California

Halfway through our trip to Utah, Garrett and I left the kids at Emma's house and flew to San Diego for a few days.  I can't believe I used to think that flying was such a hassle before I had kids.  Flying without kids is a dream!!  I could do whatever I wanted, and no one was squirming on my lap, no one was whining for snacks, and no one had to be shushed.  It was so lovely.  I played sudoku and read magazines.  I even got to put my drink on the tray in front of me and no one tipped it over.  Heaven.

Coronado Island

We landed in San Diego, picked up our rental car, and headed out to Coronado Island.  It was just beautiful!  It was such a gorgeous day.  We drove around downtown and stopped to have lunch at a little Italian pizzeria.  We sat outside and split a pizza and watched the town.  It was so great to spend time together alone.

After lunch we walked to the beach and spent some time in the sand.  There were fighter jets flying overhead, which was really neat, and the boats out in the water were pretty too.

We left Coronado Island and went to Balboa Park, where we walked around for an hour or so.  We just walked around outside in the gardens, since the museums cost money and we didn't really want to spend anything more.

Balboa Park

After the park we headed to the hotel to meet up with the rest of Garrett's family, and the remainder of the weekend was a whirlwind of wedding preparations.  It was fun to see everyone!

We did sneak in a morning run on the beach on one of the days.  It was fun!  It was great to run to the sound of the waves.

Setting up for the reception

Jackie and Catherine (a sister and a bridesmaid)
The wedding was in San Diego, but the reception was 2.5 hours north, in Palm Springs.  We had to go up to Palm Springs for several hours on Friday to set up for the reception, then again the next day for the reception.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of time in our tiny little rental car.  Thankfully, Garrett drove so I got to sit in the front.  Not everyone was so lucky... it was fun, though.  On the trip up on Friday, we had to assemble 150 favor boxes.  The car felt even smaller by the time we were done with those!

Hannah, Grandmother, Jackie

The beautiful bride (and groom).  Isn't she gorgeous?

The wedding colors were red and aqua.  I wasn't a bridesmaid (they had matching dresses), but we sisters bought our own dresses in the wedding colors to coordinate.  This is the only picture of my full dress, which is why I'm including it, but I have to say that it really bothers me that my purse and shoes don't match.  That's the only purse I brought with me though, so I had no choice.  It's certainly not very spring-y, is it?  Oh well. :)

Yep, half of the Temple had scaffolding.  Made for some great pictures, I'm sure... oh well.

The reception - it was fun!  It was kind of a "carnival" theme, with hamburgers, corn dogs, caramel apples, soft pretzels, and popcorn. Yum!

The bride and groom don't like cake, so instead of cake, they had Coldstone come and cater!  They had several different ice cream flavors and mix-ins, and every serving was made to order. It was a lot of fun! I only had one but it took some willpower to stick with that, let me tell you.

The day after the wedding we had some downtime (whew!), so we spent some fun times with Garrett's sister Jackie and her husband Jared.  We went to Old Town San Diego and had amazing Mexican food, and then we went over to the new Mormon Battalion visitor's center.

At the Mexican restaurant

Panning for gold at the Mormon Battalion visitor's center

THANKS so much Emma, Molly, and Mom for watching our kids while we were gone... we should do this more often!

Westward!

We weren't home from D.C. for a full week before we packed up again, this time for a big, long trip to Utah and California.

Abby is a great traveler, thankfully!

First we stopped in Utah and spent a few days at my sister Emma's house.  It was a looong flight (we stopped in Denver on the way).  Elle spit up all over me 10 minutes into the first flight, and she also doesn't sleep well if she isn't in a bed so it was a bit rough.  I shouldn't complain too much because really, she is a very good baby and even her fussy moments are pretty tame.  It was just hard to travel so far with two kids, even with Garrett's help.  We flew a lot when Abby was a baby (and I flew with her alone a few times, too), but two kids is a whole new situation!

Being in Utah was so much fun (it always is!).  Abby and Chris are only a week apart and they had a great time playing together and having sleepovers every night.  It was so cute to tuck them into bed at night, only to hear them 30 minutes later still sitting in their beds reading books and talking.

Abby and Chris

We also got to spend some time with great friends who used to live here but moved to Utah a year ago.  We miss them so much so it was a lot of fun to see them!

Addie and Abby

Mom was there for a while because she had some business she had to take care of in Provo, so it worked out that she came when we were there.

Chris, Mom, Abby

Marian

I even got to celebrate my birthday while we were in Utah - I turned the big 2-6!  It pretty much feels the same as 25, I have to say.  We got some awesome sushi for dinner, which is all I could ever ask for.  Mmmm... I'm still dreaming about it.  Yes it was THAT good!  Thanks to EVERYONE who came to Emma's house to celebrate with us. (i.e., Brandon). (And Elza and Molly!)

I miss the mountains...

Thanks SO MUCH to Emma and John for letting us come stay at their house, and for watching our kids while we went to California.  And thanks Mom and Molly for helping out too, and Molly for letting us use your car while we were there.

Up next: Pictures from California!

Dance

We had a great time on our trip.  Here's a little sneak peak into the reception fun... Garrett's little bro got pretty into it.  He was dancing like this for an hour straight.  Oh the energy.

Baby face

Just can't get enough of this face right now......

You know it's April when.....

You know it's April in Augusta when...

1. High temps are back (goodbye, Spring...)

2. Only about 1 out of 10 cars around town is actually from GA.  It's Master's week!

3. There is a yellow tinge to everything outside (and some things inside, too).  You can even see the pollen in the air, it's so dense.  They say this is the worst year we've had in a long time and I agree that it's the worst I've seen in our 4 years here.  When we got back from D.C. our car made tracks in our driveway through the pollen, and we could see our footprints as we walked to the front door.

The Woodburys go to Washington

We took a short trip up to Washington D.C. last week to spend some time with Garrett's family.  We had a good time.  It was pretty hectic and crazy (any trip with 14 people would be), but it was great to spend time with everyone.

One day we took the Metro downtown to see the sites.  I was very excited to ride, clearly.

On the Metro - Abby really liked riding the underground train.

The closer we got downtown, the crazier the Metro got.  At one point we had to get off one train and get onto another one.  We had to split up since only a couple people could cram in each time.  It was insane!

Walking downtown - we walked a lot that day.  I loved it.

We went to the Air and Space Museum.  Fun, but very crowded.  I would love to go back sometime next year when it's quieter so we can actually see the exhibits.

Relaxing at the WWII monument.

Washington Monument

On Friday morning Garrett and I took the girls to downtown Bethesda for lunch at Potbelly's (a sandwich shop).  It was really fun and I really liked Bethesda - the downtown was very walking-friendly and Garrett and I agreed that it would be a fun place to live, for a while (in the end, we both really love smaller towns).  After lunch we went to the Temple and walked around for a bit, and went to the visitor's center.  Abby loved it.

How cute is this girl??  She was great on the trip.

By the end of the trip we were all exhausted.  It was quite a whirlwind but we survived!  I am excited that we will be living close to D.C. next year - hopefully we'll have a couple chances to return and experience the city.

Coming soon...

We took a quick trip to Washington D.C. last week... more pictures coming soon!