California Trip

Kiera had been telling us all Winter that she wanted to swim in Nana's pool. We usually visit my family in the Spring to avoid the Central California heat but the pool is usually not quite ready by then. So we decided to come later in the year to be able to enjoy the pool more. We headed off to Cali in Late July and crossed through Las Vegas and the desert to get there with temperatures raising well above 100 degrees. I kept asking myself what we were thinking. My parents are amazing and were willing to meet us in Barstow and pick up Ellie while Jeff, Kiera and I continued onto San Diego to visit the beach and Sea World. I know that Ellie would have loved our little adventure but in order for us to truly enjoy it and focus on Kiera's experience we needed to leave the busy, busy, did I say busy Ellie with my mom. And what better hands to leave her then with Nana and Papa. I promise you Ellie didn't miss her mom and dad at all.

Sea World was a blast and it took me back to my original thinkings as a teenager and younger that I was destined to be a trainer at Sea World and doing shows with Shamu. But I had to be content to be in the crowd. Kiera was great and enjoyed seeing everything. We went on the helicopter ride to the Artic and she truly believed that we had traveled by helicopter to get there and was concerned about how we were going to make it back to Sea World.

At my parents we truly enjoyed the pool as we got in 2-3 times a day.

Our Stop at the beach was short but sweet. We had a long drive ahead of us to get back to Visalia but Kiera enjoyed only the second ocean encounter in her life. She was about 4 weeks old when we traveled to Santa Cruz for my cousin's wedding. She was a bit unsure about the water that rushed up on the beach but she loved collecting things off the beach, rocks and shells. I think Jeff enjoyed the experience the most. He loves to explore and look for things. He found Kiera a very tiny clam.