A trip

It isn't often that I get to go anywhere without a child or two. And leaving the city we live in without children? Doesn't happen. Well maybe once a year. This time I actually left the state I live in - with only one child along for the ride.
Miss Squiggles and I took a nice airplane ride down to San Diego.Here she is at the airport, waiting. She did a lot of that, waiting. And she was so good about it! Usually she has a lot to say, and a lot of wiggles. But this weekend or ours was mainly grown-ups and plenty of waiting, and she was pretty quiet and patient. She did great!

San Diego was almost like another country for us. It was warm and beautiful on the harbor. The palm trees were cool to look at, so different from the fir and pine around our home. And all the ships! Wow! We saw the USS Midway - that thing is huge! We also saw this cool ship - someone said it was used in the Pirates movie.

 We had a day to explore before we had to be at the rehearsal and dinner. So we went to Coronado beach. It was nice to step in the water and not freeze our toes! It was still cool - we had on sweatshirts for the first part of the morning (and in the evenings.)

 On the beach we found not one, but two, fresh sand-dollars! We had never seen those before. Just the white ones that have been eaten by the birds or bleached by the sun.

 The hotel there was amazing! We went through some of it, and had fun imagining.

 The one thing i didn't care for, all weekend long, were the loud planes and jets constantly overhead. The sound was so loud, that's what bothered me. I didn't mind seeing them; it was just the constant need to plug my ears ...

 We managed to find a few 'kid' things for Squiggles to do - like carousel rides and train rides.

 and lunch with a dear cousin who drove down just for a short visit. We miss her at home, and so it was great to catch up a little.

Here she is waiting again during rehearsal. She was always looking upbeat and interested though.

 The day of the wedding, we had some time in the morning to look around town again. We chose to go to Balboa Park. That place is amazing! It is so big and full of places to explore, it would take a week for me to go through it. And we only had a few hours. We saw this huge-mongous outdoor organ, and someone was practicing on it. Very cool.

 I love the architecture here. I could've spent hours just looking at that too.

 And while I was waiting (once) a little hummingbird appeared in front of my at the flowers, see if you can find him in the picture:

 Here she is, waiting again. I thought she looks so much like me when I was her age.

 I managed to capture a few pre-wedding pictures without getting in the way of the professionals.

I'll leave the wedding photos for the bride and groom to share - it was a gorgeous and wonderful wedding of two gorgeous and wonderful people. My girl did a super job as a flower girl, although I would've enjoyed seeing some pirouettes down the aisle. She smiled and tossed flower petals like a pro.
And then she even got to ride in the limo to the reception:

 where we danced the night away. The bride and groom, my nephew and his new wife, were really great about including the young one in the party. She will have so many great memories from this trip.

And so will I. I have never gone on a trip, let alone a 4 day one, with only one child, since my oldest was a baby. Spending time with my almost-9 year old really helped me get to see her in a new light, and I think she saw that mom isn't just an old lady all the time. (I know she really enjoyed watching my so cool dance moves.)