synopsis of our 4th (and 5th, 6th, 7th)

Show of hands: who noticed I took a little blog break? One...tw...well, thanks for checking in Mom. The truth is, we've been gallivanting about the state and visiting our related ones. We went up north to pop in on Sean's family, beginning Wednesday evening. The gritties are many and the photos prolific so let's begin.

A good 7 hour road trip gives me a chance to commune with my people: the Mack trucks. Those things look like I feel. Huge; lumbering; slow; carrying heavy stuff around in the cargo pit. Plus people really don't want to get stuck behind us on the hallways and byways at our leisurely pace. And because between my weeks 31 and 32, my face and fingers decided they wanted to be pregnant too, my visage echoes every Friends flashback to FatMonica and my wedding rings have the attractive look of being welded to my flesh. The Yaris, while it is our gas mileage warrior, is diminutive, and I.....am not. All this to say: a fatface Mack truck squeezing into a Tinyota should plan ahead and bring a little something to knock her out on the drive (would a road soda be ill-received?), especially if the estimated time of arrival is 1 in the morning.

Yet arrive we did, and we had a great time catching up. Jordan halfway participated in the annual parade that goes right through the neighborhood

there's Kate Middleton now, in the white sunhat atop her noble steed

but she threw a Royal Tantrum when she saw me cheering her on from a mere spectator's seat, and insisted on joining the commoners. She made it about 1/12 a mile though.

The in-laws hosted a fab Fourth party, and, while it was a tepid 106 (really), the belly and I wised up and volleyed between their pool and the air-conditioned indoors. (Does anyone else just love being totally buoyant when they're pregnant? The weightlessness achieved by hopping in the pool is almost almost worth the embarrassment of a swimsuit at this juncture.) One of Sean's cousins is due TODAY (yay Lauren! hurry up Baby Kiera!) so, while a significantly smaller and cuter pregnant she makes, I'm sure my mild discomfort over heat and swelling was nothing on hers.

Fireworks were far and away more successful than last year, where the foolish newb parents let the not-quite-one-year-old hold a sparkler. (We were able to convince her at the time that the grayish black mark across middle and forefinger was something of a badass tattoo.) This year, Jordan participated by being utterly and unabashedly naked, exclaiming WHOA after every snap, crackle or pop of the tiniest Piccolo Pete, and dramatically pointing at her peepers declaring "EYES" at the particularly brightworks.

Because Sacramento was nice enough to cool it in the high 80s for the rest of the long weekend, we were able to venture outdoors and explore a bit. We hit up the nearby lake on Friday and "Fairytale Town" on Saturday. In between, we had superb meals, quality visiting, and positively no spoiling of the child at all:

Haagen Dazs 'staches are the most hipster kinds

last year is but a charred memory

first manicure received with all the ambivalence of a Beverly Hills debutante. pro status

sailing the treacherous chlorinated waters with but a personalized umbrella to protect the swarthiest of them all

At my urging, Sean and I hit up 7:30 a.m. Mass that we might trek home early and avoid what I knew was going to be horrifically hellish traffic. Well yeah we did Mass early...but then left at 11:45. Epic fail. That drive is pretty Gnarls Barkley to begin with, but we couldn't be prepared for what the I-5 had in store for us. We rolled up to ye olde apartment just shy of 10 hours later, at 9:30 p.m., after battling stop-n-go, stop, stop, stop, and then literally deadstop in park for half hour on the freeway (due to an accident). Jordan was...a champion. A veritable angel. A champion cherub. She didn't. cry. once. Or even whine! She slept for 2 hours total, and the rest of the time she spent chatting our ears off about her books, the passing trucks, all the "Boo's" (my parents' dog's name is Boo - she thinks all dogs are actually called Boo - she thinks cows looks like dogs - someone alert Mensa...)

Anyway, I take back every bad thing I've ever said about the child. Had she decided to wax Veruca Salt for even just a portion of the trip, things would have been exponentially more miserable. But! We're home and our adventures are over. For now. That is the last big trip we'll take before a certain debut is made in a month and a half and closing. 

That will be an awfully big adventure...