Cali

Over Mother's Day weekend, Tom and I took a short trip to Long Beach, CA to visit his grandma and aunt & uncle. I had never met his grandma, so we figured now was a great time to do it, before I was too pregnant to travel and while I was visibly pregnant with her great-granddaughter, lol :) Here's a picture of 4 generations of Crane women (left to right is myself with Twinkie in tow, Grandma Eileen, and Aunt Cathy):

 

 

 

The harbor at Long Beach was really cool, with all sorts of shops and restaurants - my favorite was the Yard House (so named for the yard-sized glasses of beer they sell, which Tom really enjoyed):

 

 

 

 

We also went to the Aquarium of the Pacific, which was pretty cool - they had all sorts of stations where you could reach into tubs of water and feel crazy sea creatures like starfish or manta rays. The best was the tank of rays, where a little girl's mother was trying to get her to touch one and the little girl was yelling, "I don't wanna touch its face, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" Tom and I were dying laughing (and so was the girl's mom :). It was so nice to think that someday we'll have our own daughter to bring to places like that and convince her to touch slimy creatures with creepy faces, haha.

 

 

 

Our hotel had a sort of lagoon behind it with these neat (and super steep!) bridges spanning the channels:

 

 

 

Flying while pregnant is crappy. I never seem to have a good time flying what with the nausea and the stagnant air and the cramped spaces, but it was worse being pregnant and having to get up to pee in those tiny little airplane bathrooms and barely being able to buckle the buckle under my pregnant belly. And all our flights were just jam-packed! And of course traveling in general was even more exhausting than usual. But at least now I can say I've visited California, and I got to meet Grandma :)