Charlotte's first trip to Utah: Part 3

On Sunday we spent most of the afternoon at Salt Lake City's Hogle Zoo, where Charlotte was only semi impressed by the animals lounging around under the shade of trees. She loved watching the sea lions do tricks for their food, so that was a big hit, but other than that, she really just wanted to push her stroller around. Unfortunately she wanted to push it in the opposite direction of where we were headed, so she was pretty unhappy by the end of the day.

Oh, and she loved stealing and trying on Granny Lisa's sunglasses.

After we finally got baby girl in bed after a long day at the zoo, we all gathered around my mom's kitchen table to play some games, which is a tradition in our family. We played A hysterical card game called Exploding Kittens that had us all cracking up, along with Mad Gab, where we all continued cracking up. This is the night where I got snapshot happy, so be prepared for a picture overload!
My winning Exploding Kittens hand. And yes, that is a Potato Cat in the middle!

 Team Gomez and Team Dustin Beaver. It doesn't get much better than that.

Sadly, this was our last night with Joe and Morgan. They headed back to Sacramento the following morning, but I cannot express how important it was to see them for those two days that they were there. Morgan is absolutely darling, and my brother adores her. They are such an awesome pair, and it makes me so happy that they are part of each other's lives at last. Now, I just have to make sure that I'm a stinking cool aunt.

Charlotte's first trip to Utah: Part 2

Our first day was spent with Grandah and Granny Co, my dad and step mom. We went bowling the first part of the day, then spent the rest of the afternoon at Grandah and Granny Co's house where they had a super sweet swing set that Charlotte loved! We were also blessed by the presence of Uncle Jobi and cousin Morgan, my brother's darling thirteen year old daughter, and we all had a blast!

Charlotte, Uncle Jobi, and cousin Morgan at the bowling alley

My dad recently had surgery, and was told by his doctor that he shouldn't bowl. Of course, this didn't fly with my brother, who immediately grabbed him one of the bowling guides they used for little children, so my dad could bowl without straining himself. Maybe if I use one of these I'd actually get a strike every now and again.

So many cool things to play with at Grandah's house.

We then waited around for some delicious Chinese food, and baby girl and I headed back to Granny Lisa's house to hit the hay. It was a wonderful day with perfect weather, people, food, and activities!

Two peas in a pod

Charlotte's first trip to Utah: Part 1

After being away from my family and home state for more than two years, Charlotte and I finally took a trip home to Utah for nine days. Ander didn't come with us for this trip, since he was too busy being a super busy fishing guide, so it was just me and baby girl: Charlotte's first ever flight, and my first ever flight with a child on my own.

I hoped that I could let baby girl run her little legs off before we departed so she'd fall asleep on the plane, and she sure did a lot of running. Well, pushing, really. She just wanted to push her stroller everywhere and anywhere she could, and why not?

 Unfortunately for me, all of her running didn't tire her out enough to nap on the plane, and she stayed fully awake for the entire three hour flight. She was champ, though, honestly. She hardly made a peep, and when we finally landed our flight attendant told me she'd forgotten we were even there. A huge shoutout to Baby Einstein for keeping my little one thoroughly entertained! Seriously, how did parents do this without technology?

Of course, after we landed, and we had to wait for everyone to get off of the plane, Charlotte began to nod off. We were in the very back row, so we had to wait a while, and I had to keep shaking her and bouncing her to keep her awake.

While my little sweet pea did great on the plane, the ride to Granny Lisa's house was not as smooth. It was extremely jerky, actually, because we got stuck in terrible rush hour traffic, and it was that that was Charlotte's downfall. She got car sick and ended up throwing up three times in her car seat, and right when we were about to pull over to get her cleaned up, she fell asleep... hard. We decided to just keep driving and let her sleep as long as we could, but when she woke up at Granny Lisa's house, she was covered in vomit, disoriented, tired, queasy, hungry, and terrified all at the same time. It took me a long time to calm her down after I was finally able to bathe her and get her into clean jammies, and after that she clung to me like a little koala bear. Poor thing. Too much stimulus in one day, and when I finally put her to bed, she slept a solid twelve and half hours. Turns out that was all she needed. Go figure.

In the morning, she was a completely different kid. Bless her little baby heart.

More to come on our trip to Utah! Stay tuned!