A few more California pictures

Mabes insisted on holding Annabelle before the plane took off, though Annabelle seemed a little nervous about her first flight:

"Wait, this 300,000 pound mass of metal is going where?"

We got to California, enjoyed In-N-Out, and introduced Annabelle to my dad and Aunt Nancy. We had a fabulous week of food, playing games, visiting friends, and just spending time with family. Becca flew in Saturday night, and Laura came in Tuesday night. Mabes loved the attention, and if for some reason the attention wasn't on her, she redirected it. Though Annabelle was a bit fussier than usual (can't blame her--with the time change, new places, and crazy people, I was fussier than usual, and I knew what was going on!), she was still awesome.

For the most part, we just hung out, ate, went shopping, ate, flew the kite, and ate, but before we left for California we decided that we'd take Mabes on a field trip on day to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield. My mom, Laura, and Becca joined us, and it was a great trip.

We toured the factory, got to see how Jelly Bellies are made, and got to sample one at each stage. Mabes had a lot of fun watching the machines and seeing how much work went into making a bag of jelly beans, and was thrilled to get her own bag to take home. Annabelle...well, again, she was awesome and happily went along for the ride. She's a good sport to put up with us.

On the Saturday morning that we were supposed to fly home, I went to check in online as Dave started taking our bags out to the car, only to find out that our flight had been canceled. I called the airline, and found out that due to weather in Dallas (where we had a connection), all flights had been canceled, and we were put on a red-eye that night through Chicago. For a brief second, I thought, "We can do a red-eye--if the girls slept for the entire time, it would be really nice..." But then the sane part of my brain took over and knocked sense into me. Red-eye flights and children don't mix. Red eye flights and Mabes? Heaven help me.

So they put us on a flight the next day, and you know how you always want just one more day of vacation? We were happy to get that. We got to meet Becca's boyfriend who was flying in that day, I got to finish birthday shopping with my mom, and Dave got to catch another movie with my dad and siblings while my Mom, Mabes, Annabelle, and I got to go to a local creamery for ice cream.

"Stop taking pictures and let me eat my ice cream, Mom!"

That last day turned out to be one of the best days of the trips, and I'm so grateful for the bad weather in Dallas! That night, Mabes got to read stories with Grandma, and Louie jumped in for old time's sake.