Goin Back to Cali

We had so much fun visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Sacramento! We didn't want to leave. :( Sigh. They have a pool in the backyard, so we knew we needed to teach Laney to at least respect the water, so she didn't go too near and fall in. Grandma is a swim instructor so we left it up to her to teach Laney the basics. She taught Laney how to throw the water at people (simulating the swimming motion), to blow bubbles in the water (which teaches them that they need to be exhaling or holding their breath when their mouth is in the water, and never inhaling) and how to kick her little legs (which she wasn't too excited about). We would throw her in the air from person to person, which she enjoyed at the first but worried we would drop her so she started hanging on tighter and tighter to each person who caught her. She quickly got to the point where she just wanted Mama or Dada, but that didn't stop Grandma from getting her turn.

Laney thought it would be a good idea to try the slide, so she climbed up and Josh helped her get situated and I caught her at the bottom. Then she climbed up again, thinking she wanted to go down again but this time got scared at the top. She wanted to go down on dad's lap but that presented the problem of what to do at the bottom. I told Josh to just hold Laney up at the bottom and I would grab her out of the air. Josh went down so fast, and put his legs up as he came off the slide so he landed on his back, instead of sticking his feet in and standing up at the bottom, so the momentum took them both under and I struggled to pull Laney up due to Josh holding on to her tight, unsure of whether I had a hold of her or not. I could see her little eyes wide open under the water- it was sad! Finally Josh let go and I was able to lift her out of the water. It was only about a second long but felt like a lot longer as we went through it. Turns out Laney held her breath the whole time! She did so good!

Her favorite thing was to walk around on the outside of the pool and throw things in (balls, rafts, speggetti floaty things) and have the wind blow it back to her, then she would reach in and throw them back out. She had been in the water enough at that point that she knew she had to be very careful. It was so much fun.

This is laney playing in the kitchen. She pulled EVERYTHING out so she could build a little fort inside. She is SO good at making messes :)

We took her to Funderland which is near the Sacramento Zoo. It's a place with a bunch of kiddie rides. She LOVED going on the fishie ride, which went around in circles and bobbed up and down. We weren't sure if she was too little, and wouldn't enjoy it. The first time she had a bit of a surprised look on her face, but as she realized how much fun it was, she ended up riding that thing close to 20 times!
We tried the Tea Cups with her, and she did not like that one bit. The operator was nice enough to stop the ride and let us get off. Ryan and Grandpa rode it later, and spun that cup so fast Ryan got a blister! They must enjoy being dizzy haha!

The Fairyland park is right next to the zoo and Funderland. It consists of a bunch of slides and things kids can play on. She had so much fun here. The slide built on the Old Lady in the Shoe was made of metal and was about 15 feet long. Josh and I both went down it and I was so fast it threw us off at the bottom. They need to have brakes on those things!

Ryan got some fireworks and we all went outside to enjoy the show. Laney was really scared of all the noises and must have thought we were being bombed or something (if she knew what a bomb was of course). She took turns sitting on Josh's and my laps and held on tight as the scary noises and flashing lights went off. Ryan did a great job keeping us entertained.

Sunday night Audrey and Mike drove down from Tracy, and we had a little BBQ and played some Catch Phrase. It was girls against boys and of course the ladies won a close one. It was very good to see them both!

We had so much fun there, it was so relaxing and just so good to be able to hang out with the fam. We had been there a couple of times before but they were only for short weekend trips.