sleepover! The next day, after our power finally came on, I babysat the girls and Katie fell asleep on 10-year-old Caitlin's lap as they watched "Hairspray."

Friday night our family took advantage of the 3-day weekends that John now gets every other week (what a blessed life we have with his new job!) and headed to the beach to visit with John's parents. It was way too hot to actually lie on the beach this weekend, but John's parents watched Katie several times so we could sleep in, go to the movies twice, and go out to dinner. What a wonderful, relaxing weekend -- especially when John's parents were supposed to be celebrating their own 36-year anniversary. (Speaking of which, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, GRAMMY and JAY-PA!) Highlights from the weekend were Katie walking for the first time, trying chocolate ice cream for the first time, and enjoying her new doggie raft in the pool. She also now moo's spontaneously when I point to a picture of a cow.

California, Here We Come (Part 4)

(Sorry for the delay in finishing the recounting of our recent trip to California. We've been dodging tornados around here! It was hard being without power 12 hours and without internet access 18 hours, but I still feel blessed that we and our loved ones and our home are all safe. One house on my parents' street was split in half by a tree. :-( )

Anyway, back to sunny memories...

Thursday of last week was our built-in rest day. We didn't have any scheduled plans except a possible get-together with our friends Glenn and Sara. Glenn was John's roommate in college and post-college, as well as one of his groomsmen. Sara is due with their first baby on June 8. Thus, we didn't know if we'd be visiting them at their home in Carlsbad, or at the hospital! This was especially true when Sara started experiencing mild contractions the same day we were to visit them.

Thankfully for us, they were just warm-up contractions, and we got to have a nice afternoon with Sara, including some beach time, as well as a delicious sushi dinner with Sara and Glenn. We specifically requested this sushi restaurant since we'd been there before and LOVED it -- and we recommend it to anyone visiting Carlsbad! Sushi Taisho is YUMMY!!!



We had a wonderful time with Sara and Glenn, and Katie had a wonderful set of naps that day for the first time on the trip. Life definitely started looking up at that point. And to cap the whole night off, my brother Stephen's fiancee Lindsey arrived that night, and we absolutely loved getting to know her. Here's a photo of her meeting my parents for the first time the next morning:

Click here to read more about our trip. And tales from the rest of our adventure are to come...

California, Here We Come (Part 3)

We're baaaack! And I am SO glad to be home. Now I can finally start catching up on blogging our California vacation.

My last California post was about our time in Pasadena. We left Pasadena on Tuesday and drove the few hours south to Escondido, California, where we met up with the rest of my family. While John unpacked the car, Katie experienced a swimming pool for the first time. She loved it!

Unfortunately, I realized a few days later though that her main interest in the pool was drinking the chlorinated water. So I had to be creative about the way I held her in the pool.

The day after we arrived in Escondido, our family went to Sea World. It was fun in some regards, but Katie would have enjoyed it much more if she were a bit older. She had trouble focusing on the fish, and was too young to go on any of the rides. She didn't nap much either which added to the stress of the day. Her favorite activity at Sea World was crawling around on a toddler mat in the Sesame Street section with her cousin Ali:

She also enjoyed seeing the killer whales and dolphins, and meeting a horse and a Sesame Street character:

Near the end of the day, we had reservations for Dinner with Shamu. We sat around the killer whale pool while eating from a buffet. They had told us that we might get a little wet. However, John, our digital camera, and our nephew Drew got completely SOAKED when the killer whale decided to splash our side of the pool. Our camera conked out after taking these photos. Thankfully it came back to life the following day.

Here's a photo taken by the Sea World photographer before the dinner began (and while John was still dry):

This was probably our most exhausting day since our plane had landed in Phoenix. Thankfully the next day, scheduled as an R&R day, things started to turn around.

To be continued...