Oh Yes! We’re Here!!!

It was a long and thankfully uneventful day of travel yesterday and now we’re here!  Hannah was once again an amazing traveller even though she spent the majority of 14 hours in her car seat!  I tried to find opportunities for her to walk and run around during the day so we stopped early on for an impromptu play in an awesome park.

In order to miss the busyness of crossing the border on a weekend that involves holidays for both Canada and the US we left a day early and it was a great decision!  What took us more than 3 hours to cross the border last year was no more than 5 minutes this year.  I drove across the bridge and right up to a customs line with nobody in it.  I didn't even have our Passports out when we drove up to his window.  Oh yes, that was much better!

We boarded our first plane early Thurs afternoon.  I laughed the day before when I checked us in & we were seated in row 8…and it was the 2nd last row in the plane!!!  Yikes!  I knew it was going to be small but was still not completely prepared to see this!  I was wondering if we’d have to help the take-off with Fred Flintstone feet on the runway!

Hannah’s first official flight while travelling in her car seat.  It was a big hit and she enjoyed looking at things out the window. 

It was a quick, noisy 45 min. jaunt to Cleveland where we had a 2 1/2 hour stopover.  We took our time moving through the terminals and were quite a site to fellow travellers for sure!  I meant to get a picture of our airport caravan but forgot.  Will try to do that on the way home.  Until then you can imagine myself, Hannah wearing her pink puppy harness, a stroller, purse, backpack, roller suitcase + car seat on wheels.  The final 2 items are linked together and form a train about 4’ behind us.  Heh!  Although we were quite the site, to me the biggest challenge came each flight when it was time to secure her car seat into the plane.  Let’s just say that airplane seats are not conducive to car seats.  When I first buckled the seat in the seatbelt buckle was in the middle of her back and there was no way I was asking her to fly for 5 hours with that big thing poking into her back!  I loosened it some and all was good.  By this time it was 4:30 and she hadn’t napped so she wasn’t even aware of take-off and she slept for almost 3 hours. 

When she woke up we shared a snack of cheese, crackers and grapes. 

M3 had used something with her girls a couple of years back and I tried it with Hannah yesterday and it was a great success!  I’d bought her a new dolly that she was introduced to on the first flight.  Oh how her sweet little face lit up!!  On the second flight I pulled out some band-aids from the dollar store and she had fun peeling the wrapper and sides off them and then sticking them all over her dolly.  It took concentration and she enjoyed it for over 2o mins before she grew tired of it.  (The video is a little bumpy as we were experiencing turbulence at the time.)

All fixed up after Mommy Hannah took care of her!

Before this trip I’d purchased an ankle band for Hannah to wear when we travel or visit places like Disney.  It didn’t bother her a bit and it made Mommy feel so much better!  Embossed into the band is ‘My Mommy xxx-xxx-xxxx’ which is my cell number.  A great safety feature that I hope to never, ever use.

After about 14 hours of travel we arrived in California so happy to be with our friends again!  TubaDad picked us up and we headed home to M3 and the girls.  When we arrived it took Hannah all of about 30 seconds to be running around following the girls!  I love that even though we have not been here in a year and I’m sure she doesn’t remember our last visit, she does see the girls on the blog so she has a connection with them.  It was a treat to see them all together and hear the laughter and squeals of excitement that erupted from them!

The girls have a great little Barbie car that they toot around the backyard in.  They were thinking ahead before Hannah arrived and added a trailer for them all to ride together.  Hannah loved it!!  You should have seen her smile and I love how she sits with her little knees up and her hands on her knees.  So cute!

After their ride the girls were playing on the play structure and Hannah couldn’t move around fast enough to check out all there was to see and do!  She quickly donned one of the princess dresses they had adorned their play structure with in her honour. 

Snow White’s dress was a little long to climb into the playhouse so her friends were quick to help her out!

Once we were able to drag encourage the girls to come back into the house the playtime continued until what felt like 2am for Hannah!!  She was so excited to be here though that she did really well and only began to get crunchy when we finally slowed down enough to get her into bed.

Here are a couple of cute little signs Ro and Ree made to welcome us! Bedtime stories with her friends.

Within moments of starting to drink her bottle she was out for the count and slept peacefully until 5:30 am which is 8:30 ON time so not bad at all.

We’re super excited to be back in CA with our precious, fun, amazing friends!  We’ll share the fun both here and on M3’s blog.