January 27, 2009

Leila's First New Year

We flew to San Diego on Southwest, which, as many of you know is usually crowded. However, we were lucky enough to get 3 seats together (mostly because no one wanted to sit next to the small baby) so Leila was able to take a nap!

We stayed in a timeshare condo so that we'd have space for the whole family. That turned out to be convenient since it was very centrally-located and had a living room and kitchenette so we could entertain. Genoa came over to visit us and took this photo of Leila playing with Matt.

For New Year's Eve, we went out to dinner with our friends, Nicole and Billy, and then hung out at the condo. We put Leila to bed and watched the NYE countdown on television and had a champagne toast. It was mellow but probably the most exciting New Year's one can expect with a six-month-old baby!

On New Year's Day, we went to brunch with Matt's San Diego relatives at the 94th Aero Squadron. In this photo with Matt and Leila are Matt's cousin, Peter, and his youngest son, Pauli. Peter's wife, Alice, their other son, Alice's father and sister and Matt's Uncle Fritz were also there. It was fun introduce Leila to everyone and see how the boys have grown.

Look! I can eat my shoe! Can YOU do that??

After brunch, we caught up with our friends, the Addams'. We just walked around Balboa Park and enjoyed the cool but sunny weather. Susan and I were both taking photos with our respective cameras so we're not in this one. Then our camera battery died... :-(

After our quick visit to San Diego, we went back to Los Gatos for a day before flying back to Finland. The trip back to Finland was actually easier than the trip to California. We had a direct flight from San Francisco to Munich where we sat in bulkhead seats that had a baby bassinet for Leila. She got to sleep for a few hours, which gave us some time off and the ability to snooze a little, too. Then the flight from Munich to Helsinki wasn't full so we had an extra seat for her there. Yay, Lufthansa!