We just arrived home after a whirlwind long weekend in California - SoCal I guess we call it these days if we're hip (which I'm pretty sure I'm too old to be anymore...) But I digress. The original purpose of our trip was to attend the wedding of Graham's cousin Jon to his new bride Lisa. Of course we did our best to tack on all sorts of other fun adventures and kept ourselves quite busy. I have long since eliminated the word "vacation" from my vocabulary when traveling with kids (except of course when I'm trying to convince Graham to blow the wad: "We're on vacation!") Gone are the days when I would need not one but TWO books to keep me entertained through all my leisure time. We are all now fully aware that these journeys are to be referred to as trips NOT vacations. Needless to say, though the trip was far from restful, it definitely was fun and I am currently savoring the side effect of keeping our kids up past 10 every night: ALL THREE ARE NAPPING!
We really lucked out on our flight south. Our "full" plane suddenly had an extra seat available for the gentleman next to us to move to, leaving Jack with a spare (and not to mention free) spot to nap - awesome!
Alas, I made a fatal error on this trip which was to rely on cell phone pictures and keep the "real" camera stowed for the majority of the trip in the interest of "not lugging the big thing around." Now I'm regretting that choice but oh well. You live and learn. Please do not judge the quality of my photos. Though blurry, I had to post the picture (bottom right) of the way we rolled. I thought we actually packed rather light were it not for our kid-movers (read: stroller, 2 car seats and a booster seat). I told Graham next time we need to travel to a 3rd world country so we can leave the stinkin' car seats behind. Sheesh! We did use our stroller to haul children at a couple points on the trip but mostly it served as a luggage cart. Sometimes I am silenced by our ingenuity.
Once we landed at 9:15 AM at LAX (yes landed which means we left so early that I don't even want to talk about it), we picked up our rental van and met up with Grandma and Grandpa Crozier and their Italian student Anna and Uncle Scott at Euro Pane, the beloved lunch spot I fell for on our last trip to Pasadena. I have a new vision and owe part of the inspiration to the decor at Euro Pane. Stay tuned! Anyhow, it was here that Jack sported his first mow hawk, which I'm so totally digging.
After lunch, Uncle Scott played tour guide and showed us some of the sights around Pasadena which included a drive by the Rose bowl, a walk around the grounds of the impressive Gamble House and a pick-me-up at his favorite coffee shop.
That evening, we made our way to Corona where we stayed with some of Grandpa Crozier's second cousins. They had an amazing back yard, complete with pool, tennis court and playhouse on stilts with an adult-sized slide to bring you back down out of heaven. The kids ate it up and their one complaint (mine too) was that we barely had any time to enjoy their resort-like set up. Why, you ask? Stay tuned!
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