Kelly, Mrs. J, and Pinky all have excellent posts about our crazy trip to LA last weekend, but I thought I would add my two cents.

We were so thrilled when our good friends, Grant and Kelly, moved to LA with the Air Force a couple of months ago. Then we were doubly thrilled to hear that our other friends from Albuquerque, Mr. and Mrs. J, were also going to be in LA for a week on vacation. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a little reunion. One cool thing about our reunion was that when we all lived in Albuquerque none of us had kids and now we each have one ages 19 months, 9 months, and 5 months.

We all met at Grant and Kelly's hotel (where they were temporarily staying) to plan our day's itinerary and figure out carpooling. We decided that the boys would drive together and the girls and babies would drive together. (Note to self: next time the boys are taking the babies.) We moved all the car seats into our car and got ready to go to Venice Beach.

We were just pulling out of the hotel parking lot when we saw a black truck stop right by the boy's car. All of a sudden I realized that it was Andy's cousins, Philip and Brian. Andy and I knew Brian got a job in LA but didn't think he was driving out for a couple of weeks. It turns out Philip and Brian had gotten into town the night before and were staying at the same hotel as Grant and Kelly. Andy invited them to come along with us, so before we knew it we had a third car added to our caravan.

Sidenote: All of these pictures are courtesy of Kelly. I love this picture in particular because pretty much as soon as I said, "Those are Andy's cousins," she was snapping that picture knowing we would want it for our blogs. Now that's some blog dedication!

Our first stop was Venice Beach. We walked around the cute little houses on the canals.

Then we walked up and down the beach. What a crazy, crazy place. Grant's brother, John, (who also used to live in Albuquerque) met up with us there.

We decided to drive to the Hollywood area and walk around the famous Rodeo Drive. It was strange walking around pretending to be sophisticated, especially as Andy kept saying, "Rodeo" like he was expecting to see cowboys and horses.

After a long day of walking around we made one last stop to Baja Fresh for dinner. All of a sudden this guy walks right by me to pick up his food from the counter, and I realized it was Jeff Probst from Survivor. Andy, at this point, swears that my face turned bright red as I not so subtly ran over to Kelly and Mrs. J to squeal that Jeff Probst was over in the corner eating his dinner (contrary to the "No Squealing in Front of Celebrities" lecture I had given these two girls earlier that day). In honor of our dear, Survivor-loving friend, Sixbit, Grant decided to go over and talk to Jeff. While I was mortified to interrupt this poor guy's dinner, Jeff was amazingly gracious. He absolutely could not have been nicer. It was quite the capper to an amazing day!

Somehow Joey learned the word "baseball" and uses it to identify any ball and pretty much all round objects. His favorite "baseball" is actually jai alai. I'm not sure why he likes it, but oh man, he gets pumped when he sees those blue plastic baskets. I wonder if we can sign him up for a toddler jai alai league.

Lord willing, Andy and I would like to have more kid(s). Today I babysat for my neighbor's six month old boy and got to see what it would be like to have another little one around. As long as Joey doesn't smother his future brother or sister, I think we'll be okay.

Now that Joey is 18 months old, we decided we would try potty training. I had my parents dig out the old potty chair they used with my siblings and me. (You know you're frugal when you get a hand-me-down potty chair that's over 25 years old!) Then, starting last Monday, I let Joey run around the house half naked. Let's just say it's a good thing we have wood floors!

The first two times I put him on the potty chair, he went right away. I thought, "Man, I am the best potty trainer in the whole world." Yeah..."pride goes before the fall"...blah, blah, blah, and we didn't have too much success after that. He doesn't have much control yet so we're taking it pretty slowly at this point. We talk about the potty chair and put him on it every once in a while. It's in our family room so sometimes he just goes over and sits on it. Right now that's enough to elicit cheers from his potty cheerleaders (that would be Andy and me).

Joey and I got back from Albuquerque on Friday. We were gone for two weeks and had a great trip. We stayed with our good friend, Pinky, and her 3 kids. Joey had a blast with all the attention from the girls.


He learned to say "tractor" very quickly and would often drag someone over to the other side of the house to play on it.

Joey and I also got to hang out with some friends from our old church. The church play group went to the Albuquerque Aquarium and Botanic Gardens. The weird part was that the last time we were together four of us weren't even mommies yet. As you can see, we were quite the stroller brigade.

We had so much fun on our trip and are hoping to do it again sometime. Pinks and kids...thanks so much for your hospitality!