Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Leah's first cross country trip

We returned last night from Los Angeles. We spent 4 days there and attended Shafi's cousin Mila's wedding. Lots of his family was in from all over the US & Canada, so Leah got to meet lots of aunts and uncles and cousins.

She was pretty good on the flights. There were a couple of screaming incidents of a few minutes each, but considering the flight was about 5 hours each way, that wasn't bad. She slept for over half of each flight and played fairly happily for the rest. And of course she ate twice on each flight, so that took up quite awhile.

We bought a travel bed to use in the hotel. It looks like a little pop-up tent and it folds up into a round bag that's about a foot across and 5 inches thick. We decided something that would fit in the suitcase was a lot easier than dragging the pack n play. She slept pretty decently in it, but the time change and being up late at night for the wedding events definitely messed up her sleep a bit. She was up pretty frequently in the night and each night around 4 or so she wouldn't go back to sleep. I would then put her in between us in bed and let her suck on my finger until she fell asleep. Then she'd sleep until 6 or 6:30 - and of course since we were all in one room - once she was up, we were up.

But since Leah naps about 1.5 to 2 hours after her first wake-up, each morning we ordered room service breakfast and just hung out in the room until nap time. That way we got to nap too.

Friday night was the gaye holud, which is a pre-wedding event. It was at the Mila's parents house - mostly in the backyard. There was dinner and a DJ. Leah behaved pretty well, and when she started to get fussy we were able to get her to nap in the stroller in the house where it was quiet enough but we could easily go check on her periodically.

Saturday we went out to lunch with some of my college friends who live in LA and then we went to Mila's parent's house to hang out with the family a bit. And Sunday was the wedding reception. Leah was pretty good there. She napped a few times in the stroller - even with loud music in the room.

And each day we took Leah to the hotel pool for a bit. Friday I actually took her in the pool, but the water was a bit cold and she cried. Then I took her in the hot tub for a few minutes, and she definitely liked that. But there was no temperature guage and while the water felt okay I didn't want to stay in it too long so that she wouldn't overheat. Saturday we just hung out by the pool and watched the water - Leah definitely likes to watch the water move and the sun and shadows on and around the pool. Sunday I dangled her legs in the pool. She seemed to like that. That way she wasn't too cold but she seemed pretty interested in the water. Hopefully when we go to Colorado in a few weeks we can ease her into the pool a bit better and get her to play in the water a little.

Leah's first bathing suit - she wasn't unhappy about the bathing suit itself - she just didn't like the process of getting it on: Leah napped on the bed some of the time - she looked adorable in the middle of a king size bed:
We didn't get any great pictures of Leah in her dress Friday night, but it was very cute with ice cream cones on it:
Leah definitely woke up happy after sleeping in the bed with us:
Leah's first bikini - doesn't she look like a perfectly tanned swimsuit model:
A family picture at the wedding reception:
Leah's dress at the reception:

No comments: