The Rest of Our Trip

After our fun weekend with my mom and sister, Jade and I spent the next 6 days in Huntington Beach, for his company's yearly incentive trip. We stayed at the absolutely gorgeous Hyatt Regency, which is right on Huntington Beach. New York Life booked the whole entire hotel out, so it was just our group that was there, which made for a very cool experience. Jade had a few meetings a day, which gave me time to practice going out with 2 children by myself. I had some success, but mostly we just stayed in the hotel room while Jade was gone. We were spoiled at the hotel- the staff was gracious and the food was really good, too. Our first day we laid at the pool, then went to the welcome dinner, which was unbelievable. The second day was Halloween. We took Peyton to the beach for awhile, and that night they threw a huge Halloween party for the kids while the parents went to the awards dinner. Peyton had the best time at the party. I went to check up on her (under the pretense of checking to see if she needed to go potty), and when she saw me she said [in the sweetest little voice], "Go back upstairs, mom." She met an older girl who was also dressed as Dorothy, and she loved her. That night when I was saying the prayer, Peyton interrupted me and said, "Say we're thankful for the other Dorothy, mom." It was really cute. The third day we spent awhile at the beach, the pier and the farmer's market that was going on. Then we invited our good friends Eric and Maddie, who live close by, to come to our hotel and sit in the hot tub and make S'mores. We all had a good time, but Peyton probably had the best time. The fourth day Jade had a bunch of meetings, so I took the girls to the pool. That night, New York Life bussed us all over to Disneyland, and they closed the park 2 hours early to everyone except the 1,000 people in our group. They had a dinner for us, and kept the rides in Frontierland and Adventureland open. It was pretty cool going on the Thunder Mountain roller-coaster and Indiana Jones without any lines. Peyton had a great time in the beginning, but even though she had a second, late nap, by 10:00 she was exhausted. The last day we hung out at the pool, Jade did the little water slides with Peyton, which she loved. She came out of the water after about 15 minutes and was so cold she was shaking. I asked her if she wanted to go warm up in the hot tub and she told me no! She was having too much fun with her dad to stop. That day (November 3) Piper had her first intentional smiles! They were directed at me, which made my heart melt. We left Thursday night and drove through the night to northern California. Jade made a bunch of work stops, and by 3 we made it to Medford, OR, where we checked into our hotel room and totally crashed. We went to bed at 7:40 that night. The next morning we stopped by our friends' house for breakfast. Peyton and their little girl Taylor are the same age. They hadn't seen each other in about 3 years. The girls were really cute together. It was hard to tell who was more girly- or more sassy. (That's not a good thing.) We made it home by dinner time, and even though we had a really great trip, we were all glad to be back. It was really intimidating taking a 3.5 year old and a newborn on such a big trip, but I'm glad we did. Not only did we have a lot of fun, it gave me confidence in being with 2 kids at once. For the first time since Piper was born, I thought to myself, "I can really do this!" It was very encouraging.

:

:

Part of the dinner was a Balboa Bar-bar. They had ice cream bars and frozen bananas that they hand-dipped in chocolate right in front of you, then rolled it in the toppings of your choice. YUM.

I love this picture

Big Dorothy and Little Dorothy

Peyton was so happy to have her face painted.

My little girl loved the beach! She was so content.

The Bells

Jade took this picture while on the ride. I can totally tell in this picture why everyone says Peyton looks like Jade. Usually I think she looks like me.

The dogs were really cute with Piper, signing "baby" and "little" and holding their hearts.

Peter Pan

Can you tell she was ready to go?

First smiles! Thank goodness I had my camera sitting on the counter.

Every time we walked around the hotel, Peyton walked on this little wall like a balance beam. I had to document it, because she probably did it 10 times a day.

Peyton, Tripp, Taylor and Piper. Peyton didn't realize Tripp is almost as big as her!

Just a few hours away from home. My little baby was absolutely exhausted from our big trip.