Over the mountains and through the cities to Grandmother's house we go....

As you read in my previous post, our family decided to take yet another long road trip to see Brett's Grandma Pauline who lives in Southern California.

It took 7 1/2 hours to get there but it was worth the trip. Chloe did excellent on the trip down, she only cried a few times but would always fall back to sleep. I do not recommend driving through LA on a Friday night. We got there around 7:30 thinking that we had missed the traffic...well we missed the worst of it, but were delayed 2 hours on our trip!

So growing up in the northwest, I thought I had a pretty good idea what mountains looked like...rocky with lots of trees, shrubs and water running down the sides of them. Well to my surprise, we had to drive through the mountains on our way down and back. And I was stunned to see mountains with nothing but sand on them. Very different from what I was used to. This definitely is California.

The weather was wonderful. It was in the mid 70's and very nice. If it is that nice next time we go down there, I am definitely bringing my suit. There are 7 pools where his grandma lives. Oh and by the way, I believe we have found the place where we will be retiring. Laguna Woods.

When we were down there, we saw Brett's Grandma, his Aunt April, Uncle Randy, his cousins James and Karen and her husband Rob. They are all such nice and friendly people. We went out to dinner with them which was wonderful and a nice icebreaker for us since we hadn't seen them for quite some time.

Grandma Pauline and I stayed up both nights until midnight or later just talking. I loved it. I haven't had a grandma since I was 8 so I really enjoy the fact that Brett still has 2. I try to soak up all the time I can get with them.

So I am afraid that Chloe may be starting to teeth. The whole weekend she was drooling, having lots of diapers and she was chewing on everything. YIKES she is not yet 3 months old. I hope this is something else, not teething.

We had some pretty amazing sites on our way home. We drove through LA (lots of traffic), mountains, orchards, garlic fields (the Italian in me went nuts!) but the most amazing thing was the fire and the smoke that it caused. Hopefully you have all heard about the fires that are going on in Southern California. Well one started by I-5 (our route home) and the smoke cloud was huge. We had to drive through it. You know how it looks when you are wearing sunglasses with an orange tint to them and everything turns a brownish-orange color? Well that's what it looked like for about 5 miles through this smoke cloud. It was neat to look at.

On the way home , Chloe slept the ENTIRE trip! All 8 hours of it. I had to wake her to feed and change her, but she fell back to sleep instantly. Oh and when we got home....yeah she slept through the night like a wonderful little baby. I was so afraid that since she had been sleeping the entire day that she would be up all night, but I was wrong. I love her so much!

I was really sad to move to California because I knew I would be leaving behind such wonderful people who I love so dearly. My family was the hardest to leave. I know that they are only 15 hours away (with a baby you have to extend the trip time) so I could see them if I want to...but it really is a drive. When I went down to Brett's relatives this weekend, I realized that I had family here that I really enjoy spending time with. And they are only 6-8 hours away depending on traffic. With this knowledge, it makes me feel better about being here in California. If I need a family fix....any family fix, I can always drive to see them and be there within a few hours.