Our trip to California

(I tried posting this yesterday - but my internet was on the fritz all day...)

We got home last night from a trip to California. We were mostly going for our annual Blind Guy awards banquet, but decided to make a bigger trip of it. We asked Cory's mom to come along so that we could attend the banquet together without the kids, and also because we wanted her to get to spend some fun time with the boys. We had planned on going to Palm Springs for the banquet and Cory's meetings (which included a lot of golf too…) and then we were going to San Diego for several days. In San Diego we were going to go to the Wild Animal Park, possibly the beach, and Sea World. We had been talking this all up to Gabe for weeks now. I showed him the websites, learned about different animals – really got him (and me!) excited about the trip.

Well…things didn't go as planned.

First off – it's harder to travel with 2 little boys than I had anticipated. At one point I was complaining to Cory about how hard it was with the 2 little guys – and he said, "What were you expecting exactly?" Well – honestly I was thinking that somehow both boys would be so excited that we were on vacation that they wouldn't throw fits, need naps, or have tough times….Yeah – I'm an idiot, and looking back I'm realizing just how dumb I was. Hunter isn't even 6 months old yet, and Gabe is very much a 2 ½ year old. They hadn't read the memo that on vacation everything is supposed to be cheery, happy and temper-tantrum free (honestly – I hadn't read the memo either – I can be a crab on vacation with the rest of the bunch!)

So nothing I had planned in Palm Springs ended up happening. There were naps in the car while Tammy and I explored Palm Springs from the seats of the suburban, a trip to Costco for Cory's new GPS toy (which ROCKS!) – which took us all over the area (since we didn't have the GPS yet, and the directions I'd looked up on the internet only took us ½ way there…), there was swimming in the pool, a semi-successful trip to one of the coolest outlet malls ever, and time in the hotel room. Poor Hunter didn't sleep nearly enough, and Gabe probably didn't either.

Cory and I DID get to go to Cheesecake Factory for a late night dessert after the boys got to sleep one night, and enjoyed most of the banquet another night before I needed to head back to nurse the baby (we were there for all of the banquet – just missed out on some of the chatting afterwards).

Then came our change of plans. We drove to San Diego Saturday afternoon. The weather forecast said it was supposed to be SUPER rainy. Everyone we talked to when we got there warned us of the rain and apologized that we had come on such a crummy weekend. They said it was supposed to be the biggest storm of the year. Since both of our big plans included being outside (Sea World and the Wild Animal Park) we were nervous. If it had just been Cory and I we would have definitely just forged ahead and gone in the rain. Hey – rain means fewer lines eh? And really, with just the 2 of us and Gabe – we would have totally done it too. But since we had the baby we were just leery of taking him out in the cold/rain/wind for 2 days. I volunteered to stay back at the hotel with the baby, but Cory decided that it would be best to head back home. We'd save quite a bit of money, and it had already felt like a long trip. This decision made me sad, I have to admit. I had spent a LOT of time making plans, researching places to go, hotels that were close to what we were going to do, and had really gotten Gabe excited about it. I kind of felt like I had failed somehow….which is silly. But none-the-less it was a bummer.

So we drove home yesterday. Cory took his mom ½ way home today (met his sister to take her the rest of the way) and now we're trying to make sense of our day and get PILES of laundry done. And I'm feeling a major we-didn't-really-go-on-vacation slump. I'm also avoiding talking about Sea World with Gabe. We never really came out and said, "And we're not going to Sea World now". He hasn't asked about it yet, and I'm praying that he doesn't hate me when it does all come up. It's funny because up until yesterday he had begged to go to Sea World every chance he got – but since yesterday morning he hasn't even said a word about it….so I hope he doesn't because I think telling him we're not going after all the hype will make me cry.

And then there is the fact that I hardly took any pictures the whole time we were gone. Truthfully I took pictures at ONE place – the outlet mall when Gabe was riding in a race-car, and they are horrible pictures (really blurry). Bummer. I guess if I don't have pictures, if we didn't really do anything fabulously-vacation like, it wasn't much of a vacation right ?

I am glad that we got to go to Cory's meetings and banquet. I'm grateful that I had a few little moments with Cory as we got our dessert at the Cheesecake Factory, and I enjoyed seeing the diversity that Palm Springs has. And San Diego area is really pretty too. I hope to go back again someday – soon. I'm also grateful that Tammy (Cory's mom) got to spend some time with the boys. I wish we lived closer to all of our family so we didn't have to rely on times like this to spend time with family. (I think vacationing makes me kind of grumpy and I wished that family got to see me more at my 'best').

So we're back, we're cold (it's snowing and super windy today), and we're good to go.

Have a great week!