Mom's Visit - Feb. 12-14

A week and a half after the fact and I'm finally posting about it! We had so much fun when Mom was here. I think Olivia remembered seeing her when we were in Virginia, because she attached herself to Mom right away. It was so cute. After we picked Mom up at the train station, we went to Chino's (a little chain Mexican restaurant) to get her some lunch. Before she ordered, Mom noticed Olivia was looking at her like she wanted Mom to hold her. Mom asked her if she could hold her and Olivia said yes! Within a few minutes of us sitting down to eat, Olivia had fallen asleep with Nana holding her. It warmed the cockles of my heart. No, really it did. We didn't do much on Tuesday - just let Olivia finish her nap at home and then Mom went to Norman and Vicky's for dinner and we went to meeting.
Wednesday we met Laura for coffee around 11 am. Then we went to Powell's to get some candy and to Target so Mom could get Olivia an early birthday present. Watching a kid shop is the most hilarious thing to see. Olivia was so excited to see all the toys. She kept going from one toy to another, pushing buttons on all of them. Then she found a toy shopping cart and was pushing that around while she shopped for more toys. Oh, and of course she was jabbering about everything and dancing when she found a toy that played music (she kind of does a chicken dance - flapping her elbows and bouncing up and down). So funny. I wish we had taken pictures, but of course neither one of us had remembered to bring a camera. Olivia went home with so many toys. I think her favorite is the LOL Elmo (a new name for Tickle Me Elmo). She carries it with her all over the house (she even took it outside once) and if you put her in bed with just her bear, she asks for Elmo, too. I'll have to do a post just about Olivia and Elmo. Anyway, so after our shopping trip, we went home, had a late lunch, and put Olivia down for a nap. We had to wake Olivia up when Ryan got home because she had slept so long. Then we went to Trader Joe's to get some snacks for Mom's train trip back up to Sacramento and ate dinner at Pier 46 (they're in the same shopping center). Pier 46 is supposed to be owned by the same people that own Giovanni's in Morro Bay. Needless to say, they have really good food. After that we went to San Luis to try to find something for the new baby. We went to Sear's and World Market , but unfortunately, all the good baby stores close by 6pm, so we weren't able to get anything. But...we did stop at Madonna Inn for some cake. So the trip to SLO was not in vain. :) (Sorry, Karyn, I'm probably making you sick.)

Olivia's entertainment during the car ride? Nana's iPad of course. :) She was learning her alphabet, matching letters all by herself, and "painting". She had a blast!

Mom's bus left the train station at 8:55 on Thursday morning. We were there about 30 minutes early, but we probably could have shown up 10 minutes early. 8:55 was when the bus actually showed up, then they loaded everyone up, the bus driver made a few notes in his note pad and off they went. It was sad to see Mom go. Olivia started crying when Nana got in the bus. I think she thought we should go with her. I'm so glad Mom made the trip down even though it was so short.