Thanksgiving... SoCal Style

Long back, we had decided to go to LA and San Diego for the long Thanksgiving weekend.  We took off Thursday morning, headed to San Dimas to visit Nana.  We should have known that the drive would be longer than usual, but I guess were were in denial... It was a long trip to San Dimas followed by another long drive to San Diego.  We did have a nice visit with Nana, though.  Starving at 3:30, we had Carl's Jr. in the car.  We had planned to make it to our hotel in San Diego in time to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner, but that didn't work out and instead we ended up sushi, soup and pie in the hotel room.  Luckily, we had been invited to a fabulous, traditional Thanksgiving dinner the previous weekend (with the extended family that may not technically be related to us but has taken us in nonetheless).  Otherwise, I might have been a little depressed that the highlight of my Thanksgiving meal was sweet potato fries.  We were all pretty zonked and not very good company for Grandpa by the time we arrived, but after a short (and brisk!) swim, we crashed early.  Good thing as Grace was up at 5:45 AM on Friday.

We spent the day at the Wild Animal Park (well, I guess it's now called the Safari Park, how fancy) in Escondido.  It's the breeding and conservation branch of the more famous San Diego Zoo, but I like it better than the zoo.  It has been Disneyfied in the years since our last visit, but we had a great time.  It was also in the 80s (warm even for San Diego this time of year).  When Steve had shown Grace pictures, she decided she didn't want to go since the animals weren't in cages, but once there, she loved it.  There was a baby elephant.  So cute.  And tiger twins - I can never get over how amazing the markings on tigers' faces are.  We also enjoyed the tram through the open exhibits... especially me since I was having major round ligament pain of course on the day we'd planned to do a lot of walking.  We stayed for the cheetah run in the late afternoon.  They have a track where a cheetah gets up to it's full speed.  No joke - blink and you miss it (we think Grace didn't see it at all).  That animal is fast!  I tried to get a picture, but... fail.  At least I saw it pass with a few strides.  It was kind of hilarious because when they're prepping you for what to watch they send out a dog to run along the track when you think it's supposed to the cheetah.  Maybe you had to be there.  Fish tacos for dinner.  It's possible that was the part of the trip I was most excited about.

Saturday we planned an easy day - met up with Jess and Geoff for coffee (thanks to fb we discovered at the last minute that we were all in town).  It has been almost a year since the last time we saw them so it was really fun to catch up and help Geoff try to convince Jess to move to Boston since the winters aren't _that_ bad.  We did a little Christmas shopping, hit the pool, then the beach, and had Cotixan (one of those excellent, horrifying SoCal taco stands - it has been quite gentrified in recent years, but the food was just as good/terrible as ever).  Quiet night at the hotel (room service, thank you Priceline credit!), and then on Sunday morning bumped into another friend who recently moved to the Bay Area but also used to live in San Diego many moves ago.  We could see UCSD grad student housing from our hotel room window, and I kept thinking that I bet she and her husband, just like us, never thought we'd be staying with our kids one day at the nice La Jolla hotels that we used to see as only for real grown ups. 

Hit the road early Sunday, but apparently not early enough.  We sailed through LA, then got caught in the first of approximately infinity traffic jams just before the Grapevine.  There is an unspoken code that when you drive through the Central Valley, you basically set your cruise control for fast and then do no thinking for about 4 hours.  Not so this time... traffic the whole way, but Grace was a champ even though she slept only an hour.  11 hours later we got home (after the obligatory potty stop near Oakland!  Sigh.).  Somewhere between Buttonwillow and Los Banos, Steve said we're never taking a long drive the Sunday after Thanksgiving again. That's right.  Next year, we will be home eating leftovers and drinking wine.  

Despite way too much driving, the trip was reallllly fun and it was so good to get away briefly.  Here are all the pictures since I'm still in a fight with google (me and Apple).

Scramble

So I really really reaaaalllly was going to get all caught up with fall activities and updates before Thanksgiving so I could then go merrily into the Christmas season without a backlog of photos of pumpkins.  

I have failed.

So I'm combining the past three months into one post... pretty lame.  But seeing as how I'm growing a human who really likes me to sleep a lot, I have an excuse.  Right? 

Okay, and so now I just tried to upload a bunch of photos.  And Google says I've exceeded my limit.  So I will be revisiting this later.  Grrr.  

Here's what I was going to post about... my dad's visit and our trip to Alcatraz (who knew that would lead to the new game "escape from prison"), our really fun trip to Apple Hill with aunts, uncle and cousins, lots of outside time with Grace's friends, face-painting, bouncy slides, snuggling on the couch to read, building giant duplo towers and practicing bike-riding.  Not lots of overwhelming excitement, but the good stuff of life - being outside with friends or family on a sunny day (oh year, we had sun!  Maybe that's why my posting has been so lousy... it was summer here!).

Despite the Google nonsense, I'm feeling very thankful.  We have had some big challenges in the past year, but as I look back the blessings more than overpower the aggravations and frustrations.  I'm sitting here listening to the rain and hearing Grace snore while Steve works away on a homework assignment.  I'm warm and dry, my stomach is full, the baby seems to be growing well, I have a good job to do tomorrow and a safe, nurturing school to take Grace to.  Steve will do good work healing people.  We will then spend several days off relaxing with family and friends and enjoying some down time.  And tonight, after I finish my chores, I will climb into a cozy bed and read my new library book.  We have loving families and friends.  We have what we need and so much more.  If I've learned one thing in the last year, it's the value of down time with Steve and Grace, not over-scheduling but leaving time for spontaneity.  It's the little things, and I'm so grateful for them.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! XO

Breathe out

For months, every time I would share with Steve some bit of news implying Romney was doing well, he would say "Obama will win.  There's no way he can lose the electoral college."  I would say "You can't say that!  It's not over till it's over.  Remember 2000?"  And then we would carry on until the next such conversation.  

I am more Irish than anything else, and I was petrified.  If I thought just one positive thing, it would all go to pieces and Obama would lose.  When Ohio was called for Obama and Facebook and the convention hall went wild, I just sat in angst.  Steve said "See?"  And my mom texted "I am afraid to believe in the call for obama.  I am doing a tiny fist pump in the closet in the dark with the door shut.  Shhh, don't tell."

I come by it honestly, my friends.  

In fact, I'm pretty sure the Huskies won the 2001 Rose Bowl because of the "positive power of negative thinking."  On every play, my uncle would say "he's going to miss" or some such appropriate thing and would not allow us to get excited.  

I had to stay up through Romney's concession speech and Obama's acceptance speech to be sure the "decision desks" at the networks wouldn't take away the victory.  And of course, Wednesday morning I had to check again first thing to be sure Obama really had won.  I'm finally feeling pretty settled that no one's going to find a way to take this to the Supreme Court.  Though I sure wish the Times would finally call Florida.

Prop 30 passed, which is good for California, although I'm sorry to see we're still imposing the barbaric death penalty.  I wish Prop 37 had passed so we could know about genetically modified foods.  But with Elizabeth Warren (read her book The Two Income Trap) replacing Scott Brown in the senate (and she'll soon be ours back in MA) and the big wins for marriage equality, it was a good night.  And, I think we are safe to say that for the first time in US history, health care will be accessible by all starting in 2014!  Obama ain't perfect, but that's a helluva legacy.  Here's a good read on what we might dare hope for in the next 4 years. 

The biggest win, though?  Marriage equality.  I am quite proud that, excepting California, every state I've ever lived in has it - Washington!  Maryland!  Massachusetts!  Time to get this one sorted out, Cali.  

I'm re-posting this from Finslippy because it's a worth a watch:

Here's to progress!  And to both my babies being born with a black man in the white house!