for lack of a good description: NorCal visit and Train Ride (etc.)

Steve and I wanted to take a vacation this year, but with the Baby Girl #2 coming and Steve’s limited vacation time, we decided to make it a short one. So we came up with flying down to Northern CA to meet Bri’s second cousin Austin and Geigy for the first time! Fun. And, we wanted to add to the adventure by taking a train back from Northern CA all the way to Tacoma, WA. A 20 hour ride, mostly over night. It’s actually an easy way to travel with a toddler since unlike a plane, she can get up and walk around whenever she wants. Bonus!

So here’s Brielle and second cousin Ashlyn. Ashlyn is the older sister of Austin, but I didn’t get a picture of his cuteness, so you’ll all just have to wait ‘til our next adventure down South to meet him yourself. Ashlyn and Brielle played quite a bit and I can tell Ashlyn is a very good big sister. I’d like to send Brielle down to take ‘Big Sister Lessons’ from Ashlyn to prepare her for her little sis to come in May.

We drove to Santa Rosa with Steve’s mom and Steve’s Aunt Peg to visit Geigy. Brielle just loved spending time with Geigy. She also loved to wear her necklaces which you can see her wearing in these two pics.

The only way to travel… This is on the train platform after our bus ride from Santa Rosa to Martinez where we caught the train. The bus is not a recommended way to travel with a toddler by the way. Poor Bri tried to get off the bus at every stop. Kind of exhausting for her parents.

Our train didn’t leave until 10:45pm which is 4 hours past Brielle’s bedtime! We were able to visit with some friends during that time who drove up from Fremont to have dinner with us. At some point during our wait, Steve was able to get Bri to sleep. See the use of her car seat, blanket and luggage cart maneuver. This is a pretty advance parenting technique. Please don’t try this at home.

We didn’t end up taking many pictures of us on the train. Lame, I know. But here’s Bri and I during our nap. We opted for the room for this exact reason, to give Brielle a chance to get as much of her normal sleep as possible. It wasn’t perfect, but for this nap, we were down for 1.5 hours! Not bad for a little girl who usually only naps for 45 minutes.

Well, these next pics have nothing to do with Northern CA or traveling by train, but with a Dad’s desire to get his girl riding a motorcycle when she turns 2. We happened upon these little 4 wheelers at Toys R Us and Steve ordered one shortly there after. He figures she can start out on 4 wheels and get the idea of turning the handles and holding down the starter. As you can see here, we didn’t need to help her get on.