Whew, what a month!
We've been to California 4 times in the last 6 months. We went to LA in June to see Shiloh and Brian, and took the kids to San Francisco in August, which I never blogged about, but it happened. The marching band marched in the Rose Parade on New Year's Day, so we went back to LA to be in the same vicinity as that was happening, and then Nils and I went on a cruise from Long Beach to Ensenada last week. We're feeling like California residents. There were 3 birthdays smushed in there, as well.
Anyhoo...
LA after Christmas thru New Years:
We had to go to Chinatown again. The kids love it- they spent their Christmas money on all the fun things.
So, we never saw Anders, except from a distance. He did manage to text me, however, when he left his brand new hoodie at Medieval Times (40 minutes from where we were at the time), and requested that we go get it for him. I'm a sucker. But it was brand new! Anyway, I had to put it on and send him this non-embarrassing picture as proof that we did him a big favor.
Fun with Indy and Tenzin!
Brian has this Dyson dust buster and loves clearing off surfaces with it. :) Shiloh and Brian are the ultimate hosts. Shiloh made sure to feed us home-cooked meals non-stop. If they don't stop being so fantastic, we'll have to make our trips there much more frequent.
We went to the Getty Museum, which was probably not as fun with kids as it would be otherwise. They don't care about art and artifacts, but we killed an afternoon anyway, and it is an impressive place.
This is where we saw Anders for a minute. This was at Band Fest at Pasadena City College, where they performed their field show. We didn't go to the parade for lots of reasons- $80/each for grandstand tickets, or camping out on the street. Nah. We watched it on TV and Amazon Prime, and it was great!
Anyway, here are the cute band kids, all queued up. They had the ultimate SoCal trip. Universal Studios, Medieval Times, the beach, MARCHING IN THE ROSE PARADE, service opportunities, Disneyland...Anders came home exhausted from all the non-stop fun and activities.
The girls doing some George Washington pose at the local Ralph's. Ava got her Totoro backpack in Chinatown.
Birthdays:
Anders turned 15! We took him and a couple friends to see Jumanji, got some pizza and let them hang out for awhile afterward. I love non-party years.
Anders is living up to the teenage stereotypes quite exactly. I love him fiercely, and I want to strangle him in the same breath. Example: He loves playing the piano and can pound out almost anything, but I can't get him to play a hymn if his life depends on it. He's had a deal with us for the last 3 years (THREE YEARS!!) that in order to get a real phone plan (as opposed to a phone that has the same use as glorified iPod touch), he needs to learn to play 15 hymns. He won't do it. He's fine bumming hotspots off his friends or connecting to whatever wifi he possibly can. This is one small example of a frustrating scenario we encounter. It's a constant battle of wills with evvverrrything. Anyway, we love him, and pray we all make it through the next 4 years. Seriously, lots of prayers.
Addie turned 13! Addie loves reading, Greek mythology, Percy Jackson, talking about Percy Jackson, writing about Percy Jackson, thinking about Percy Jackson, etc. She and a friend stand on the corner at the bus stop every day and talk for 20-30 minutes. I asked her what they talk about, and she said Percy Jackson. She's a character.
Nils and I left for a cruise on Addie's birthday, which was pretty rude of us, but the timing couldn't be helped. In order to compensate, I checked her out of school the day before and took her to The Greatest Showman. She had a couple of friends over for dinner and hanging out, and presents that night, and Nils took her for birthday breakfast on her birthday morning- so hopefully she still felt loved.
B-day breakfast with Dad, while wearing her Percy Jackson shirt and necklace.
She made high honor roll. That Addie.
Cruise and Mah 40th Birfday:
My birthday is 2 days after Addie's, and this all coincided with a cruise and a conference that Nils was attending the next week. We went on a weekend booze cruise, so we celebrated my 40th birthday with 3,000 drunk people. What did we learn from this experience? We learned that we don't want to go on anymore booze cruises, because drunk people are embarrassing and make bad choices.
However, we still had a great time.
This chocolate melting cake was a nightly event.
Ensenada
On fancy night we ordered 3 desserts each.
It's not a day in Ensenada if you don't hire a local person to drive you around in the back of their truck all day. Last time we came here, it was the same type of thing, and it was so memorable we had to do it again. :)
We went horseback riding, and my horse trotted the entire time. After 2 1/2 hours of trotting, my butt et all were screaming. Nils' horse, on the other hand, was not too bright and barely managed to walk without being distracted every 5 seconds. It was an adventure for sure.
Nils was about this far from me the whole time due to his dim-witted horse.
La Bufadora
Nils tried escargot. I did not.
A pig?
On our last night of the cruise, which was my birthday, we were up on the track walking off some of our meal(s). Let's be honest, we ordered everything we possibly could. Anyway, we witnessed an assault, and it was kind of traumatic. We walked around the bend in time to see some idiot throw his girlfriend to the ground, kick her, say some horrible things and storm off. We stopped to help her, and it turned into a whole thing. I ran to get help and try to find her purse, which she was asking for. Nils stayed with her, and by the time I got back, they were both gone. I was afraid that the stupid boyfriend had come back, and I couldn't get anyone to help me find them. I got my 10,000 steps that night running up and down the stairs, going from the medical place on deck 3, back up to deck 14, and running around in between. I couldn't get anyone to be helpful! Clearly the ship employees did not want to get involved in this "incident", but I couldn't find my husband, so I was a bit panicked.
What happened was Nils ended up carrying the lady down to a bathroom so she could be sick, and got some of the spa employees to get her some medical attention. We found each other eventually, and decided that people who drink from breakfast to breakfast are the worst. I was glad Nils didn't get thrown overboard on my birthday by some jerk-face woman beater. Nils is a lover, not a fighter, but he probably could have taken on the jerk-face.
So, we had fun other than that. It was not the best ending to our trip, but memories of the trotting horse, my sore hiney, all the ship food, and tacos in Ensenada will prevail. We'd love to take the kids on a nicer cruise one day. They'd love all of that.
