We just spent five days with my family in the gold rush hills of California. It was a fun trip with a lot of new firsts for Emily and also a few for us. Emily had a blast running around with all of her cousins and was pretty resilient considering the lack of sleep and how thrown off schedule she was. All in all it was a good trip - but I think we came home more tired than when we left.
We decided it was best to fly rather than drive 10 hours, so Emily was able to go on her first airplane ride. We were fortunate enough to not have a full flight (both ways) and Emily was able to have her own seat. And boy did that make all the difference. She loved looking out the window, flirting with the other passengers, and playing with the seat belt and buttons on the armrest. That first day we were on the road and going for about 16 hours and Emily only slept about 20 minutes in the car. Besides a few meltdowns, that only lasted till we were able to find something to distract her with, she did well (but completely passed out the minute we put her in bed).
We went on a steam engine ride in Jamestown and it was probably Emily's favorite thing. She loved watching the engine and feeling the wind in her face. She was smiling and pointing at everything. She was pretty excited about anything we went past and was more than happy to point it out and tell everyone.
We were able to go down one of the many caves in the area. We climbed down a narrow set of stairs and then a long spiral staircase for 165 feet (the main opening of the cavern is large enough to fit the whole Statue of Liberty). It was really interesting to see everything and Emily loved all the echoes she could make. We weren't able to stay too long though. Emily was extremely tired (as is inevitable on a trip) and after a few minutes of uncontrollable crying, we decided to spare everyones ears and we headed back up.
Sunday we went hiking in Big Trees National Park and saw all the giant sequoias. Emily was quite the little hiker. She loved running around in the dirt and touching all the trees. She also loved all the attention she got as she met people on the path. After running around the trails she was definitely in need of a bath when we got home.
We drove over to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on Monday. Emily would cry until a ride started, say "Wheee..." the whole time it was going, and then begin crying again as soon as it was over. Besides going on rides, we saw a whale show, splashed around in a pool of sting rays and got to pet an elephants trunk. It was really fun...until we got home and realized how sunburned we were.
We went to Sutter Creek (where my brother Chris is currently serving his mission) and took a tour in an active gold mine. It was pretty interesting. It was a nice break from the hot weather and it really made us appreciate the hard work of a miner.
On our last day Emily was running around the condo and tripped and cut her eye on the molding by the stairs. We knew within seconds of looking at it that it would need stitches. We called the front desk and found the nearest hospital and frantically ran out the door. It wasn't until 10 minutes into the drive that Jeff and I finally calmed down a bit and were able to be more rational. Being that we were in a small town there was virtually no wait and Emily received her first two stitches and we were back home in about an hour.
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