The Pagan Post: A Wedding Adventure

Jeremy's college roommate got married last weekend. In San Diego. The problem with living in Redding is: it is impossible to conveniently travel to a distant location. Our options were: fly from Redding for nearly $2000, fly from Sac (but pay for parking, gas, rental car, and still travel for 9+ hours) or drive. None of the options were appealing, but we knew the wedding was one not to be missed. So we drew straws and ended up with daunting task of driving 14 hours with an infant to San Diego. We left on Thursday after Jeremy got off work and everything went like clockwork. Charlotte played in the backseat until Sacramento. We stopped, had dinner, jammied her and hit the open highway. She conked out in no time and we were making great progress. We decided to stop around 2 AM to sleep for a few hours and finish the drive in the morning. The overly friendly and talkative front desk man at Motel 6 put the kibosh on that plan. Since it took 30 minutes to get checked in, Charlotte decided it was morning. We got to our room and she was thrilled to be out of the car and raring to go! Being an irrational germ-a-phob, I couldn't stomach the thought of putting her on the floor in a less-than-sanitary hotel room. So there we stood, 2:30 in the morning, with an irritatingly happy and energetic baby, watching the minutes of sleep pass us by. By 4:00 she had had enough and finally let us get some sleep. The final leg of the trip was smooth and we made it to San Diego in time to eat lunch and get ready for the rehearsal.

The day of the wedding was a little hectic for Jeremy as he was helping set things up and doing other groomsmany type things. Charlotte and I walked around Old Town, she took a nap, then we headed to the ceremony.

The wedding site was Torrey Pines State Reserve. The view was breathtaking. The ceremony was beautiful and Charlotte didn't do anything to sabotage her reputation as world's most perfect baby. After the ceremony we headed to the reception, which was the also the B&B were we were staying for the weekend. The food was to die for, and cupcakes divine, and the company second to none. It was so wonderful to spend quality time with college friends that we don't get to see nearly enough. And don't call CPS, but we were able to put Charlotte to bed in our room (that we could see from the reception) and enjoy the late night knowing she was sleeping happily in her bed. Perfection.

Sunday morning we took our time packing up and hit the road around 9. We made it up to Westwood in time for lunch and of course Diddy Reece. We showed Charlotte all around her future college and bought her the most adorable UCLA hat, that doesn't stay on her head longer than .5 seconds. After lunch and our campus tour, we hit the open road and drove until our eyeballs burst. We made it home around 1 AM. My champion husband was hallucinating at the end, but he got us home in one piece.

It was an exhausting but incredible weekend. Charlotte did so much better than I thought she might. Though, I don't think we will be making another 14 hour drive for quite some time.