California, Day 1 - Getting There

When I was first pregnant with Aaron, one of the things Tim and I talked about was where we should go on our maternity leave vacation trip.  We did this first when Leah was born - since I was already going to be taking vacation from work, we figured why not go on a trip?  For Leah's maternity leave vacation we went to Puerto Rico, so we knew that we had to go somewhere equally great this time.  We threw around a couple of different ideas but after some creative Christmas gifts from Paul and Ang, our final decision was California.  We knew that we wanted to drive part of the Pacific Coast Highway and spend time in both LA and San Francisco.  From that framework, we started planning our trip.

Our flight left in the afternoon on Tuesday, July 2nd.  We haven't flown in the afternoon... ever?  Well, probably at some point, but usually we fly bright and early first thing in the morning.  It was weird to be able to get up and take our time getting everything ready and finish packing, rather than doing it all the night before and leaving for the airport before the sun comes up.

We flew on JetBlue through JFK to San Francisco.  We were a bit worried about the long flight from JFK to SFO, but hoped that the TVs and good snacks that JetBlue offers would help make the time pass faster.  From Syracuse to JFK, we had two sets of two seats together. Cameron, Aaron and I sat in one set and Tim and Leah sat in the other.

It was difficult to get Cameron to look at the camera for more than two seconds because he was so interested in whatever was on TV.

Cutie Leah

We grabbed dinner at JFK and made our way over to our gate.  We had a while to wait so the kids played and tried to get some of their wiggles out before the long flight.

Cam playing with Aaron

Aaron was VERY happy to stretch out and move around in his stroller after being in the sling for the entire first flight.

I don't remember what Cameron was sad about here, but what a pout he has!

Leah Bee playing "own game"

Our second flight left at bedtime so as soon as we got on the plane we got pajamas on the kids. For this flight Tim had Cameron and Leah sitting with him and I had Aaron with me.  Everyone fell asleep fairly quickly, which was good because there are not very many kid-friendly shows on the JetBlue TVs at 9pm at night!

Of course, we had to sit on the runway for a while and were late taking off, so late getting into San Francisco.  The flight itself was fine, no problems at all.  We were a bit worried about what we would do when we got there if all three kids were sleeping.  We had two strollers with us, so we figured the most difficult part would be carrying three off the plane to get to the strollers.  Once we landed though, Leah woke right up without us even trying to wake her and was ready to go for the day (at 11pm Pacific Time, so 2am EST!).  Cam was a bit slower to wake so we ended up putting him in one stroller, Leah in the other and and had Aaron in the sling.

Tim and I were exhausted, so luckily the luggage all arrived quickly.  We were especially happy to see the car seats some of the first pieces of luggage out, because we were a bit worried about what we would do if one or more of the car seats didn't make it.  We went to Avis to pick up our car and were given a choice of four different minivans.  We choose a Toyota Sienna, got the car seats installed and loaded up the luggage.

Our hotel was right in San Francisco so it was about a 20 minute drive from the airport.  At midnight it wasn't too crowded so we got there quickly and didn't have any trouble finding it.  When we checked in, I asked for a pack-n-play or crib and the person working at the desk looked at me like I was crazy.  Apparently they did not have any cribs, despite it saying so on the website.  Oh well - Aaron spent four days snuggled between Tim and I for his sleeping arrangements.

We brought all of our luggage up to the room, put Cam and Leah into their bed (they shared a queen, with a wall of pillows between them so that no one would cross over to the other one's side!) and fell into our bed.  We were so tired but were really looking forward to checking out San Francisco the next day.