Our Trip to San Diego

June 29th, 2011

We took a long weekend and headed westward to Southern California for a few days this past weekend. The mission was to attend a birthday/graduation bash for Ant’s cousins and spend some quality time with his grandma while there.

We stayed at her house in her little San Diego community. She’d only seen Poppy once, just about a month after she was born, and it was nice for her to see how much Poppy has changed. It was so sweet to watch her interact with Ella and Poppy.

Ella knows this grandma as “Grandma who I picked olives with.” On her visit last Thanksgiving, Clara and Ella picked olives off our neighbor’s tree together. I love that she has that memory to keep.

(Ella, by the way, shocked me the entire time we stayed. She walked into Grandma Clara’s house like she owned the place, opening cabinets and inspecting every room. The first order of business was finding the bathtub. She has her priorities straight it seems! Anyway, I completely expected her to be shy with Grandma Clara but she was just a chatterbox through and through.)

Grandma Clara is known for her famous Italian wedding soup (and she remembered how we tried to get her to make it for our guests at our wedding). On Thursday night when we came into town, she ushered us straight from the door to her table and put a brimming bowl down in front of each of us.

And this is what she does. A proud Italian grandma who dotes on her family through food. I adore the stories Ant shares about his memories growing up with her cooking and the times he shared with his grandpa. I wish so badly I could have met him. I know how proud Ant is to be a part of them.

Here are some photos from our drive over…