Salt Lake City

We left Sacramento and had our longest driving day of the trip. We had to get all the way to Salt Lake City. Not only was it a long drive, but the scenery really didn't change the entire time. Harrison and I did so well though and we only had to make one stop for lunch and one potty stop and that was it! Pulling into Salt Lake City we got to see our first snowfall! Luckily it was just for the last ten minutes of the trip. We had room service and looked out at the beautiful Mormon Temple and Temple Square which was lit up with Christmas lights. The next morning there was more snow falling but we braved the cold and walked over to Temple Square to see the temple (the outside of it anyway) and the Tabernacle. Boy, were there a lot of friendly people there who liked to talk to us! We missed seeing the Tabernacle choir by a day, but we were able to see the organ recital. The organ is huge and has over 11,000 pipes and the building was built so that the sound of a pin dropped at the pulpit can be heard clearly at the back. Such wonderful acoustics are not so wonderful for small children, so we watched a lot of the recital from the cry room and then made an early exit. But at least we can say we saw it!

Jelly Belly!

In exchange for letting them see the wineries yesterday, Mom & Dad had a special treat for Harrison and me today. They took us to the Jelly Belly factory! There are so many jelly beans inside of that place!!! It was a really fun tour (well, Mom & Dad enjoyed the tour...I just wanted to know when I'd get my blue jelly bean!). Did you know that President Reagan helped make Jelly Belly known nationwide and that they created the blueberry jelly bean (my personal favorite) for his inauguration??? Fascinating stuff! They also call the rejected jelly beans "belly flops" (funny, huh?) but they must not be too bad of a flop because you can buy a bag of them at the gift shop for EIGHT dollars! We ate lunch in the jelly belly cafe where most of the food comes out shaped like a jelly bean and then let Harrison go for a ride in the car (everytime he sees one of those things he goes nuts!). I also found a bunch of those fun house mirrors and had fun laughing at myself. You might have to click on the picture of me looking into one of them to see better, but my eyes got really scary in one of them!

We're back at Ryan & Brooke's for one more night and then we sadly have to say goodbye. Tomorrow is the longest driving day of our trip so keep your fingers crossed that we do okay. We're hoping to make it all the way to Salt Lake City! We'll write more from there...

Wine Country

Just had to share a picture of the resort we stayed at in Sonoma because it was so pretty! We highly recommend The Lodge at Sonoma (Renaissance) to anyone visiting that area!

Mom & Dad decided to try and spend a day touring wineries with two small children...boy are they silly! Actually, it could have gone pretty well since they picked wineries that advertised themselves as family friendly. Unfortunately, Harrison just wasn't all that friendly because he has some teeth coming in and apparently today they really really really hurt! He did a lot of crying and didn't really enjoy much of the tours. We did get to go on a tractor pulled tram ride through one of the wineries and once Daddy came up with the great idea to appease us kids with lollipops, the grown ups were able to taste a little bit of wine.

At the second winery, Uncle Ryan and Daddy played with us outside while Mommy & Brooke played inside. Harrison was thrilled because there was a set of steps for him to climb and suddenly I found myself some things to play with too and started showing up with brooms, shovels and other tools I found. Ryan & Daddy prevented me from getting to the axe which also happened to be in the pile of tools (maybe not so family friendly after all!)

After those two wineries, they decided to call it a day and we drove over to Sacramento to stay at Uncle Ryan & Brooke's house for a few days. They even had Christmas presents waiting for me when we got there! I love this place :).

A Win for the Irish!!!

We left Santa Barbara on Friday and drove up to San Francisco to meet up with Uncle Ryan and Brooke and go to the Notre Dame football game at Stanford on Saturday. Mom & Dad were a little nervous about taking us to the game, but we both did so well! We started out the day with some tailgating (I didn't really understand this part of the day and kept saying I wanted to go see the football show). The picture Daddy took of Charlie arguing with the refs was pretty representative of the day...we sure did a lot of booing at all the bad calls that were made. Harrison managed to fall asleep and missed half of the game. I, on the other hand, decided to try out all the wonderful delicacies offered at a football stadium and spent most of the game eating and cheering with Brooke & Ryan. Somehow, Notre Dame managed to win the game, so it was a fun day overall!

After the game, we drove up to Sonoma and got to see downtown San Francisco and drive across the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

I was so sad to leave the football game and Uncle Ryan decided to distract me by getting me excited about going swimming at the new hotel. He did a good job because I stopped being sad about the game being over and was thrilled to hear about a swimming pool. What Ryan didn't know, though, is that the new hotel does have a swimming pool, but it's outside (and it was about 60 degrees outside when we got there at 6pm). Luckily, the pool is heated to 84 so they decided to take me swimming rather than deal with a very disappointed 3 year old! The water was actually pretty nice and we had a great time swimming, but it sure was cold when we had to get out!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are wrapping up our trip in Santa Barbara with a turkey day blowout complete with two turkeys, three stuffings, a gazillion other yummy dishes and FIVE pies! Yummy! First let's catch you up on what we've been doing out here.

No trip to California is complete without a stop at In-N-Out Burger so we headed over there for lunch. Harrison thoroughly enjoyed his milkshake (as did I) and then I decided to introduce him to ketchup. I fed him lots of it off the tip of my finger!

We went to the zoo the next day and had a great time running around (literally running...I insisted on pushing Harrison in the stroller and everyone had fun trying to keep up with me and keep Harrison's arms and legs free from injury when I'd run him into things!). Nona & Stacey's friends came with their two boys. Andrew and I get along splendidly and we decided to ride the train together and sat in the back seat. We acted totally goofy with one another and Mom & Dad are already starting to fear for my teenage/boy-crazy years!

Today, we enjoyed a fun new thanksgiving tradition and got to go swimming this morning because the weather was so beautiful. Harrison enjoyed himself so much he almost fell asleep floating with Daddy. So now, we're enjoying a nice, long pre-feast nap. We've had a great visit with Nona and Stacey and will be sad to say goodbye tomorrow. Luckily, we have lots more exciting stops on our trip. Tomorrow, we're headed to San Francisco to meet up with Uncle Ryan and Brooke and we're headed to the Notre Dame-Stanford game on Saturday (not sure if we're looking forward to that part or not!).

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and finds themselves with as much to be thankful for as we do!

Santa Barbara

We finally made it out to California. I think Harrison and I were ready for some time out of the car. My Nona had baked a birthday cake for me when we arrived... I think this place is going to be alright!

Not only that, but she has a couple of cats and a little doggie. I'm not sure they're as excited to see me as I am to see them, though. One of the cats has taken to climbing the ceiling rafters as soon as I enter the room (I think it is just trying to put on a show for me!)

Nona and Stacey were nice enough to get some bubbles for Harrison and me. We could have spent all day out on the patio blowing them.

They've been feeding Mom and Dad well, although I've been playing it safe and sticking to my routine of pretzels and cheese. Harrison has been trying a little of everything and I think he's starting to develop a crush on their friend who is visiting from Italy...he loves her cooking!

Vegas With Toddlers

While you might not think that an almost 3 year old could have fun in Vegas, I didn't do too badly. In fact, I love it! Granted, Mommy did a great job of scouting out all of the kid friendly attractions. We started the day at the M&M store, perhaps the highlight of my trip.

Not only was I able to pick out my favorite colored M&M's, but we got to watch a 3-D movie! I'm not sure Harrison enjoyed it as much as me without his glasses, but he wasn't complaining.

We then trucked down the street to watch the water show in front of the Bellagio. I was fascinated with how the water knew to move to the music. Harrison, on the other hand, was much more interested in the scantily clad billboard at the Flamingo across the street, but that probably wouldn't be an appropriate picture for this blog.

After the water fountain, we finished our two mile trek to the Mirage. I didn't think the walk was that far, but Mom and Dad kept saying they wished they had a stroller. I like the Mirage a lot... they had dolphins, tigers and llamas. Of course, after playing the slot machine at the M&M store that dispensed candy, I was also pretty interested in the real big slot machines at the casino as I figured they must spit out some really big candy!

After the animals we were ready for a little nap. Harrison and I were so worn out, that Mom and Dad actually had to wake us up from our nap for part 2 of Vegas. We had a quick snack and were off to Circus Circus. I could have stayed there all night. They had games and rides and I even won a stuffed rhino with a little help from Daddy. As you can see from the pictures, even Harrison was in heaven with when he was eating a pretzel in the clown car.

No rest for the Browns... tomorrow we're loading up again and we're off to see my Nona in Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving (I just hope she's ready!)