Very belated California post

At the end of January one of our friends who works for JetBlue told us she had a couple of buddy passes that had to be used by January 31 and wondered if we could come up with some way to use them. :) (This woman is probably the nicest woman on the planet to have thought of us!) I quickly booked a trip to SoCal to visit my sister, bro-in-law, and niece that I'd barely met. It was such a fantastic trip and such good timing! Brad was in the middle of his surgery rotation, so we never saw him anyway. (Seriously, he worked from 4 am to 9 pm - I don't know how you surgery wives do it.)

It was a very low-key trip. Both my sister and I have young kids, so we just sort of did things the kids would like and on their schedules. We played at parks, went to the beach, ate yummy food, etc. And of course, made our daily trip to McDonalds for our $1 large Diet Cokes to keep us going. Annie ADORED Carlie. She insisted on taking a million pictures with her and calling her "Carlie Carlie Sue Sue" every time she cried. And James . . . he liked Carlie, but was not super great with her. At one point on a car ride, we could not figure out why Carlie kept screaming (usually she's a calm baby). I finally caught James in the act of pinching her little hands as hard as could. Naughty. Despite this little naughtiness, we all had a blast! Annie and James loved being with Elizabeth and Sam and frequently ask when we can go back to California. I only wish I knew.

 Despite the fact that we had beautiful 65 degree weather the whole time, the beach was not that warm. For some reason the freezing cold water and mild temperatures did not deter Annie from wanting to get all the way in. After about 20 minutes she told me that she was "a little bit freezing". No kidding.