First weekend away

At the end of March, Leif underwent a rite of passage: his first full weekend away from Mom and Dad. In this case, it didn't involve him even leaving his own house, since we were the ones to go away. While Aaron and I flew out to northern California to attend the wedding of my lovely and amazing friend Annie, Leif's lovely and amazing grandparents were kind enough to come and stay with him (Granny G. taking the first day's shift, Grandma and Grandpa B. the second). Everyone did well -- Leif weathered our absence with few qualms since he was having so much fun with his grandparents (plus Auntie Sarah on Saturday afternoon), and we were able to relax and enjoy the wedding festivities knowing our little boy was in the best possible hands. He did seem pretty darn happy to see us when we got back on Sunday night, though -- we were greeted with a lot of excited arm flapping and repeated exclamations of "Mom home! Dad home!", followed shortly thereafter by a blunt directive aimed at Grandma and Grandpa B.: "Grandma, Grandpa go outside!" As we finished getting Leif ready to go to bed, he kept staring at us as though he couldn't quite believe we were really there. We were very happy to be reunited with him, as well, after a few days apart. We're also glad Leif (and his grandparents) had this "practice" weekend to help prepare us all for the mystery date in May when Aaron and I will have to suddenly disappear and head off to the hospital for a couple of days to deliver Leif's baby brother!

Below are a few pictures from the weekend as Aaron and I experienced it. Although Leif wasn't with us in person, we couldn't help but keep imitating the funny two-year-old things we imagined he would have said if he had been with us, so he was always there in spirit.

Annie and her very lucky guy, Jeff!


The lovely bride with 33-weeks-pregnant me. (Just in case, I had brought a note from my midwives along on the trip indicating I was approved to travel through 36 weeks, but no one batted an eye at me and my basketball belly boarding the plane.)


The wedding was in Marin County near Sausalito, but we did have time for one brief side trip into San Francisco to visit the Legion of Honor art museum. What had started off as an extremely rainy, windy, chilly morning cleared up by early afternoon and we got to enjoy a beautiful view as we left the museum.


Legion of Honor