Visiting Lesley, Brian & Hannah in San Jose

August 6-13 Leah and I took a trip to visit my best friend, Lesley, and her little family in San Jose, California. At the time she was about 38 weeks pregnant and her husband, Brian, had to go to a conference in Vancouver, Canada. So I went out to keep her company, help with Hannah and be there just in case anything happened while he was gone (which it didn't). Most of the time it was just us four girls. We had such a good time. I'm so glad we got to go!

This was Leah's first airplane experience. I was a little worried about traveling with her alone. But she did such a good job, it was really quite easy. The hardest part was keeping her entertained at the airport while waiting to board our flight. She was really good to just sit on my lap and sleep some during the flight. Some people sitting by me even commented on how good she was during the flight.

Some of the things we did while we were there included going to the beach at Santa Cruz. Here's Leah out by the water for the first time. She liked playing in the wet sand until the waves came in. She wasn't too keen on the water.

Here's a little video of her playing in the sand for the first time...

Leah definitely preferred the sand over the water. This girl was so sandy by the time we left. At one point she put her face into a mound of sand and got a mouthful of it. And when I opened the snaps on her onesie to change her diaper, a handful of sand fell onto the changing table.

There were lots of seagulls hanging around trying to steal any food they could. Here's Leah trying to chase some of them down. (Look at all the sand on her bottom!)

Someone had dug this hole near where we were playing. Hannah and Leah loved getting down in it.

Me and Leah standing by the Pacific Ocean.

While we were there we also saw a Polynesian circus show on the boardwalk. Leah was so tired that she took a nap during the show.
Here's Leah at the end of the day. Look at this sand and sunscreen covered, wind blown, tired girl. She had such a fun time.

On another day we went to a place called Happy Hollow. This is a park and zoo. They have a small zoo area where you can see the animals in their cages, a petting zoo area where you can feed and pet some farm animals, amusement park rides that are specifically for children and lots and lots of playground equipment for kids to play on. Hannah and Lesley go here often and had told me about it, so I wanted to take Leah while we were there.

Here's Hannah and Leah playing on some of the playground stuff...

Leah loved this barrel horse in the petting zoo area...

You could walk right into the goats' pen and feed, pet or brush the goats. Lesley and I fed them, but the girls were more into climbing on the rocks. At least they weren't afraid of them. Here's Leah pointing at one of the goats...

The carousel and this train-type dragon ride were the only rides Lesley and I could go on with the girls...

In true Leah fashion, she got tired and fell asleep on the train ride. So we let Hannah play on the playground while Leah had a little nap. It is so nice that she will take a nap where ever.

I was a little worried about having Leah ride the rides by herself, so we put her with Hannah to start with. But she did just fine and even enjoyed it. So we put the girls in their own cars.

Hannah was getting a little tired, so I let Leah ride alone again. Here's a little video of her on the ride.

She wouldn't play with the steering wheel or bell while the ride was going around, but I did get this quick video of her playing after the ride had stopped.

Here they are on another ride. It's kind of too bad that the only rides that these two could go on were the type that just go round and round. But they had fun anyway. By the time we left, we had two very tired girls on our hands (not to mention a couple tired mommies).

On another day we went to a park/farm. They didn't have many animals at the time (mostly just roosters roaming around like stray cats). But the girls still had a great time playing on the playground and seeing some of the animals.

Here's Leah checking out the birds. They had a bunch of ducks, chickens and other birds in here.

Leah was trying to climb under the fence to chase the birds. Crazy girl!

They had their moments, like any kids their age sharing was tuff at times. But overall these two did really well together all week and were pretty good friends by the time we had to leave. I hope that they can grow up and be good friends like Lesley and I are.

I love this little video I got of them playing and laughing together on the front porch the night before we left...

I also want to tell this funny story from our trip there...Leah LOVED playing on their stairs. We had to put a gate up, otherwise she would have gone up and down them all day. Well, since they don't have an extra bedroom, Leah and I shared an air mattress on the living room floor. At first I laid next to the wall because I was thinking that I didn't want her to roll over and hit into the wall. This meant if she rolled over she would just fall a few inches onto the soft carpet. But on the second night or so I woke up and realized that she wasn't laying by me anymore. I could hear her somewhere in the room, but couldn't see her because it was so dark. After looking around for a few seconds, I found her sitting on the first landing of the stairs! The little stinker had woken up and found the stairs that she loved so much. Needless to say, she spent the rest of the nights next to the wall and the gate got put up at night too.

For me the highlight of the trip was just being able to spend so much time with Lesley. We can talk for hours and hours and never run out of things to say. We can also just chill watching TV or doing whatever and never get bored of being together. We hadn't been able to have so much quality time together since we each got married. We spent lots of nights staying up late talking, eating yummy, gooey caramel popcorn (my favorite) and homemade cinnamon rolls, and watching "Everybody Loves Raymond." Thanks Bah for such a great time!

Here we are just before Leah and I had to leave for the airport to come home.

I took so many pictures while we were there. So I put together some collages for anyone interested. (You can double-click on the pictures to see them better and then you can click on them again to zoom in.)

Santa Cruz beach...

Happy Hollow...

Emma Prusch Farm...

Playing at the end of the week...