Weddings and Waves

This weekend Jason, Lena, and I had the honor of attending our good friend Jill's wedding in Laguna. The ceremony was small and held on the balcony of her parent's BEAUTIFUL home on the hills overlooking the ocean. As you can see, Jill was resplendent and her new husband, Noah, didn't look so bad himself. Pretty much everything, from the food to the company was divine. Lena had a great time running back and forth on the balcony, trying to figure out how to scale the glass enclosure. She was, thankfully, thwarted in this effort by the home's solid design and two watchful parents. The black shirt I wrote about before worked perfectly. She looked a little more dressed up because of the velvet, and was definitely warm enough since most of the time we were inside. She spent a lot of time climbing on the very convenient leather ottomans, chasing Gail's (Jill's sister) dog, Sparky, and generally flirting with everyone who looked her way. A good time was had by all.

Until we got back to the hotel room. Our theory was that she would be so tired from all the fun she had at the wedding she would instantly fall asleep in the car, thereby making it easy on her equally tired parents. No such luck. When we got back to the Holiday Inn she looked at us like, "that was fun, what's next?" and proceeded to keep herself awake by screaming until, oh, about 1am. I won't bore you with more details, suffice it to say we were tired beach goers the next day.

But we did go to the beach. Lena got her first taste ( I think literally) of the Pacific ocean. She loved it. The sand was great for digging, the water was great for splashing, and the seagulls were fun to yell at. I took camera video of her and her dad splashing in the waves. Unfortunately, (or fortunately if you're Jason and find it all extremely amusing) the video ends abruptly with an "AAARRGH, SHIT!" from me getting hit by a small wave. I'm sure this video clip will be played many, many times in the next few years....sigh...

The day was a bit chilly (hence the long sleeves and jeans) but very clear. We let her dig in the sand for a while, then walked (or strollered) around for a bit. We ate at a French/Cajun restaurant with a view of the beach where Lena had another first: calamari. She loved it. She ate about 6 pieces, plus the lemon wedge. We left for home at about 2pm. She slept in the car all the way home AND for another 3 hours when we got there. All in all a good weekend.