1,000 Words

We just returned from a quick trip to visit our BFFs in California. Of course I didn't take a single picture, so with each being worth a thousand words, I'll try to capture all the fun and excitement of just one.

We flew in Friday night, on the last flight, so Daphne was a little cranky, but had no overly embarrassing temper tantrums. Just a few moments of her yelling "no, no, no!" progressivly louder, until we found some way to distract her. Luckily we always found a way. I guess we're getting pretty good at baby travel. I think this was Daphne's seventh round-trip flight. Maybe her eighth.

Nick picked us up and took us to their new apartment (in the next building over from where we used to live. It was weird to be so close and realize it didn't feel like home anymore.) We put Daphne to bed after introducing her to their son Konstantin (Daphne just called him "Baby" the whole time, and I mean the whole time. I think she said the word "baby" at least a thousand times a day. If he was in the room she was right there, pointing to him and saying excitedly, "Baby! Baby! Baby!". If he was out of sight she was asking for him, "Baby? Baby? Baby?" It was pretty cute. And she only showed signs of jealousy when I held him.)

We stayed up a little longer just talking, went to bed, had a quiet morning watching TV and hanging out with Jessica and Kostya. Steve and I walked to Safeway to get food for Daphne (I miss being able to walk to the grocery store!) Went to Yanni's for lunch (our favorite Greek cafe. Nothing like it in Washington. Or anywhere else that I know of.)

After Daphne's nap we met up with Tasha and Ibi, friends from Steve's former job, and went to dinner at Claim Jumper's. Good food. Great company. We had fun catching up on each other's lives. Daphne did everything in her power to distract us by grabbing everything she could reach on the table. Even when we finally got a high chair she was still a major attention stealer. But we managed to have a good time anyway.

Sunday was Stake Conference which was kind of unfortunate as we didn't get to see quite so many people from our old ward. But we still saw a few friends and heard maybe half of the talks as Daphne didn't feel the need to sit still and be reverent so we took turns taking her outside. The nice thing is that the Stake Center is in the same parking lot as the Oakland Temple, so on my turn I took Daphne for a walk around the temple grounds and up on the temple terrace overlooking Oakland and the bay. I may have missed out on a good talk, but I appreciated the time to introduce my daughter to the temple and show her the spot where Daddy proposed to Mama.

Jessica made the most amazing lasanga for dinner. Steve's best friend since forever - JD - came over afterwards and we had a good visit with him, which continued as we walked to Nick's parents' house (our former Bishop and his wife) for cookies. It was good timing since JD is moving to Utah soon. We're glad we got to see him while we were there. We were also happy to see the Bishop and his wife - our adopted parents while we were in California.

Monday we tried to go disc golfing, but the kids kept us from leaving as early as we hoped, and it was blazing hot by the time we made it to the park, especially for those of us acclimated to the much cooler Pacific Northwest. So we made it through two holes before calling it quits, sitting in the shade, deciding that was also too hot, and going back to Nick and Jessica's. We went to our favorite Thai restaurant for dinner and it did not disappoint. (We haven't found a great Thai place in Washington either, but I'm sure we're just not looking hard enough.)

Tuesday we went bowling. I DID take some video there, of Daphne rolling the ball down one of those ramp things, but no still shots. It was the first time any of us had bowled in a while but we all had a few good moments. Well, Nick and Jessica had more than a few. And Steve probably would have had more if he hadn't sacrificed half of his turns for Daphne and the rolling ramp thing. As usual, I did respectably well in the first game (118) and got worse and worse in the second (60-something?). Beginner's luck, I guess. But still - it was a good time.

Sadly, we had to go to the airport that night. Our flight home was earlier so Daphne was pretty happy considering she didn't get much of a nap that afternoon. We'll miss our friends but it's good to be home and we all slept soundly in our own beds last night. Although Daphne did wake up asking for "Baby" and has asked for him several times today. Guess it's time to get her one of her own.

(According to the count on Microsoft Word, I only used 898 of my 1,000 words. So I guess this was like most of a picture, but maybe some of it was blocked by a finger on the lens or something like that. Sorry.)