On Thursday night Kevin headed off to the Google Christmas Party... without me :( (no newborns were allowed and leaving Caitlin at home wasn't an option).
I was bummed for a second... but then happy I didn't have to squeeze myself into a cute semi-formal dress.
I still wanted to do something fun and Christmasy, so around 5pm my mom and I loaded up the kids into the car to head to Tilden Park's Christmas Fantasy (fun lights, carousel rides, etc.) in Berkeley.
After an hour and a half of driving in traffic towards the Caldecott Tunnel and through the windy roads of Tilden Park, we started wondering if we were ever going to make it. My mom's words were, "what did I do wrong to deserve this?" (windy roads = she was car sick) ... and "where are we going, another state?"... which gave us the giggles for awhile. The night almost turned into a nightmare at that point since Andrew was starting to get combative (Me: "Do you see those pretty Christmas lights Andrew?" Andrew: "NO, THERE AREN'T ANY LIGHTS!")... and then he tried to take his shirt off while his seat belt was still on and got stuck with arms in weird places and started screaming...
Meanwhile, Caitlin slept and slept and occasionally woke up and screamed, but usually went right back to sleep.
Once we finally arrived (HOORAY!), we grabbed some popcorn for Andrew (dinner of champions) and bought some tickets for the carousel (merry-go-round).
Andrew dropped probably half the bag on the floor and then jumped on all the kernels. What a sweetheart :) The people who clean the Merry-go-round carpet will be so pleased.
We made it on the carousel and little man loved it. Lots of driving + windy roads + carousel = major headache for me/motion sickness... but I sucked it up and snapped photos of my little cutie. The silly things that he says or does always seem to snap me out of a headache pretty quickly.
The little princess slept the night away until she got hungry and then she screamed and Grandma got a chance to ride the carousel while I fed her in the car. Definitely a job I liked better than riding the carousel!
Grandma kept Caitlin inside the warm building while Andrew and I admired all the lights and decorations outside. Little man had no desire to even wave at Santa, so we skipped the photo session with Santa activity. Climbing on and behind benches was more fun.
The light displays were beautiful.
The HUGE Christmas tree was breathtaking.
This was Andrew's favorite display- he loved that Santa was playing a guitar.
Grandma walked Caitlin around and shopped
We also found Thomas! Definitely made the little man's night!
Grandma found some cute Santa hats to use at work and Andrew got an awesome lizard... that he's slept with ever since.
Grandma also got Andrew a Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer light up nose since he has been obsessed with the Rudolph movie all week and we have watched it way too many times.
Our drive home almost became a nightmare when I took a wrong turn and was driving in a pitch black forest at 8pm... then I figured out how to use Navigation on my phone... only to hear the words, "no satellite connection." Fortunately, we found our way out of the maze and made it home in 30-40 minutes. We continued my streak of never actually making a trip to Tilden Park without getting lost at least once! My mom was such a good sport (I think she thinks I'm crazy!) and fortunately Andrew and Caitlin were pretty happy on the way home... and everyone slept in today until 8am (with only 2 night feedings), so I had a chance to recover from our adventure!
Today we relaxed a little bit ;) and had a Christmas shopping marathon while Andrew went to Mom's Day Out... and then we took my mom to the airport this evening :(
I am going to miss having her around as my buddy every day! Being a mom of two is so much easier when you can hand off the baby to Grandma whenever she gets fussy. :)
1 comment:
I have gotten lost in Tilden Park many a time. Especially at night it is really tricky!
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