Newport Beach, CA
The big story of this week for me was my trip to Southern California for a girls' reunion weekend with friends from college.
Did I ever tell you that I thought I would never make friends in college? I lived in the same place growing up (as opposed to Matt who moved all over the Northeast and lived in 5 different states before he graduated from high school), so for me many of the kids I went to first grade with were the same kids I graduated with. Of course, friendships changed along the way and I had to meet new people when several elementary schools merged into the junior high school, but I never really had the experience of knowing nobody and having to make friends "from scratch" until I went to college. When I didn't make friends immediately (as in, on the first day) I assumed it would never happen and basically told myself "well, at least I will have a lot of time to study." Of course within about a week I found my dear friends Mandy and Lindsey who lived with me on the same floor of Hinckley Hall, and from there my circle of friends expanded to a fabulous group of girls that I still keep up with thanks to the dual miracles of blogging and Facebook. Still, it had been almost 10 years since I had seen many of them in person so it was great to have an opportunity to catch up with them this weekend.
2006 was the last time I set foot on a plane without a small child in tow. I thoroughly enjoyed my six hours of doing absolutely nothing on the plane except for watching TV, drifting in and out of sleep, and browsing magazines. I even had time to get bored, which is really saying something.
The weekend revolved mostly around food, as all good weekends rightly should. From frozen bananas and Balboa Bars on Balboa Island, to frozen yogurt at Pinkberry, to great restaurants thanks to the Zagat app and resident foodie Lindsey, we definitely ate well. We filled the time between meals with shopping, getting our nails done, visiting the beach, and staying up late catching up on life in the hotel room.
The one thing that put a damper on the weekend was that my dear friend Mandy – the person who basically initiated the whole reunion and helped plan it – wasn't able to be there. Her baby girl Lauren was diagnosed with RSV and spent the two weeks leading up to our trip in the hospital. Thankfully Lauren is home and healthy now, and although I was fairly devastated that Mandy couldn't make it at least it gives us a good incentive to plan the next reunion sooner rather than later (New York anyone?!).
This was the first time I've left all the kids with Matt overnight. I knew he was more than capable, but I still wrote out this list (all the personal information/phone numbers/addresses have been erased) for him since there was so much going on that Friday that he is not used to dealing with. At the bottom of this list I wrote: "Please remember: 1) to brush the girls' hair every day, 2) to have Ella feed her fish every day, and 3) I love you!" Clearly he went above and beyond because when I got back from my trip, our babysitter Diana told me that when she got to the house on Friday, Matt had put bows in Lucy's hair. She said, "I went home and told my mom that he is just the best dad ever!" I tend to agree.
Here are a few other non-trip related photos from the week:
Sunday afternoon cookie baking.
Drawings by Claire. The picture on the left is from one of the little pieces of paper that she always brings home from school. She is really into rainbows right now. The picture on the right is of me and her together.
After school snack: cookies and milk.
