Chillin' in Cali

California weather rocks my world. No really, it rocks my world. I can't get over how nice it is here! Here's what we've been up to so far:

We arrived too late at the airport yesterday to make our flight. We missed the cutoff for check-in by 4 minutes. I was pretty annoyed. They put us on standby for the next flight and said we wouldn't make our connecting flight in Houston. More annoyance.

When we got to the gate for the flight, we found out there were only two seats available (we paid for Mira to have her own seat so she would sit still in her car seat). At that point I didn't care, I just wanted on that plane! So, we had them stowe the carseat and Mira sat on our laps. She had a great time! She bounced around between our laps, opened and closed the lap tray a thousand times, read some books, drew on some paper with a pen (her mommy is so smart to bring such fun things along), and at the end of the flight finally noticed the little girl sitting behind us. She thought it was pretty great to stand on daddy's lap and "talk" to the little girl behind us. The little girl thought it was pretty cool too.

Oh, and before we got on the plane, I was talking with the woman at the gate and asked her if there was any way a nice person in Houston would allow us on our original flight to San Diego. She looked up the flight and said, "there's no reason why you can't make that flight", and she re-booked us on our original flight. She was an angel. I mean that. I was so grateful to her for putting us back on our flight. I wish I knew her name, because I would write her a letter. I was so happy I almost cried.

We got to Houston and had to book it through the airport to get to our plane. We made it just in time. The woman at the check-in counter told us to sit wherever we found an open seat. I was a little nervous we would have to split up, but the flight attendant did an amazing job of organizing everyone and asking some people to move so the three of us could sit together. He is also an angel.

Mira was a little fussy on the second flight as it was naptime AND she was strapped into her carseat. She knew at that point that on the first flight she got to move to her hearts content and was a quite disappointed to find this flight she wasn't so lucky. I let her fuss (she's a quiet fusser) in hopes that she would eventually fall asleep. It never happened, and she won the battle. I unbuckled her car seat and you should have seen her face...shear joy. She stood up, played with the kids in front of us and hammed it up for the people behind us. She did quite well once she was free, and the girl in front of us kept her entertained. It was awesome. However, by the end of the flight, I was ready for us to be there. There's nothing like a one-year-old bouncing around next to you for three hours to make you want to exit the plane immediately.

Considering she never napped yesterday, she did AMAZINGLY well during our travel. Actually, she did amazingly well during our travel whether or not she napped, she just did great. I was so impressed with her.

She did take a little cat-nap for about 15 minutes at the beach. She was quite funny actually. We decided to drive to the beach since we were worn out from traveling. It took about two minutes to get there and Mira was gibber-jabbering away in the backseat. A minute later, we look back and she was out. We decided to take her down to the beach anyway, expecting her to wake up. Nope. She slept in my mom's arms the entire 10 minutes we were there. Not even budging a muscle. I fully expected her to stay asleep and I would put her down for the night, but as soon as we got back to our (amazingly cool) vacation home, she woke back up. It ended up working out great because she went to bed at 8:00 California time (10:00 Oklahoma time) and slept all night.

Today we've lounged around, Mira went down early for her nap and has been sleeping almost three hours. Poor little Bubbs is a tired girl. She's done so great, though, and has gotten to meet all my mom's siblings whom she's never seen before. We're all staying in the vacation home together, and Mira is eating up all the attention! When I can, I'll post pics from our trip, but I think I'll have to wait until we get home.

Once Mira is up, the girls are going shopping. Abe, my brother, and uncle went SCUBA diving today, so I can't wait to hear about their adventures. Abe has loved to dive since we got certified before our Hawaiian honeymoon almost five years ago. My brother got certified so he and Lindsay can dive on their Bora Bora honeymoon, and has become addicted. Lucky for him he lives in a great place to get to dive often. And my Uncle Mike is a dive instructor, so he's teaching them some advanced stuff today. I know Abe and Jeff are loving every minute of it.

Heading back outside to enjoy the sunshine. Ahhhhh, relaxing...