Home Sweet Home

Well- It has been a long time since I was written, things have been CRAZY busy! Vacations, packing, travelling, swimming, movie watching, game playing, eating and playing with Nova. Here is how it all went....
On Friday August 28th, we left the Twin Cities and headed for sunny California. I was worried about the flight and how the little girl would fair, but she did quite well. She played for most of the flight but did fall asleep for 45 minutes of the 3 1/2 hour flight. Not bad. No one on the flight even knew she was there.
When we landed my brother-in-law was there to pick us up. He whipped us up through all the hills to their cute 3 bedroom apt in Mira Mesa. It is a cute place, we nestled right in as Dave gave us the grand tour. As he went, I noticed that my sister and him tried really hard to clean the apt. I tried not to judge. I love them both.
Let it be known that I am a clean freak and have had to restain myself from multiple panic attacks if I go to someones house and it is messy. Let me clarify- Messy I can stand. Filthy- I can not. There is a difference.
Anyway, they have an adorable apt. Dave mostly sat with Nova talking with about the flight and whatever information he could get out my 7 month old. We chatted until my sister got home after work. She looked so cute in her black work outfit. It was wonderful to see her. I stayed up until 1am my time and had to crash. I didn't want to but I had to- I couldn't see straight anymore.
On Saturday, Nova was up at 6:30 and ready to play. I got up and tried to not wake anyone else up, other than my sister and Dave. Nova is so much fun in the morning. She loves to cuddle and play around in bed. I left Nova in the room with Dave and Darcy and decided to help my sister with her laundry and dishes. This pretty much took up the whole day and before we knew it, it was time to head to the beach house. We checked in and waited for everyone else to arrive. My stepbrother Tony, Myrtle, his girlfriend, and Angela, Myrtle's daughter were already there waiting for us. Cleon and I picked our bed and dropped off our luggage and headed out to get something to eat. It felt good to be back in Carlsbad. It is a familiar place to me, the beach, the people, it all felt great.
On Monday we decided to spend our "McGaugler family day" at Balboa Park. Balboa Park is full of museums for every kind of soul. The art soul, the science soul, automobile soul and the list goes on, even a nudist soul. I was only able to see a couple things, which is fine by me. Nova requires a lot of my time and I don't mind missing out on things, I feel like she is filling me with other things. It's OK. I got to see the Body Works exhibit. It was amazing. I found myself walking around these plasticized bodies and wondering more about the person than what the exhibit was showing me. The had a pregnant woman that had died when she was 5 months along. The exhibit showed everything, the fetus, nestled in her belly. He lungs black with smoke. I wondered why she would choose to smoke, what happened to her when she died? What kind of person was she? Is is strange to wonder about these things? I think people are amazing in life and their bodies tell so much in death.
Apparently, this exhibit is quite the controversy. Scientists feel this was necessary to understand the body and people in general think it is cruel to treat the dead this way. My thoughts, good thing we all have choices while we are living, whether or not to visit this exhibit and plasticize our own bodies. I thought the exhibit was just plain cool.

The rest of the week was just wonderful. We tried to get Nova to love the ocean as much as we do, but she wasn't so sure of it. As the days wore on, we were able to get her closer and get her feet in. She whined, but was ok. She wasn't that much of a fan for the sand. We might have a drama queen on our hands- like her daddy! She took long naps in her pack and play on the beach, lathered in sunscreen, just incase any sun got to her pale little body.

I went swimming in the ocean and tried to avoid every piece of kelp that floated my way. I love the sandy bottom of the ocean, but this year there were tons of pot holes in the bottom. Not good! My brother and I had a really hard time, we bobbed and tried to weave between them.

Before we new it, the week was over and it was time to fly back. Nova did not do so well on the flight home. It was bedtime when we took off and she would have gone right to sleep if we were at home. She is used to being left alone, I do not coddle her too much at night, so when I was holding her the whole time on the plane, she did not like this. She could not get comfortable no matter what I did. She finally fell asleep 1/2 hour before we landed- ugh! It was midnight by then.

This week back at work has flown by and I feel like I have not even gotten a vacation. Where does the time go?California is always a wonderful trip that I look forward to every year. Now, my husband looks forward to it and soon Nova will too! For now, we are Home Sweet Home.