Nah. I just went to California. I’m not in the habit of telling the internet that my house is empty, so…

Surprise! I’m back! Didja miss me? Hunh? Hunh? Oh I missed you. Dreadfully. Truly, I did.

See, Billy’s cousin was getting married in Oakland on Sunday evening. We could have flown down, but where’s the adventure in that? We’re a road tripping kind of family. We left on Friday morning in a rental car, barreled down I-5 for a while, then once we had all the pretty bits of the interstate behind us, we abandoned it for the scenic routes. Lots of loveliness ensued, none of which I managed to photograph because, well…busy living it instead, you know? (Best uncaptured moment: Billy teaching the kid to skip stones off the bank of the Trinity River.)

We stopped off to see the redwoods. It was coming on dusk and the light wasn’t great for photos, but I did what I could with our wee point and shoot:

Next stop was Rachael and Lala’s house in Oakland for hugs and animal snuggling and lemon picking.

Oh–and suit borrowing. By this point in the trip, Billy realized he’d packed his suit jacket for the wedding, but not the pants. Whoops. Luckily he and Lala wear a very similar size and she has a dizzyingly great suit collection. And once again, I have no photos for you. Not because I was too caught up in the moment, but because I’m pregnant and easily distracted and I completely forgot. He looked way better in Lala’s suit than in his own, and may have had a minor style epiphany.

And then the wedding, which was nice, as weddings of relatives you like tend to be.

And then we booked out of the wedding before the cake was served (much to the kiddo’s dismay) because we had to catch a train back to Portland. Night train! With a private sleeper car! I’d done plenty of that in Europe (minus the sleeper car), but I’d never taken a long train ride in the states and always wanted to. It was a blast, even if the eggs were powdered. (If you decide on a long Amtrak journey, pack many snacks.)

Possibly the best bit, and surely the most exciting part for the kiddo, was that my mom and her boyfriend were already on the same train, on their way from visiting his family in LA and headed toward a visit with us in Portland.

Oregon is kind of pretty, hunh?

Now that this trip and my teaching rotation for AWWP are both behind us, I’m hoping to get back to blogging more regularly. Whatever that means. We’ll see how long I manage that.