The Vacation

I'm actually still on vacation, although not for long. Today is my last day in California; we leave very very early on Sunday morning. Because we got the tickets with frequent flyer miles, there were only so many flights available to us, and I have to start work on Monday morning, and the only flight out that we could take on Sunday was the 6:30 a.m. flight. It's going to be a royal pain dragging all those sleepy kids through the airport at oh-dark-thirty, so I need to make sure I get lots of rest today.

On Tuesday we arrived in the early afternoon and just kind of flopped around the house. The kids pestered us non-stop about when they would be going swimming in Aunt D----- and Uncle V----'s pool. I made them apologize for giving their aunt and uncle the distinct impression that they came to swim, not to see their relatives. D----- and V---- were not offended, of course, but the kids needed to apologize for their own good.

Wednesday we ran a few errands. We forgot to bring the cooler full of cheese curds, so we had to pick up a cheap styrofoam cooler so that we could bring goodies home from California. We went out to our favorite dim sum place. I wish we could get dim sum like that, but I don't think Logan is ready for dim sum yet.

Thursday we took a day trip down to San Diego to see my grandparents, Nana and Boopa. Whenever we travel out to California, we inevitably spend more time with Favorite Husband's relatives; this is by design, because these are the kids' closest relatives. Why should the kids forego seeing their aunt and uncle and first cousin to go visit their first cousin twice removed on their mom's side? Still, though, I just had to take time out to visit Nana and Boopa. They are getting on in years, and they hadn't seen Bagel. Nana is quite a bit skinnier than she used to be before her bout with stomach cancer (which, thank goodness, appears to have been cured by surgery to remove the tumor). I don't think Boopa recognized me or really knew who I was. I must have looked familiar to him because he kept looking at me like he was trying to remember where he knew me from, but he was definitely lost. He gave a full "Portuguese hug" (a hug with patting on the back and/or buttocks) to the hostess at the restaurant, but was hesitant to hug me when we left. Nana knows the time is coming when he'll have to be put into a home, because her health is failing. She worries about what would happen if she were all alone with him and had to go to the hospital, a very real possibility since she recently was hospitalized with low potassium levels.

We also made our annual pilgrimage to IKEA. We weren't able to get much because of financial and luggage constraints, but we checked out a bunch of organizational options, and decided that once we're in our new house, we'll save up a bunch of money and make a huge IKEA run. We couldn't resist getting a hanging pot rack that was on sale, though; we've wanted one like that for a long time, and we are still entitled to take one more piece of luggage on the plane.

Yesterday we went out with Lola (FH's mom). She always takes us to an Asian market and buys us stuff we can't get out in Logan, like ube powder. This year, because of the upcoming move and because we flew out instead of driving, we couldn't take much home. Still, we loaded up on shrimp chips, pan de sal, and hopia. Lola made us her famous homemade lumpia, which despite her insistence that the recipe is simple, still make mine taste like cardboard in comparison. That'll go in the cooler of goodies for sure. Then we went out to a Japanese restaurant, one of those teppan-yaki types with the chefs who turn your dinner into a show. The kids were quite impressed and kept insisting that their father should learn to cook like that. Bagel made quite a fuss there, throwing everything we tried to feed him on the ground, but once I took him out of the restaurant, he was just fine. I thought he might be teething since he's been teething all week. But he was an angel as soon as I took him out, so he was just way too overstimulated and wanted a break. Bagel's a very private person who needs his "alone time". He is very jolly around other people, but only so long as he can also get some time to himself. So I took him home and put him to bed, while FH and the kids went back to Lola's and had fun at her parish's annual fiesta.

Today is the party for my niece's 2nd birthday. We'll get to see a lot of the relatives on FH's side that we had to skip out on seeing earlier in the week, and also some old friends from high school. V---- and D----- went to the same high school as FH and I did, and in fact V----'s brothers were friends of mine, so our circles of high school friends overlap by quite a bit. I wish we had time to see all of my relatives and friends who live around here, especially since I've missed three cousins' weddings in the last year, but it would take a few more weeks of vacation.

Since we're arriving so early in Salt Lake tomorrow, we thought we might spend some time there before going home to Logan. We might drive by some of the houses we've looked at online to check out the neighborhoods, or go to the Children's Museum.