Traveling the So Cal freeways...

I'm finally back.

California was intense. It was so incredibly and amazingly good to see my family, and to spend time with my parents, siblings, cousins, nieces, aunts, and uncles, and especially, to spend a little time with my cousin Ellen and my Uncle Fred. And I'm determined to never again have to have that horrible pit in the belly guilty feeling about not spending enough time with people I love. (Talk to me in three months and we'll see where I am with that one... Hopefully it won't be piled on top of my seriously neglected New Year's Resolutions.) I pretty much spent most of my trip in tears of some sort. There has already been talk about a big reunion that is not the result of sad news.

That said, the roadtrip with my brother Dan was truly fun. I'm not sure there is anyone else on this planet I'd rather hang out with for about 20 hours of California freeway driving because as annoyed as Dan got with the traffic, he never gets very grumpy whilst behind the wheel. It's really an amazing thing.

And somehow travelling sans kids was a big hurdle to get over. I left the house with less baggage than I usually bring to work and did not even check any baggage. Nope. I didn't even have to bring a carseat of any kind.


Here's a photo of Dan at the airport with all of our baggage. Note that Dan is talking on the phone and nobody is tugging at him.
Also, you should note that he brought two bags and my only bag was my shiny new from Target carryon. It was small. And the drink was his, too.

Despite the fact that we both wanted cocktails on the plane, the fact that it was 10am sort of ruined those plans for us. Also, somehow we ended up on the smallest jet ever and I was a bit worried about consuming alcoholic beverages lest the pilot got in trouble and needed my help. Did I mention it was the smallest plane ever and only my stupid pride kept me from having a total fit about getting on the plane.

It was a good thing we didn't drink anything on the plane, though, because we needed to save our bellies for the best. Mexican. food. ever. EVER.

I even took a photo of the meal because I can't even describe how happy it made me.

Sensing our ridiculous over-enthusiasm ("There is Mexican food in Seattle, isn't there?" he asked in disbelief) the owner of La Taquieza even sent us over a massively large order of guacamole and chips. In addition to that, we had fish mulitas, which they describe as quesadillas on hormones and asada tacos, and everything was made with homemade corn tortillas. I think I would just fly back to LA for dinner if I could. If you're ever by the USC campus, you should definitely check out La Taquieza on Figuroa.

And then after that meal, we got into our kick-ass Mustang rental (which had such a high dash, I could've used one of those booster seats I left at home) and listened to 80s music for the four hours it took us to drive to the desert. Where we of course ate again. But not before in order to stave off a headache Dan drank the bottle of infant Tylenol I keep in my purse for emergencies. Funny that they didn't include his weight limit on the back of the bottle.

The trip involved a ton more driving on huge freeways I can barely remember. All I can say is that anyone who complains about Seattle traffic has never traveled recently on Southern California highways. The weather and beaches almost made up for the fact that everytime we got into the car, we'd spend at least an hour in it.

Boaz did amazingly with the kids on his own. And it was good to come home to all my little peops. And though Naomi refused to talk to me at first when I got back (wow, talk about heart break!), she got over it fairly quickly and life was back to normal fairly quickly. Amazingly quickly. Because that's the way it seems to go.