Between Javi working on new furniture to sell and my wedding photography schedule, most of our free time has been spoken for this spring. Last weekend we set aside our projects and took a few days to go and visit my aunt Jane and uncle Bruce in Alabama. A few years have passed since we last saw Jane and Bruce and they hadn’t had a chance to meet Penny yet. Javier had the weekend off, so it was the perfect time to take P on her first long trip. On Thursday we drove down to Nashville, spent the night at my parents’ house, then flew from Nashville to Pensacola, rented a car in Pensacola and drove an hour to Daphne. It was quite a journey for us and miss P but she did AMAZING on her first flight!
Jane and Bruce have a GORGEOUS house on the most beautifully landscaped plot you’ve ever seen. They did all the landscaping themselves, and it’s basically a dream garden. I spent an hour just walking around the place taking photos of the various plants in bloom. Their spring happened much earlier than ours, so their crepe myrtle canopy and giant azalea border were already finished blooming. The hydrangeas were just getting started, though, and I was struck by the contrast between the dark green underbrush and the bright blue blooms. I’m a bit obsessed with hydrangeas lately (there’s a 12-ft wall of white hydrangeas in our neighborhood that I keep going back to photograph) so I got plenty of shots of these blue beauties.
While we were there Penny had her 8-month “birthday” – 8 months! She’s crawling (but that didn’t happen til we returned home), she’s eating all kinds of solids now, and she’s even feeding herself little bites. I just can’t believe how big she is…so to put it in perspective I sat her on the front steps of the house to bring her back to scale. She may be big, but she’s also so dang tiny. I love my little P!!! And I love her vintage Strawberry Shortcake overalls…!
It was SO good to see Jane and Bruce again and spend some time in their quiet, beautiful corner of the world. We ate some delicious seafood (down by the gulf, couldn’t resist!), walked the garden, watched foxes play in their backyard, looked at old photos, and caught up. Turns out P is an excellent traveler and rolled with the punches throughout…she slept through most of both plane rides and woke up each time just in time to watch the landing. Now we know a little bit of what to expect for our July trip out to California!
There’s plenty more to share from the spring…and now that it’s June 1 I guess it’s time to catch back up! We overlapped with Ian and Andrea and kids at my parents’ house in Nashville on the way home…more on that later. Happy June, everyone!
Los Rodriguez Life 
5 responses to “Trip to Alabama and Penny’s First Flight”
Penelope pictures are too cute! Glad she made the travel a little better for you. 😆
Did Bruce show you the loose leaf notebooks in which Jane carefully photographed, named and catalogued dozens of the garden flowers?
Sweet story and amazing pics of J&B’s garden. Stunning!! Very special trip for so many reasons. 🙂
Hope Penny enjoyed her first flight! Alabama is a great a vacation destination spot, and we often visit our relatives there as well (except we travel by car — a road trip from our horse farm in Charleston to Brimingham suburbs takes only 7 hours). Thanks for the article.
Spent the night at my parents’ house, then flew from Nashville to Pensacola, rented a car in Pensacola and drove an hour to Daphne. Thank you for sharing your great post!