Jay & Rach: California

I've been pretty spoiled with frequent visits home to California, but Jay hadn't been since December 2013! We had both been counting down the days til this trip since we booked it in January.

On Saturday May 9th, we took a flight from Kalamazoo to Chicago, then Chicago to Santa Ana.

Evelyn was the best little traveler. Beforehand I gathered some tips on traveling with an infant. One of the main things people advised was to make sure your baby is either sucking on a binky or nursing during landing and take off to keep their ears from getting plugged. I did my best but just couldn't time her feedings accordingly. She was always asleep for taking off and landing! I attempted to force some nurses upon her but she was just so out. Thank goodness taking off, landing, turbulence, loud voices over the intercom- nothing phased her. She slept for nearly all of both flights, and when she wasn't asleep she was as happy as could be. And because she's so tiny I got away with changing her diapers on my lap.

Mike and Kari picked us up from the John Wayne airport then we ate at In-N-Out. Jay was pretty dang stoked.

Traveling and adjusting to a three hour time difference took a lot out of all three of us. So after a visit with Grandma Bonnie and Granpa Glenn, we ate some dinner then went to sleep.

The next morning we attended sacrament meeting with Kari and Mike before driving down to my parent's house in San Diego for Evelyn's baby blessing.

Evelyn's Baby Blessing | May 10th

Hike up Twin Peaks | May 10th

This hike ended up being a disaster. It was a short but steep hike and I realized how out of shape I was. It didn't help toting a child that was crying most of the way up and all the way down. Evelyn usually goes right to sleep when she's in the wrap, but after a long day of being overstimulated by everyone that came to her blessing, I should have known the hike would be overkill. When I took the wrap off we were both drenched in my sweat. I spent the rest of the night sulking in mommy guilt.

The next couple days were spent in San Diego shopping, eating, going to the beach, the temple, seeing the Parks' new home, and touring Kashi headquarters in Solona Beach. [Sadly I didnt get any photos to document our experience but it was pretty incredible!]

Wyatt was so sweet with Evelyn and so very helpful by making sure the binky was in her mouth at all times.

Torrey Pines Beach | May 11th

Evelyn wasn't loving the beach until we bundled her up. I'm looking forward to bringing her back when it's warmer and she's a bit older to actually enjoy it.

This is an ugly photo, haha. But I love this dude and our weird inside jokes.

San Diego Temple | May 12th

Corona | May 12th-15th

Renee made amazing homemade meals, Jay and Rich went shooting, we got to spend time with the Green's, Stewart's, and Grethers. And on our last night we met my family at PF Changs in Temecula.

Redlands Temple | May 13th

Renee so kindly watched Evelyn while Jay and I attended the temple and went out to breakfast.

Irvine | May 15th-16th

The rest of our vacation was spent back with Kari and Mike. We ate at one of our favorite restaurants- The Old Spaghetti Factory in Newport with Grandpa and Grandma Patchell and Marin. Then back to Irvine for a late showing of The Avengers: Age of Ultron. [This was Evelyn's first movie. I was hesitant to bring her knowing it would be quite loud, but she slept in my arms through the whole thing.]

On Saturday the 16th we said goodbye to family and headed back to Michigan.

It was such a smooth day of traveling. First of all, flying east is always quicker [something about flying with the jet stream instead of against it when you're flying west]. Rather than a 4 1/2 hour flight, we had a 3 1/2 hour flight to Chicago. And we ended up with a whole row of seats to ourselves.

We landed in Chicago with time to enjoy a meal at Macaroni Grill, then took our last flight to Kalamazoo.