June 29, 2008

I'm going to TRY to get something posted each week. We'll see how long that lasts.

This was our first week home after our trip to California. We had an awesome time (in CA, not at home; although home was nice, too). I think the whole fam really enjoyed themselves. Let's see what I can recap in the few moments of peace I have right now. I'm sure Dave can remember more details than I can, but here's what I have in my brain...

Saturday (June 14): Wait for Dave and lil' Audra to get back from a Daddy-Daughter Activity Days thingy in the morning before we shot out the door. Gotta love that "frantically getting things ready" panic state. But, we did get out before noon. We drove and drove until we landed on my brother's doorstep in Berkeley, CA at about 10 that night. Only Earl was there (no fam, yet), so we enjoyed a short chat before shuffling everyone off to bed. We'd be back later that week!

Sunday: Up and out first thing in the morning. Headed down to Thousand Oaks, CA to meet up with my Awesome Auntie (and extended family) and my other brother, Daniel, and his family for a Sunday afternoon barbecue. Got stuck in some lovely CA traffic on the way and was a tad late, but they loved us, anyway! It was great to see them all! I have some of my fondest memories from CA trips to them when I was a kid. I told them that my most vivid vacation memory was when my cousin, Candi, was maybe 7 or 8, and she could swim, but she was going through a "freak-out" stage. Well, she wouldn't get in and swim or something, so my uncle picked her up and threw her in the middle of their pool. She screamed bloody murder and dog paddled and said she was drowning, and my other cousin (her older brother) who must have been 10-12 or so, jumped in and "saved" her, dragging her to the side of the pool. He was SO MAD at my uncle, especially when he turned around and picked Candi back up and threw her back into the middle. Hee hee. Ah, the sweet, sweet memories. :)

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Ginger

While we were at the Brandenburgs, we had an awesome little lesson by Isaak about the 10 talents, and then had each of the young kids (the cousins' kids) share one (or more) of their talents. It was so fun to see them all. I was very sad when it was time to check out again and keep driving. We finished the trip south in Long Beach, CA, (near Daniel and his family) late that night where we would be staying for the next few days.

Isaak's "Talents" Lesson

The Garrett's

The "Young" Brandenburg's

The Daniel Malmrose's

US

Monday: Um, I think we went to the beach with Susan and kids this day in Huntington Beach. What a cute little beach town! We loved the little stretch of shops down by the beach with all the little taco shops. We vowed we'd be back another day to check them out. The beach was fun. Kids happily got sand into their shorts for a few hours while I dozed on the pleasant-weather beach. Not too hot or too chilly. Just nice. We went back to the cousin's apartment after for a dip in the pool and some Rock Band play.

Yummy Hot Tub Bubbles

Daniel's kids are awesome. Nathaniel just graduated from high school and it something like 6 foot 2 inches. Crazy. Cat is almost 16, has a boyfriend, and is still this sweet, gentle, kind person that I remember (a lot like her mom was). Elijah is going into high school, has this rad long, red hair, is a talented musician, and is a lot like his dad.

Yummy Mexican Food!

Catherine and her boyfriend, Luis

Rock Band

Tuesday: Ah, Disneyland day. We decided to pack it light, so I didn't bring my camera. I should have! It would have been easy to cart around. We did the whole one-insane-day thing. We got there when they first opened and stayed until after the firewords show at 11 PM. It was crazy! Yes, it was hot and crowded, but I think because we had *expected* that it would be, it was tolerable. No surprise, that's for sure.

First thing we did was lil' Audra and I went to Space Mountain (the rollercoaster in the dark). Dave and Isaak were too chicken, so they went off to do something else. Well, we LOVED it! It was totally a blast. It's not a super-crazy coaster, so even the little one loved it. On our way out, we got Fast Passes to go back later knowing that we'd get the boys talked into it. Which we did! And believe it or not, they liked it, too! We did a bunch of other rides and stuff, but nothing much worth spending time on, other than the kiddie coaster we rode in Toon Town (or whatever it's called). We sat in line FOREVER and it was way hot and I think I was getting sick from the heat, but we stayed because lil' Audra really wanted to, and, well, this day was about them, so we did it. Woopie.

Oh, my absolute favorite part of the day was lunch. We were super starving and the crowds were insane, so we finally decided to just wait in a dumb line in the this restaurant-saloon thing. It was a horrible line and it was horrible finding a table, but we did do all that. Then, shortly after we started eating, a show started and we had awesome seats! They were these 4 hillbillies who were just hilarious. I haven't laughed so hard in my life. So, it was worth it.

A few years ago, when Isaak was 4 and Audra was 2, we went to Disneyland. Neither one really remembers it, except Audra remembers the Tiki Room (where there is a show with a bunch of talking puppet birds and stuff). That's because when we took her then, she was absolutely terrified and hysterical, and I had to take her out before the show was over. This time, we told her she had to "face her fears!" We dragged her back, kicking and screaming (not really, though, just in play), and made her go again. She survived, but still pretends to "shudder" whenever we mention the Tiki Room. I tried to give her the nickname "Tiki", but she doesn't like that too much.

Anyway, it was a long, but awesome day. We went in happy and skipping and came out exhausted zoombies. In fact, Dave says Disneyland's the "happiest place on earth" because they take all your happiness from you.

Wednesday: We did some more play with Daniel's family. Got to tour his snowboard shop (he's a mechanical genius, you know!), went to the pier at the surfer's beach, played in the pool, ate at In-N-Out Burger, and played some more games with the cuz'ins.

Daniel's Shop

At Huntington Beach

Daniel Playing Rocket with Audra

Thursday: We started the trip back north. We didn't rush this time. We meandered, spent some time in Castroville, the artichoke capital of the world. We are HUGE artichoke fans, so that was really fun. We also called Dave's sister, Anna Marie, while we were there and rubbed her nose in the fact that we were eating deep fried artichokes in the artichoke capital (she's a bigger lover than we are!). It was fun to see what our artichoke plants in our backyard will look like someday (fingers crossed). They're huge!

K, not usually THIS huge, but still big.

Yummy! Deep Fried Artichokes

By evening, we were back up near Earl's fam, and they had us meet at Benihana's restaurant in San Francisco. So awesome! I have very fond memories of Benihana's since my dad used to take me there every year on my birthday (once I turned 16 as my first "date"). I miss that! Dad, you owe me a Benihana trip when you get back! It was great to see the Earl family, too. They're growing up so much! Anna is just a riot. And Jake is just a little man. And Vincent and Kory and full-blown teenagers. Very weird. We stayed with them that night.

Earl and Kory blowing up our beds

Jake, Isaak, Kory, Audra

Audra and Anna

Friday: Our day to hang out with the Earl bunch. They took us to this huge rock near them that the kids loved climbing on. What a beautiful view of the whole San Fran valley! We went to a science museum at the collge which had the kids (especially Isaak) enthralled for most of the afternoon. We ate yummy chinese food (that was that night, right? I get the days mixed up in my head).

Earl's "work" (or is it play?)

The BIG Rock

Kory's Head at the Science Museum

Saturday: I went to my first day of the conference while Dave took the kids on excursions. They went to the Golden Gate Bridge and to this gnarly underground fort. I don't know the name of it. Sounds like they had a great time.

Dave took this one on the Bridge

The Fort

I enjoyed a full day of awesomeness, hearing other social skills training providers and their programs and getting ideas from them. It was great (but the next day was even better!).

I met back up with the fam and Earl's fam, and Dave and the big boys made artichokes to die for. We sat around eating salad and artichokes and fruit and cheese and then played Scum and Mao (card games) until we couldn't stay awake any longer. We headed back to the motel we were staying at near my conference location.

Oh, and the motel? Um, got it "on the fly" while we were driving around down there when we realized the conference was too far from Earl to make the commute possible. Well, it was BAD! So bad that Dave actually propped a chair in front of the door and had his gun easily accessible during the night. It smelled all funky, the blankets had cigarette stains, and there were SCARY people hanging around. Quite the adventure.

Sunday: I went back to my conference while Dave got packed and ready. I don't know what else they did that day, but I had a great day! The talks on this day were even more informative. And, I gave my presentation about using reading comprehension strategies to teach social thinking. It went over really well! I got lots of compliments and even had a line of people to talk to me on each of the rest of the breaks. Michelle Winner, the social thinking "guru" whose conference it was, gave me some great compliments and has even asked me if I want to contribute a chapter to an upcoming book she's getting ready to write. How awesome is that?!? I left the conference feeling very "satisfied."

The rest of the trip was traveling, first to our last hotel Sunday night in northern CA, then the rest of the way home Monday.

Well, that's all I can get out of myself for now. It was an awesome week, but also was followed by crazy getting-back-into-the-swing-of-things stuff. Maybe I'll write about that next week!

Audra

P.S. Special thanks to all our family who hosted us and hung out with us and put up with us during our trip. It was one of the best vacations we've ever enjoyed!