We're Back!

We had four days in the Los Angeles area last week. California--land of incredibly tall skinny palm trees; bird of paradise flowers, and wax begonias blooming in February; very neatly trimmed trees and hedges; and crazy freeways either zipping along at 80+ mph or stopped. Well, yes, I had been there before, but it had been a very long time. And distances. I had totally forgotten about that. It takes a long time to get somewhere, especially when there's so much traffic. I had no clue. Here at home we can drive for 5 or 10 minutes and be out in the country, and it takes only 15 minutes to get to the next town.

We had a couple of unusual things happen on the way out. Twice we had to wait about 20 minutes in the plane on the ground before disembarking because another plane was in our parking place. Then when we went to pick up our luggage at LAX one of our bags wasn't there. There was another one, a little smaller, that was the same flower-print green as mine, but it didn't belong to us. When he inspected the tag, Jim found a phone number belonging to someone named Katie. On the third try she answered the phone. When he told her that her bag was at the airport and we suspected that she had one of ours, Jim heard her say to someone in the car, "Dad we have to go back." She showed up 15 or 20 minutes later, and yes, she did have my suitcase. Wheeeeeew! When we gave her the other suitcase we also have her two pass-along cards, so it will be interesting to see if anything ever comes of that.

SO! Hopefully we have learned that when flying, always include a cell phone number on the luggage.

Being out there was sure nice. The temperature was usually somewhere in the 60's during the day. Being with family, however, was THE nicest part. We got to meet Elizabeth on Saturday, and she was blessed on Sunday. She's an incredibly good sleeper. Her mom and dad get around that by taking lots of pictures whether or not she's awake, so we did too.

We are so grateful to have been able to meet Elizabeth and be there for her blessing.

It's amazing how you can spend two hours holding a sweet baby on your lap and just stare at her while she sleeps. That's what Grandma did that first day. (awww)

All tired out from the big day. This is the dress that
Aunt Barbie made three years ago when cousin Kate
was blessed. Aunt Barbie also made this quilt
for Elizabeth.


Grandpa got to hold Elizabeth a lot too. We love this picture.

This is also a favorite.
Aunt Kirsten thought Elizabeth was pretty special.

Lovely Mama

Happy Papa

She looks so familiar to me. Betsey says that's because she
looks like Peter. I'm not really sure who she looks like
--all the kids I guess, and my brother.

Peter planted a few squeaky kisses on her head. It was very cute.

She really does have red hair!
Awake and Smiling

Coming back was a bit of a shock. The first leg of our trip home took us to Dallas. As we took off from Dallas the captain announced that the temperature here at home was 16 degrees. A little later he announced that it had gone down to 12 degrees. As we were landing he said it was then 9 degrees. We had copious amounts of snow and ice. Six inches had fallen that day and the previous night, and our car was coated with a pretty thick layer of ice. Jim had us wait in the airport while he went to the car and scraped ice for about a decade. Good move I think. By staying in I missed much of the lunar eclipse that was going on at the time, but we stayed warm.