FAMILY VACATION!!!

Well, in March we drove to California to meet our new-ish nephew, Taki. Remember, back in August we were planning a road trip to San Francisco to meet him just a week after he was born.....enter Aaron. So we postponed the trip just to avoid travelling with a newborn. Come March, Taki wasn't the newest member of the family anymore, baby Caris is. So we hit San Diego - the entire Luke family - for a weekend of new babies.



Taki was HILARIOUS! He has THE BEST laugh ever. And he would randomly dive at someone's face to kiss - open-mouth style. He's way more cuddly than Aaron is. And Caris looks TINY next to these two big bruisers.







This is dad's dog, Molly. She either loves Aaron and wants to be near him, or she hates him and is trying to smother him, I still don't know. Aaron hates Molly. He sort of freaked out like a rodent was touching him everytime she climbed into his carseat when he was awake. Hm. I wonder why he would think that?







Grandpa Arnie is coaching Aaron. To crawl. And wrestle. He's still not "crawling" per se, but he sure can move! It's half army crawl, half The Worm, but it definitely works. He's fast as lightning. Every now and then he pulls his knees up under himself, maybe takes a step forward, but then he drops to his belly and goes.

While in Valley Center (my once-awesome, now hardly recognizable hometown), we went to Bates Nut Farm, or as Grandpa likes to call it: Nates Butt Farm. I don't even know how to describe Bates except that it's got a pumpkin patch, a Christmas tree farm, animals to feed and a little country store with randomly good stuff. Kelsie loved feeding the animals. I had to pry Aaron's fingers open so the goats wouldn't mistake them for corn kernels. : ) It was strange, but fun to be back. The countryside is beautiful this time of year, it creates a real sense of nostalgia, but I don't think living there NOW would be anything like it used to be.

Aaron got to spend a little time sleeping in the big bed with us- that doesn't happen at home unless I'm ready to pull my hair out in the middle of the night!

We went down to Oceanside to walk on the beach. I hate the beach. Something about finding sand in every imagineble crevice for a good 2 months just doesn't appeal to me. Add to that the fact that it was technically still winter....even in Southern California. But the bigger kids wanted to go to the beach, so off we went. It was A. Freezing; B. WINDY; C. Late afternoon and just about dinner time (and of course we didn't have dinner planned yet). I left there with sand in my eyes and teeth. It was the best beach trip ever! I refused to walk through the sand - barefoot or in shoes - so Frank and I took Aaron for a walk down the pier. The windy, freezing pier.

This is mainly how he rode, with the shade thing down in front of the stroller to block the wind from his face. Great times.

It really was GREAT to get away from work. There was A LOT of driving - after the first day of driving, Aaron SCREAMED everytime his little butt hit the carseat for at least a week afterward. It was traumatizing, especially with Molly trying to weasel into his lap all the time. It was traumatizing for Aaron, too, I'm sure. : ) A LOT of driving back and forth from where we were staying to Jason's house, to Bates', to the beach, to the grocery store. By the 3rd day or so, Frank threw a mini-tantrem about how all we'd done since we got there was "eat and sit in the car!" What else do you do on vacation? I had flashbacks to my childhood when we'd be sitting out at the lake begging my dad to take us cliff-jumping/skiing/tubing/back to the marina for slush puppies/etc and he'd say "I'm on vacation, TOO. Go entertain YOURSELVES!" But totally worth it all to not even THINK about work for a week!