Addison & Isla: September at the Beach

Wow, it has been a while since I last updated the blog! That is an indication of how insanely busy life has been lately. Amidst all that insanity was a fabulous trip to California in September to visit family and stay at the beach house, a tradition we love and one that gains more meaning as the girls get older and really start to relish in it.

As you can imagine, and as you've likely heard us bitch and moan about, air travel with two kids as young as ours is a totally exhausting pain in the ass! The flight out was nothing less than a nightmare. Despite a carry-on full of snacks, DVDs, games, stickers and assorted other crap from the dollar section at Target, the girls were on the verge of uncontrollable. Isla wanted to cruise up and down the aisle the whole time and when she couldn't due to take off, ascent, turbulence, etc. she screeched and whined and wriggled around pissed off. It got to the point where the flight attendants would take turns walking by to scoop her up to walk her to the back of the plane to entertain her. She gladly went with every one of them....anywhere was better than stuck with mom and dad! Addison was relatively amused by her latest DVD obsession (Beauty and the Beast), but that was fleeting, and the cries of "I wanna get down! I have to go potty! I wanna snack! I wanna see out the window! Isla is hitting me" and on and on and on wore our patience down quickly. At one point we just looked at each other and laughed - what else can you do? Isla finally fell asleep on the descent, and remained asleep in her stroller throughout our layover.

All that aside, we arrived in one piece and headed into a week of family and fun! The first 2 days were spent with the Grandpas where we hit the amazing Farmer's Market and visited the "Butterflies Alive" exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in Santa Barbara. On Sunday morning we had breakfast together, and then DJ, the girls and I headed down to the beach house. We had 3 solid days of gorgeous weather (then it turned foggy) and the girls had a BLAST! Addison surprised us with how brave she was with the waves and water compared to last year. She was giddy with excitement and could have spent the entire day running in and out of the waves. We grilled and cooked every night, had bonfires with toasted marshmallows, hung out with Uncle Grant and Aunt Stacy (who are SO good with the girls) and played with Grandma Pam and Caddie the dog. DJ was really into the kayaks and even managed to squeeze in some surfing on one of the days. We would walk up and down the beautifully calm beach at night after the girls went to bed, gaze at the stars and dream about living there, right on the beach. What a dream that would be! But alas, reality rules.

We were, of course, sad to leave. However, the flight back was so much more pleasant. Isla slept during the actual flight which was a huge bonus. There was a lovely family in the row behind us who took a liking to the girls and ended up entertaining them for a good portion of the flight. At one point Addison was sitting on the mom's lap reading stories! Now, why she didn't want to have anything to do with US reading stories to her I can't tell you, but we were just excited that there was no whining and wailing. We jumped right back into the rat race when we arrived home, with a week from hell with work. Long story short, DJ and I both received promotions, so we went out to celebrate that AND our anniversary last Friday night. The fall is definitely here, the weather is gorgeous. We're just trying to soak it all in before the cold comes!

This is how tired the girls were after we got home from dinner on our first night in SB