US Travels

I’m way behind in writing this post but life has been busy is all I can say. So Christmas. We seem to have started this tradition where we go back to the US every other year for Christmas. And Christmas 2016 was a year to go home. It worked out well because then we could introduce Elaine to family and friends that hadn’t met her yet.

We started our adventure by heading to Dundee, OR a few days before Christmas. We met Nate’s parents there and spent the week of Christmas with them. Dundee is also where our friends Ron and Lindsay live and so it gave us the opportunity to spend time with them as well and their newborn baby girl. We had a wonderful Christmas together, we got to spend some quality time with Nate’s parents (and they got to spend some quality time with the girls), we relaxed, saw friends (thanks Chad and Tasha for coming out to us!) and even got out to enjoy a bit of the Oregon wine country where we were staying. Nate’s parents were nice enough to babysit Josephine so we could get out for a bit and do some wine tasting with Ron and Lindsay.

The week flew by and before we knew it it was time to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa Ross and head to the Bay Area. Kristine and Aaron were kind enough to host us once again. The kids had a blast playing together. We did the train of lights in Fremont, which was fun and Christmasy. The guys got out for a night in the city and Kristine and I got our own time out. Nate and I took the girls into the city for the day to meet up with friends for lunch on the Embarcadero. We then headed over to Pac Bell Park as Nate had to show Josephine exactly where the Giants play.

This year was yet another mellow New Year’s Eve and we rang it in with Kristine, Aaron, Louis and Keelin and the kiddos. It was all perfect and everyone was pretty much in bed shortly after midnight. Life with young kids!

It was of course a quick week and before we knew it we were saying goodbye. Nate headed back to London and the girls and I headed to my parents’ in San Miguel. Since I was on maternity leave it provided a good opportunity for us to spend some extra time in the US.

We spent 3 weeks with my parents and did lots of fun stuff. We went to the Children’s Museum, which Josephine loved. We walked around Cal Poly. This was fun as I hadn’t been on campus since I graduated and another bonus was showing Josephine where Mommy went to school. Her comment “Wow, it’s big!”. We had two separate visits to Firestone (a must visit, of course). We celebrated my birthday. Catherine came and we were able to celebrate for the day together. Mom and Dad were kind enough to watch Josephine so we could get out for lunch and do some wine tasting. As a bonus, Lisa was there too! I got to visit with other friends too….lunch with Jess, dinner with Dave and Angie. It was nice having so much time to be able to do these things.

Josephine got to have some fun in the country. She rode her John Deere tractor, hiked around the hills and a favorite was riding in the truck with Grandpa to take the garbage cans down to the end of the driveway for pickup. No carseat or anything! Needless to say, it was always hard to get her out of the truck.

We ended our 3 weeks with a baptism for Elaine. Nate came back for a long weekend (planned accordingly so that I didn’t have to travel back to London alone with the girls). It was a great opportunity to baptize Elaine with many of our friends and family present. Josephine got to play with her cousins….and had a blast of course.

Overall it was a great 3 weeks filled with so many experiences and memories. After 5 weeks in total back in the US, it was a bit rough getting back settled again in London. But after 10 days, all was back to normal.