Alex's First big trip!

This is another post from Dad Eric!

In mid-March, Alex took her first ever trip out of Seattle! In the pre-baby days, Catherine and I liked to go down to San Franciscso at this time of year to attend the annual Asian American Film Festival there. Catherine has several cousins in the Bay area, and they wrote to ask us if we were going to come again this year. At first we thought we'd better not; after all, Alex is only a little more than four months old, and we felt perhaps the trip would be a bit much for her. Also, just how much would we have to bring? How would we be able to transport all the stuff we use every day? What if she had a meltdown in the middle of the flight? But we talked to several other parents with babies Alex's age who have made trips already, and felt like we could do it, too. So we booked our flight!

The trip down proved to be pretty easy, actually. We brought the stroller, the car seat, our usual collection of diapers, pacifiers, changes of clothes and bottles, and a few other supplies. Probably half of what we took was Alex stuff, but we managed to get it all on board, and didn't even have to check any bags in! We were fortunate that they had a special security scanner where they processed us, because I had to put about six things through the scanner by the time all was said and done. But Alex was great on the flight! She handled take off and landing like a pro. We had to change her once on the flight, but we flew Virgin America, which has changing tables in the bathrooms. Except for a little fussing mid-flight each way, she was perfectly fine. What a relief!

I ended up seeing two movies while I was there, but mommy decided to stay with Alex instead of going (our original plan was to leave her with cousins during the movie, but we decided she's still a bit too unpredictable at this age, and didn't want them to have to deal with her if she became upset). As usual, we stayed in Japantown, which is where the film festival takes place. Here you can see me and Alex posing in front of the pagoda in the center of Japantown.

On Saturday, we met up with three of Catherine's relatives. Her cousin Esther was there with her daughter Rebecca, and Cousin Steve and his wife Judy came with their daughter Abigail. Abigail is only a few months older than Alex. It was kind of a cold and rainy day, so we stuck to inside activities. First we went to the Conservatory of Flowers in one of the parks and saw the model train they had there.

Later, we all went to a French restaurant called Zazie, which is in the Haight.

On Sunday, we walked all over San Francisco with Alex. First we had a nice breakfast in a place off of Fillmore, then walked through Pacific Heights and window shopped. Catherine bought a nice scarf. Alex had fun most of the time, although it got a bit windy towards the end and she got a trifle cranky at that point.

The week was a lot of fun, and hopefully we can go again next year when Alex will be old enough to enjoy it more!