Surprise visit to Houston!

We are in Houston, Texas! We came to surprise my husband’s mother with a 60^th birthday and retirement party. After the thrill of Legoland, we flew out to Houston for the week. Wait! I have to say something about Legoland!

This place is a must see with any child who LOVES Lego. For most homeschoolers, with our massive supply of Legos, this place will inspire some serious projects. My 8 year old did not want to leave. To see New York City, New Orleans, Houston, New England and so much more all made out of Legos, was mind boggling and amazing. Every Lego person living in these places had its own personality. There were lovers in the park, kids eating ice cream, and even someone sitting on the toilet in the bathroom at Grand Central Station! I think mini-town was the most impressive, though we had fun in the rest of the park. Like when my oldest son, was able to get his driving license or my youngest got to ride his first fast rollercoaster (which is made to excite the younger crowd.) I do have to say that there is a weird fascination with Volvo at Legoland. One of the first things you see when entering the parking lot is the front row section reserved only for Volvo Parking. Luckily for us, my cousin, in fact did have a Volvo. There is also a full sized Volvo with real wheels sitting out in the middle of the park. Overall, I would say this park, though with its over protective height restrictions, and short open hours (they close at 5), is just plain cool. If you have older kids and are going for the rides, you may not have the same kind of fun, as most are for a younger audience. Needless to say, for the Lego sculptures alone, both of my boys were in heaven and I hope to go back, one day with my husband, as the kid in him will also be impressed.

My husband flew out to Houston and we met within an hour of each other. It was so fun to see the kids run up to him with such passion. I wanted to, too, though being a parent is always taking second to such moments. We did however see each other and as he hugged my youngest son, his eyes said hello to me in that way that makes me feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

I said, “You look skinny.” He said, “You look tan.”

It is strange to be away from each other this long. I just don’t know how so many of the country’s marriages do it in the military and those with traveling careers. There is an initial excitement, and then the aftermath. After being so excited to see him, and all the sparks and love, there is the second half where after we retrieved the luggage, I was ready to go to sleep. I was ready to say, “Here are the kids, and I am going to go to bed for a couple of days.” Of course, my husband, who had to get up at 3:30AM, was feeling about the same way. I wonder, however, if he had fallen asleep on the plane, only to awake seconds later at a very loud, “MOM!!!” when the child next to him needed to tell the joke he just read. No, I decided. I am definitely a lot more tired.

With a few stolen glances and kisses, it was time to go out to meet his father and woman-friend who had come to pick us up. The minute we walked out the door, I knew we were in Texas. Unlike my husband, we were used to the heat, but the raging humidity threw me off balance. My poor husband had to deal with both. Told me the temperature in Seattle had been in the mid 40’s. Houston is an interesting place. It is so flat, which is familiar to me growing up the Sacramento area, but it is so large and flat, it is almost unnerving. The whole 45 drive from the airport, I don’t think we drove up a hill, once. Just flat and flat and flat. The city sure is impressive, however, from sights from the plane to when we drove through it at night with all of the lights shinning.

It was good to be at his dad’s place. My older son immediately took out the new Lego Star Wars ship he got at Legoland to work on, my youngest immediately wanted to wrestle with Daddy. I found a comfortable recliner to sit in, and never wanted to get up. Funny how just 8 years ago, that would be the last thing going on. My son and him upstairs making loud noises, and me downstairs reading a book on how you can use SPAM as a furniture polish. Ahhhh…Parenthood. Though, after 2 weeks, all seemed good and right with the world that night.

The next night was the big party. There was lists of to-dos, details and set up. When she walked through the door at the restaurant, what a fun surprise she had.
It was wonderful! Just wonderful. Charming Italian restaurant, gorgeous flowers, beautiful cake and sparkling candles all set the backdrop for a touching evening of celebration with longtime friends and out of town family. Everyone in the place had a smile on their face and yummy food in their tummies. Oh and the toasts and fun poems and heartfelt sentiments!
Lots of crying, and only a roll of toilet paper to dry the tears. With more wine and a chocolate cake that was like butter, the evening ended. Memorable. Beautiful.

So we are here until Thursday to visit and have fun. Then Disneyland here we come!!!

Just Me and the Kids

The kids and I have been on the road for the last 2 weeks. We started our journey staying with family in Sacramento for my niece's 5th birthday party and Halloween.

I don't think we have ever collected so much candy! My sister, mom of three, is Master of the Candy Trail for trick or treating. By the end of the evening, we collected about 1/2 of a pillowcase for each child! It seemed crazy compared to any other Halloween Candy Collection experience we have had! Then it hit me, what were we going to do with all of this candy on the road? I knew I didn't want my children, or myself to eat it all, and let's face it, not much room in the van for two huge bags of candy.

My husband and I decided to make our journey a natural foods journey. We have always eaten fairly healthy at home and I am a vegetarian of 15 or so years, but after reading a great book called Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About, we agreed that being on the road we could really get lost in the Fast Food and White Bread Jungle. So instead, we have decided to go organic, whole grain, and whole foods, with no additives whenever we shop for food. A great resource is Happy Cow online for traveling the world in search for vegetarian restaurants and health food stores. We are not going to be fanatics, but if we do shop whole foods most of the time, a once in a while trip to a less healthy restaurant, won't be so detrimental to our health or the Earth.

So what to do with the candy? When we reached Capitola (near Santa Cruz), I took out the alarming huge number of full size candy bars (why do people do that?) and packaged them up for my husband for later and told the kids that I would pay 25 cents for each piece of candy they were willing to sell me. I thought the price was high enough that they would let go of most of it, but to my surprise, they sold me only 11 dollars back and wanted to keep the rest. Still, we were off to the toy store with 44 pieces of the candy in the trash. I will admit there were a couple of misguided evenings where the kids and I helped lower the supply as well!

The kids and I really enjoyed our time in Capitola. We stayed right on the beach and were out on it everyday. The kids really enjoyed going through the small town for our walks and stopping by the beach on our way back, getting drenched in the ocean and ending up in the bath rinsing off sand and getting warm again. I enjoyed being back in the area again, as I lived here when I was at UC Santa Cruz. It was interesting to see how so much was the same, and so much was different. Mostly, it had changed now that the price of a small 900 square foot off-the-beach old bungalow house was over $1 million! That definitely had changed the community feel quite a bit. But aside to that disturbing fact, it was good to be back and it was all very relaxing.

Being with the kids as the only parent at this point was not exactly picture perfect. There were many times I would like to forget. Times that I felt stressed on the road. Being in the van, unlike a car, I cannot help my kids in the back. I thought they would understand the concept of this, but really it creates a bit of chaos if one should drop a toy, book or bag of pretzels. If you on the freeway, the only way to handle it is to find a possible exit, and pull over. After the 10th pullover, I admit, I was beginning to lose it. I had my older son help by getting out of his seat for a minute to grab a dropped item and jump back up. But the guilt involved in this is heavy. I am not sure why as when I was growing up, there weren't seat belt laws and I remember a few experiences of rolling around in the back of the station wagon on a winding road. Nonetheless, I grew tired and cranky, which makes the kids tired and cranky and I truly was missing my other half, who regularly gives me my 15 minutes when he gets home at the end of the day to go into a quiet space to breathe and let go. If I need more, I just ask and he will take the kids out for awhile. I can't imagine having to do this for a long time. I sit and count my blessings.

After a few days, we were off to Morro Bay, where (just South in Los Osos) we took the van to Go Westy. We decided to take Highway 1 to see the beautiful California coast. It was gorgeous and the kids were impressed for the first 25 miles, but then we still had to finish the last 75, while twisting and turning and trying to drive around 20mph curves, that if not done correctly would only leave you in the ocean after falling a 50 foot cliff. The kids started complaining, and wondering how much longer it would be. Suffice it to say, if you have never driven a bus, or van for a hundred miles down a winding road while the kids are stuffing their faces with Halloween candy and listening to the Wiggles, you haven't lived! The sunset at the end was definitely worth it all. We watched the sunset as we arrived into Morro Bay while behind the mountains came up a full yellow moon with a huge haze around it. At the beach there were the hottest brightest shades of pink and orange and the midnight blue water collided up to it along the horizon. Oh yes, worth the drive.

While in Morro Bay, the kids and I learned all about estuaries and really enjoyed walking through the small and dead tourist town. The Rock, which is the really the attraction of this town, is always visible and staring back at you in all its natural glory. I was sad to say goodbye so soon, as we only had 1 1/2 days there.

I was excited, though, to pick up the van and learn how to use the bike rack and the awning. With that and the roof rack in place, we were ready to head to Carlsbad, where my cousin lives with his family.

Hint to travelers everywhere: DO NOT, whatever you think, DO NOT TAKE HWY 1 THROUGH LOS ANGELES DURING COMMUTER TRAFFIC! What should have been a 5 hour journey became a 9 hour journey. Yes, I was laughing, crying, and just freaking out. But that is all I am going to say about that.

We did make it to Carlsbad, and thank goodness my patient hosts were up late waiting for my arrival. I was never more grateful for a nice clean bed to sleep in! We have been here a couple of days enjoying the fog (or at least this Washingtonian is) and today we are off to Legoland.
As of now, I am up early and finishing this blog, and happy that I will see my husband, who has been at home working and finishing up move out details at the house, and is flying out to meet us tomorrow! Hurrah!