A Weekend at Home

I know, I don’t live in California anymore… haven’t for over 6 years. But lets be honest, it’s my home. My childhood memories are planted in the soil there. My family history is there, and so are some of the greatest friends I’ve ever had. Granted, I was pretty eager to leave CA, but I will still jump at any chance to go back.
And I had one such opportunity in January. One of my very best friends was getting married. Without going into too much of Carrie’s personal details, I’ll just say that I was SO excited for her wedding day and have anticipated it for so long that I almost felt like it was mine. I may have been even a tad MORE excited for her day than I was for my own, sorry Shawn.
My mom knew I couldn’t miss it, so she offered to help fly me out. What a gift! I would take it over a lifetime of birthday and Christmas gifts. Really.

So, I started planning.
Then I realized that I just couldn’t come alone. Kennedy had never met any of her family, including my dad, so I knew she had to come.
Here we are, getting ready to take off. 

I should have taken an after picture of us… you wouldn’t have recognized me.
This is pretty much how I looked… 

Next time I will be more selfish and leave her. I know, I’m trying to sound like a hero, when in reality I just flew with a toddler across the country. What, Flew with a  toddler across the country! Anyone who does that and survives IS a hero and deserves to write a blog post exclusively about their experience. Well, I wont do that… but I will say that it was excruciating. I was trapped in the smallest area possible, with a squirmy child for HOURS! Nothing would entertain her for more than 30 seconds. Although, she did occupy herself for about 20 minutes by tearing the entire SkyMall magazine into 8 million tiny pieces. The woman sitting next to me offered Kennedy her magazine after she had destroyed the other, but she wasn’t interested anymore. She had moved on to climbing up me, and down, up and down, and throwing a few tantrums.
Don’t let this photo deceive you… this lasted 33 minutes. I was just beginning to relax when she woke up.

I walked off the plane feeling like I had overcome the greatest challenge ever posed to humankind. Easily equivalent to climbing Mt. Everest or swimming the English Channel (which I’ve never done, but I’m sure is an easier task) Anyways, the point is, I regretted bringing her because I knew I had to do it again on the way back to NC and that thought gave me nightmares.

Okay, back to why I came… yes… to attend Carrie’s wedding.
 

Isn’t she beautiful? The wedding was wonderful, and her husband Jared is perfect for her. I would have traveled to the moon (without Kennedy) to be there. Quick, get my Thesaurus… I’m trying to find a word to describe how I felt at her sealing. I just looked, there is no such word.

Kennedy doesn’t need words to describe how she felt…

It was nice to catch up with old friends
One of my very best friends, Melissa and I, with our barnacles…

Merry, me, and Jessica


I know, I just showed you a picture of Merry and I. But my hair is near perfect in this one, which never happens, so I had to post it.

Speaking of hair. My sister-in-law happens to be the best hairdresser in El Dorado County. She was able to squeeze me into her busy schedule and chop off all my hair. I was so grateful. Thank you Tarrah! And I was grateful for the conversation too. We were overdue on catching up with each other's lives! 


Here are Carrie and I during her reception that night. I finally caught her for a quick picture, which was no easy task… no joke, this woman was a celebrity!
Her reception was a magical wooded wonderland. I wanted to put up a tent and stay the night.
 

I was able to visit the Skinner’s for dinner one night. Kennedy was pretty clingy after meeting so many new faces, but after a while she got comfortable with some of her cousins. I had to go home and break the sad news to Jefferson, that Kennedy in fact saw her cousins. He was having a really hard time with the idea of Kennedy coming with me, but not him. “She better not see any of my cousins,” he cried, “it’s not fair!”
Here she is with Kinly and Brock


And with Ben, who she let carry her around. I think he reminded her of Jefferson.

Grandma and Grandpa.
 

It was also her first time meeting these beautiful women, my great aunts Pat and Bobbie. We enjoyed lunch with them, and Kennedy was a perfect angel. She adored her Aunt Bobbie.

The one who was dying to see her most of all was my Dad. He had planned to see her after her birth, but he had to cancel that trip. And here we were, 18 months later. It took quite a bit of time for Kennedy to feel comfortable, but she finally warmed up to her Papa. We took walks around his new home and garden.
We soaked up all the quality time we could in our short trip.


Kennedy especially liked his new dog, Gwen
 

There was a lot of play time with her Nana

And then, as soon as we arrived, it was time to leave.
And my travels back to NC were worse, if you were wondering.
But I realized something amazing… as the plane drew closer to the Raleigh airport and I saw the landscape, I got this overwhelming feeling that I was home. Really, home. I realized that as much as I miss California, it is possible to make memories in other parts of the country. I felt this way with Oregon too. But I never imagined feeling at home in the East. It took 18 months to feel this way, but I do love it here. It just took going to CA to realize it.
And I realized I don’t want to go back either…. at least while I still have a toddler.