Big trip to the Motherland

We decided to take Layla back to the 'Motherland' (where our mothers are!) over the 4th of July holiday. Like me, Layla has a lot of grandparents - SIX (including some step-grandparents), and she has EIGHT more great-grandparents!! She also has SIX uncles and THREE aunts, FOUR cousins and an army of great aunts and uncles that were all dying to meet her. She told me before she left she couldn't WAIT!!!

So we put her in some appropriate attire and hopped on a plane.


And she's a good traveler!! She liked the airport, enjoyed all the lights on the plane (and then fell asleep for a while), didn't seem to mind the pressure changes (she even slept through one of the landings!), and was generally a pretty good sport. She was even kind of sick when we left - but didn't complain.

When we got to Iowa, we had a LOT of people to meet. She LOVED meeting everyone, and told many of them about her awesome trip from Seattle.

Below she is telling the Studly Hubby's Studly Mommy all about her wild trip through airports and on airplanes all the way from Seattle to Iowa.

Her relatives made a good audience, and she soaked up all the new sights. One of the things that really blew her mind was the dogs at my mom's house, she stared at them with her mouth wide open (unfortunately we didn't have the camera out yet).

She also had a wonderful time playing with everyone, below she and my mom are goofing around on the floor of my mom's living room.


We were hosted very well by our mommies in the Motherland - both mommies got play things for us to use, including swings and vibrating chairs and toys. Below Layla is having fun in one of the swings and she is holding a stuffed dog her Grandpa M gave her.


Big kudos to my mom especially for clearing out the bottom floor of her house for us, running the air conditioning all weekend at our request, keeping quiet in the mornings so we could sleep in (since we are lazy West Coasters), and organizing a large-scale rental of all of her neighbor's baby things.

Also many thanks to those who brought toys and gifts for Layla, she really loves the toys and WE love the outfits! My mom was an especially big contributor, and filled up her entire kitchen table with bags of stuff she got for Layla. What an excited Grandma!!

Even though everything went well and we were glad Layla could meet a lot of her family, it was a really exhausting trip. The Studly Hubby and I both got sick, and poor Layla didn't shake her cold, so all three of us got home on Sunday night exhausted and sick, 30 minutes before the fireworks show started in our neighborhood. We all went to bed while the fireworks were going off less than a mile away from us, and slept through the fireworks, the traffic and loud partying afterwards. Then Monday we had a lot of long naps during the day to try to recover. What a trip!!