San Francisco: First Travel Day

Phew, what a fantastically fun and busy vacation we just had in sunny San Francisco! We were blessed with safe travels, abnormally sunny weather, and a good-natured-fun-loving baby. We were very busy the whole trip,so now that we are back home and unpacked, I am ready for another vacation. Isn't that how it always is though? Maybe one of these days I will take a vacation whose sole purpose is relaxation...perhaps on a warm beach with some yoga, some fancy cocktails, a massage...I digress. The point is, I took over 1500 photos on our trip to San Francisco and I am very tired, so it is going to take me a little while to write about it all. I've decided that I'll post one day at a time.

We left Saturday, September 29^th after breakfast. Robbie’s dad was kind enough to give us a ride so we didn’t have to leave our car at the airport for a week. We got there with plenty of time to spare, so we set Meo loose out of the Ergo so he could burn off some energy before setting off on his very first plane ride.

Arriving at the airport

For some reason, it was extremely quiet in the waiting area. So when Meo found out how much fun it was to bang his wooden car against the metal grate on the window sills over and over, we were a little wary of annoying people. At least Robbie was, and he spent his pre-flight time following Meo around encouraging him to roll his car rather than bang it.

Meo playing with his car at the airport

Daddy showing Meo how to play quietly

Robbie and I were pretty nervous about Meo’s first flight. Not so much for the first one, which would just be around an hour long, but for the second one which would be around 6 hours long. Now that he is walking and very curious, we were worried he would want to spend the entire flight walking up and down the aisles. On the first flight, Meo was quite cute. While we taxied around on the ground, Meo stood excitedly on my lap looking out the window at the little carts driving around and happily “brmmmm, brmmmed” at them. My plan was to get him to nurse at take off in order to keep his underdeveloped ears tubes open, however, he was very excited to see what was going on and it was a battle between pinning him down to nurse and him sitting up to look out the window. Once we were in the air though, he quickly settled down and fell asleep for the duration of the flight.

Meo's first time on a plane (13 month)

Nursing to sleep on the plane

sleeper

Sleeping on the plane

My little sleeper

We had to switch planes at Newark airport, and were dumb about following directions so ended up having to go through security again. They even decided to do a random search through Robbie’s back pack this time, causing us to almost miss our flight. But we were able to scramble in at the end of the line.

On the air bus in the Newark airport

This long flight was a little more adventurous. Don't get me wrong, Meo was very well behaved. He was just busy. Normally on a long flight, I look forward to watching a movie or two, reading my book, listening to music, or even taking a nap. Not this time though. Meo slept for about an hour mid-flight, which was a glorious refueling time for me. The rest of the time I was busy entertaining him. We brought several books for him and ended up reading each of them about twenty five times apiece. Needless to say, I bought new books while in San Francisco for the return flight. Other things he enjoyed including eating, being sung to, nursing, tearing up airplane magazines, trying to pull the hair of the person in front of us, and looking out the window at the spectacular views.

Meo feeding me Annie's Bunnies on the plane

Feeding mommy is funny!

Pointing out the window

Meo looking out the window

Peeking at the Rocky Mountainss

Desert and Rocky Mountains

Looking out at the Rocky Mountains

I think maybe the flight would have been a little more enjoyable if we didn't have to sit with a stranger. We were in a row of three, and the person near the aisle was nice enough, but not really excited about a baby. She didn't interact with Meo at all, which is perfectly fine, but it would have made our lives a lot easier if she had. Instead, she kept to herself watching movies and reading books, and we felt really bad every time we had to ask her to move so we could get out of our seats. So we ended up sitting in our seats a lot more than we would have liked. It would have been nice to walk up and down the aisle wearing Meo, but I just didn't want to bug the woman any more than we already probably would. Other downsides of the flight were they lost Meo's first flying wings (a little pin you are supposed to get on your first plane ride), movies cost money so we couldn't watch any (even though I wouldn't have been able to anyways), and since the flight was just under six hours all the food cost money. Upsides were that Mattimeo had a lot of fun and didn't cry or have any temper tantrums. Well, he did cry briefly once, but that was when Daddy took him away from Mommy to get a diaper change and he did not want to leave Mommy. But this Mommy really needed five minutes to breathe by herself so a little crying (though not desirable), was acceptable for a brief moment. Overall though, Meo was a very good boy, and the flight went a lot better than we thought it would. We were very grateful for that.

Baggage claim

When we got to San Francisco, we were all very tired and very hungry. We took a shuttle from the airport to our hotel, and the people we road with were very nice. Meo was content sitting in his car seat, looking at all the city lights and saying, brrmmm brrmmm as cars passed by.

Meo looking out the window from the airport shuttle

We stayed at the Hilton right on Fisherman's Warf, which is a very happening part of San Francisco. Right away, I gave Meo a bath to help him settle down for the night while Robbie went down to the lobby to meet our friend. Our friend Paul had recently moved to San Francisco for a new job (only two months ago), so he met us at our hotel holding a bag of delicious burritos and nachos from his favorite Mexican restaurant. We were so happy about this! So the four of us enjoyed a delicious meal together in our hotel room. It was very nice to see Paul again, and to have a warm welcome in an unknown place.

Giving Meo a bath in the hotel

Robbie and Paul enjoying some burritos

After dinner, Paul and Robbie went out to get a couple groceries for our picnic the next day and to have a beer at a nearby pub. Meanwhile, Meo busily drove his car around the hotel room until he got sleepy enough for me to put him to bed. At that point, we were both very sleepy, so we fell asleep right away in our comfy bed. We had asked for a full sized bed, but they messed up and gave us two full sized beds the first night, so Meo and I slept in a bed by ourselves. We switched the next night, but it was kind of fun to have a bed all to ourselves for a bit.

Peeking

Playing car in the hotel room

Happy boy with his car

Robbie's beer

An hour later, he woke up screaming. But that story I will save for the next post.