Packing it in

The holidays are mercifully over.

I've always liked Christmas. I like finding just the perfect present for people. I don't always succeed, but I enjoy trying. And sometimes I'm surprised when something I was excited about goes over like a lead balloon or something I gave little thought to is the giftee's favorite thing. I like the cookies. I like our big family breakfast. I like having a sparkly tree in my living room. I love having all the kids here, cousins and all.

I'm so glad it's all done. The holidays were difficult and awkward this year, despite all the things I still loved about them. I never got the icicle lights on the house. I'm too scared of the high peak above the garage. I didn't make truffles. But I did just about everything else, and then some. I didn't make it to yoga. I didn't make it to pilates. I made it out for one very short hike. I didn't fare too well.

I got a lot of sleep after the holidays. Then I finally made it to a pilates class and hired babysitters so I could spend some time at work. Things started looking up enough that I managed to make a fun last day of vacation with the kids. Starting with...

pancakes, of course. There's nothing my kids like better for breakfast. They won't even go out for pancakes if Mom's pancakes are an option. I'm very flattered. And now that I have a griddle built right into my range, I'm totally loving it.

Mam does not, however, like to be photographed while eating said pancakes.

After breakfast, I promised to take the kids ice skating. We have a really cute little outdoor rink that's pretty local, but it's open for only two hours in the afternoon for people who aren't taking lessons. I opted instead for the seasonal rink in our nearby "big city".

It's sponsored by Kristi Yamaguchi and Hawaiian Airlines, so I guess it's required that the rink be under the palm trees.

Friday was "Aloha Friday" and we got in cheap for wearing Hawaiian clothes. I'm so darned cheap, I actually went by Diddams and bought the kids leis to wear. We looked pretty silly out there ice skating in our "Hawaiian" duds and long underwear, but we had fun anyway.

Smunch may have complained bitterly about his skates being hard to skate in. He said he'd never had hockey skates before. But it's amazing how long children can be entertained by skating around in circles. It's California. It got kind of warm, the rink got pretty watery and Mam ended up very wet, but she still didn't want to stop. We stayed for an hour and a half and then I announced it was time for lunch.

I don't know a lot about places to eat downtown, but I knew one restaurant that would get them there, just with its name.

And it was a short walk from the ice rink. So they both had spaghetti and I treated them to Oreo shakes afterwards.

Somehow, our little adventure seemed to take up the entire day. I was so thankful that they had fun...and that I'd gotten to have fun with them.

San Diego 2009

As soon as we packed up our camping gear on Tuesday morning, we headed further south, to San Diego. It's become a yearly tradition that we visit my sister and her family there. And the kids' new discovery of Harry Potter audio books, and a Giants game on the radio, made our trip fairly painless. We arrived in the mid-afternoon.

Since we've got a big Disney-themed trip coming up next month, we decided to forgo another trip to one of San Diego's big amusement/animal parks this year and keep our visit mellow. We started out with a visit to the water park that Mam and SPENCER! went to last year.
This time, Smunch got to join us too. Obviously, it was right up his alley.As was the case with much of this particular visit, Mam and SPENCER! ran around like crazy people while Smunch found some older boys to play water war with. It's interesting to see how well the two younger ones get along and how awkward Smunch seems to feel about that. He's often the odd kid out in this group, it seems. No matter, really. It meant that he and Daddy got to take a repeat visit to the USS Midway earlier that day. Smunch loved it and apparently had a great time talking to the docents on board. It also meant he got another trip to Petco Park to see the Padres play. Only this time, they were playing the Oakland A's. It's hard to know who to root for when one of them is your hometown team and the other is the hometown team. Smunch opted to root for the Padres...a decision he may have regretted since the A's did something unusual and won. Daddy says Smunch barely sat down for the entire game. There was a lot of bouncing and some dancing involved, I hear. I'm sure it wasn't Daddy doing the dancing. Here's a photo Daddy got of Smunch after the Padres scored a home run early in the game.Notice how the guy in the upper right corner is actually standing still?

In between those two big events, we decided to use some coupons I'd gotten through the PTA at Smunch's school and went to the relatively new Sea Life Aquarium, which is part of Legoland. You can't miss that it's part of Legoland because although the aquarium is reasonably priced, you still have to pay $12 to park.Well, that and all the aquarium decor is made out of Legos. That might also be a clue.

On the whole, it's a pretty nice place. It has all the newest cool things that aquariums have. For instance, these viewing 'bubbles' make for really funny pictures of your kids.Although it's hard to tell, these bubbles pop you up right in the middle of the water in the aquarium. They're really pretty cool.

It also has a lot of sharks. Here's Mam, inspecting a "mermaid's purse", also known as a shark egg. In real life, you could see a tiny baby shark squirming around in there. And perhaps the centerpiece of the aquarium is an enormous tank full of sharks and rays, with a glass tunnel under it that you can walk through while the fish swim around next to you and over your head. Still, it was mostly just an aquarium. Lots of neat fish, the obligatory jellyfish, some sea horses and funny miniature horseshoe crabs. We were done in less than two hours.

On the way in, we'd noticed some strawberry fields where you can pick your own strawberries, so we picked some berries before leaving Carlsbad. We also picked up a couple of letterboxes on the way back...one of which turned into a fast-paced trek down a hot, dusty trail for Daddy and me while everyone else waited in the van. It was an even faster trek back up the same hot dusty trail when we got a distress call from the van saying that Smunch had announced a potty emergency. Yikes.

Back at home, Karen and I put together dinner for everyone, including a yummy and predictable dessert... and Daddy relaxed with some of the small crowd.Our final day in San Diego had Daddy and Uncle David putting SPENCER!'s new swing set together, making everyone very happy and giving Mam some extra special connection to the Matrix...or something.Seemed to give SPENCER! some unique flying abilities too.The late afternoon was spent at the local pool before Daddy and Smunch headed to the Padres game. They got back super late, but Smunch was still awake and still bouncing, really.

The next morning, we made our annual trek to The Original House of Pancakes for a farewell breakfast, returned to pack all our camping gear back in the van and said our tearful goodbyes.Sometimes it feels like we've really stayed a day too long. This time seemed like at least a day too short. Still, they'll be coming to visit us in mid-August. Feels like that might be right around the corner!

Breakfast Nostalgia

As you might've guessed, I grew up in a family that wasn't big on snow or winter sports. By the time I tried to learn to ski at the age of 21, it was far too late. Perhaps it was always too late and I've always had a good portion of stodgy, thrill-averse old lady in me.

My parents took my sister and me up to the snow only once during our entire childhood (although we later moved to England where it snowed with some regularity and we did plenty of sledding around the house). I suppose they wanted to make sure we knew what snow was, at least.

That doesn't mean my family didn't like Tahoe though. As one of the premier vacation destinations from the San Francisco Bay Area, we did make a yearly trip up there. We always went during the summer when we could swim in the very cold lake, fish for crawdads, rent jet skis and hang out by the pool, playing bingo with the other vacationing kids.

I have a lot of fond memories of the little traditions our family had on our Tahoe vacations...bringing bacon fat as crayfish bait, getting ice cream at the pool snack shop, my dad's morning trip to the 7-11, when he never failed to bring back donuts. But one of my fondest memories is of the place in the picture above.

This is the Old Post Office Coffee Shop in Carnelian Bay. As the name suggests, it was once a post office. But by the time my family was spending a week each summer in Carnelian Bay, it was already a cute little breakfast spot and we went there at least once each trip.

During our last Tahoe trip, I learned that this place was indeed still open, but we didn't have the chance to go. I was way more disappointed than I should have been. It's not really a secret that this trip was, in part, just because I had to eat there again. It's not that the food is so amazing, although it was yummy. I also felt an inexplicable, urgent need to share that part of my childhood with my own kids.We went on our first morning out and I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint. It was just as I remembered, right down to the cute little dining room with the old-fashioned postage stamp wallpaper.That's the waitress there with the red hair and the black "Go Postal" T-shirt. All the staff had these shirts. It's funny to think that slogan would have been totally meaningless when I first went there.

The kids devoured their pancakes and I savored my blueberry pancakes...something I discovered for the very first time at the Old Post Office and have loved ever since.

Although our summer is already full of vacation plans, I'm already plotting a summer trip back to Tahoe. I'll drag my sister and SPENCER! with us too. This nostalgia was too good not to share!

Mother's Day

Rarely has a Mother's Day been quite so full for me. This one was really kind of nuts. And I didn't bring the camera along, so I'm afraid there isn't much in the way of photos to be had. Maybe I'll see if I can scrounge some online, just for color.

The day started nicely enough. I got out of bed and was promptly shoo-ed back into bed by Daddy. Moments later, the kids came tumbling in with presents, insisting that they should help me open them. So, I unwrapped the necklace I bought myself for the occasion, a silver bracelet from Smunch, some cool lotion soaps from Daddy and a wonderful new tabletop pancake griddle, ostensibly from Mam.

And Daddy had whipped up some pancake batter too. So we all had pancakes for breakfast...except for Daddy, who learned the hard way why I hate making pancakes. There are never enough! And when I spent all my time over at the stove shoveling pancakes for everyone else, that was really annoying. I'd finally figured out that I have to make a double batch. Unfortunately, I apparently forgot to pass this wisdom on. But seriously, who knew it'd ever be useful to him?

After some leisurely lolling around the table and the house, Daddy took the kids out to get food for a picnic lunch with my parents while I went to get flowers for my own mom. Apparently, I also forgot to pass along the wisdom that every activity takes at least twice as long when the kids are with you. We got to the park half an hour late for our lunch date. But it was O.K., everyone still had fun. The kids got to play with Daddy and Grandpa while my mom and I sat in the sun. We had lunch. We checked on a letterbox we planted at the park last month. Grandpa served his own homemade chocolate chip cookies...his specialty.

Then we were supposed to head to a benefit concert for the daughter of a friend of mine who died suddenly several months ago. We're not big fans of the guy who was performing...having been spoiled by our love of Andy Z...but I felt like it was important to go and support her family. We stopped at a $4M+ open house on the way and that made Smunch very grumpy, even though he seemed to enjoy looking around.

But when we finally parked to walk to the concert venue, Smunch did something naughty (I'm not even sure what) and Daddy took his privileges, resulting in a complete and total meltdown like I'm not sure I've ever really seen from him...uh, Smunch, that is. Daddy held his composure quite well, under the circumstances. I'm sure we got plenty of strange looks as we walked, but I cleverly hid my nose in the map, pretending I heard nothing.

I went into the concert and made the donation I'd been planning to make while Daddy stayed outside with the screaming Smunch. Mam stayed with Daddy, so I went back out and retrieved her. At least one of my kids was going to see a little bit of the concert! Smunch was still screaming and crying outside. We watched some of the concert, but we've seen this guy's show before and I'm not sure it bears watching more than once. We probably stayed for about 10 minutes, then went back outside...where Smunch was still screaming and crying next to Daddy. Poor Daddy.

We walked back to the mommymobile...with Smunch trailing behind, screaming and crying. I picked up the all-important clue and backpack, so we could go hunt down a letterbox in the area. Smunch screamed and cried the whole way. It let up just about the time I made Mam back off and forced Smunch to get the letterbox out of its hidey hole.

After that, Smunch cheered up and then insisted he wanted to go see the Native American drumming and dancing going on nearby. Of course, he didn't necessarily want to walk...and neither did Mam. A couple of times, I caught Daddy carrying both of them at once. We made it to the Pow Wow and wandered around for a little bit. Got to see lots of Native Americans in ceremonial garb. Got to see some dancing, heard some music, perused some jewelry and other artwork and finally headed back to the car again.

It was late. We went out for a cheap dinner, which fortunately featured margaritas, then zoomed home for bath and bedtime. Thank goodness.

It's great being a mom. I wouldn't trade it for anything...but sometimes, this time of night is the best part of the whole day!