Homeward Bound

On Saturday we make the eight hour journey home. The flight went much better, thanks to my dear friends at Baby Einstein and HP.


THANK YOU to our family, especially Paul and Amy. We LOVED spending the week with you.

Lake Tahoe: Day Five

So my narrative faculties begin to wane as the temperature rises. It is now eight trillion degrees and forty bazillion percent humidity, so the creative juices have obviously evaporated. You will have to be okay with less Dostoevsky and more Hemingway (because I'm as good at writing as them).

Matt, Ben, and I woke up bright and early Friday morning ready to spend some time on our own. We ventured south to D.L. Bliss for a hike and some beach time. It was wonderful. We did two hiking trails, but a little challenging, but the scenery was incredible. Ben slept for the second one.


When we got back to the house, Ben took a looong nap while everyone but mama went down to the lake and mama blogged. Aaaahhhhh....sweet silence. I LOVE my nieces and nephew and son, but together they make a good deal of noise. As an introvert, I need my quiet alone time. I'm actually a little anal about it. If I go to long without me time I start to get really crabby and, well, not very nice. So the peace was welcome. Ben woke up just as everyone came back, and we were joined by loads more people. Because so many people were there and we were all itching for some fun, we had an impromptu birthday "party" for Ben. I use the term party very liberally...by "party" I mean we had cake and Ben opened two presents. It was over in 20 minutes. But it was fun to give Ben cake and watch him play with the balloons and tissue paper (Why do we even put presents in there?).

ghetto cake

After the "party" Ben went to bed, the kids played with play-dough, and the grown-ups went down to the lake. After that the kids went to bed and we drank and laughed and talked.

Lake Tahoe: Day Four

Thursday began, of course, around 5:30. The good thing about that day, though, was that Ben eventually fell back asleep around 7:00 and slept until about 7:45. So we did have a bit of a reprieve. Which was good because Thursday was the big day. We loaded up around 9:30 and spent most of the day in the boat. We tried the other infant life vest on Ben, and, happily, new life vest = new baby. MUCH better. He actually slept for most of the trip to Emerald Bay.


We pulled the boat right up to the shore and spent the early afternoon having lunch and playing on the beach.



After a bit we packed back into the boat and went back, stopping so Matt could "tube" (the vernacular for "flagrantly risking your neck by holding onto a raft-like device while the driver of the boat speeds to and fro trying to throw you off"). I didn't get any pictures of Matt tube-ing because I was busy trying to distract an increasingly wary traveler. ("Look Ben, there's Daddy! Isn't he crazy? No baby, Mommy's not trying to inflict abuse onto you by confining you into a foam vest in which you cannot move or breathe. I promise it's because I love you...")

After boat time, Ben slept, Paul and Alysa went to the lake, Amy, Sean, and Kylie went to the store, and Matt and I crashed on the couch and watched Clear and Present Danger (believe me, after a week of Noggin, it was a really good movie). We dined on pizza, sent the kids to bed, and stayed up late talking and watching comedians online.

Lake Tahoe: Day Three

I know everyone loves my narration, but I'm pretty tired and everything is kind of a blur at this point. So the story may be getting flatter. Good thing I took a zillion pictures.

On Wednesday I'm assuming Ben woke up around 5:30, because that's been his M.O. this week (don't be jealous). He moans and moans until he hears a shuffle coming from our bed, then we hear scratching and happy squeals as he pulls himself up and calls to us. Admittedly, though, I have enjoyed family time in the bed in the mornings. I pull Ben into bed with us and we talk (B is quite the chatterbox these days...okay, he never really shuts up, and he doesn't know any words yet so the conversations are interesting. But he's very demonstrative with facial expressions, vocal intonations, and even gestures.). After a while we get out of bed, get dressed, and head out into the living room/kitchen to play, hang out, and have breakfast.


Wednesday was our Lake Tour day. We drove around the lake, stopped to hike, went to the beach, had lunch, and rounded out our tour. It was really fun and completely exhausting.




After a failed attempt at naptime for the babies, we went down to the beach and had some sand time and some screaming-baby-free boat time.

We topped off the day with an early bedtime for the kids and adult conversation that had nothing to do with what a cow says or which Disney princess is best.

Lake Tahoe: Day Two

We had a nice, leisurely morning this morning. Ben only woke up a thousand times during the night and greeted the day at 6:38 this morning. So we began our day well-rested.

We actually did have a pretty low-key morning. The kids played and ate breakfast, then we took the boys down to the lake for a morning walk.

cousins!

Later in the morning we went out on the boat. Ben was not a fan of his life jacket. At all. Eventually we gave up and Ben and I hung out at the beach and had a snack while the others played on the boat.

sad face

After lunch Matt, Ben and I ran some errands and explored a bit, then had a relaxing afternoon. We capped off the day with a nice dinner and a cozy movie.

To be continued...

Lake Tahoe: Day One

Our trip to Lake Tahoe started at the glorious time of 6:00. We packed up, loaded up, and went to the airport, where we stood in line until Ben turned 16 while a family argued with the ticket woman about taking their pet turtle as a carry-on (they could not). Because we're not doctors or architects, we fly Southwest. So we sat in the terminal until Ben turned 21 as half the passengers boarded the plane, waiting for our turn as "families." The upside: there was a mom and her eight month old little girl also waiting. She and Ben hit it off. Eventually we were able to board the plane and, in a surprise treat with Southwest, we were all able to sit together. We planned the flight for around Ben's nap. The last two times we flew he fell asleep as soon as we boarded. This time we were not so lucky. Ben didn't see the flight so much as an opportunity to sleep as an opportunity to take the stage. He sat in his carseat for about ten seconds. The rest of the 90 minute flight was spent climbing all over Matt and I, trying to climb into the seats of the people behind us, "performing" for all of the other passengers, and, in a grand finale, throwing a bag of pretzels at the woman in front of us. So to the passengers of Southwest flight 932, I'm sorry. But hey, he flashed his chipmunk cheeks and batted his long lashes for you, so hopefully that made it all worth it.

Plane-zilla

Ben and his lady, Adeline

Upon landing we were retrieved by Matt's dad (thanks, Bob!). We said goodbye to Ben's new girlfriend and her mom and made the 45 minute trip to Citrus Heights to pick up the truck we were borrowing from Matt's brother (thanks, Paul!), loaded up, picked up diapers at Target, had lunch with Matt's mom (thanks, Bev!), and got back on the road to Tahoe. After seven hours of travel, we finally arrived. We spent the rest of the day and evening with our family swimming, taking a walk, and enjoying the fresh mountain air.

The girls LOVE their cousin

To be continued...

The Fourth Day of July

Having grown up in a small mountain town where the 4th of July is the biggest deal ever, I have grown accustomed to having extraordinary celebrations of independence. The town would all but shut down for three days. The street (yes, we were a one main street town) would close, there would be booths of patriotic handicrafts and miscellaneous trinkets, fireworks over the lake, and, of course, a parade. I was in the parade many times. For a few years it was as a dancer. For a few more years it was as a girl scout. One year I had the great honor of participating in the bike decorating contest/parade. Yep--just me, my pink huffy, a few judiciously decorated paper plates, and miles of red, white, and blue crepe paper.

When I moved to Orange County eleven years ago for college, the 4th stayed exciting. We went to the beach, watched fireworks, and caused a general college kid ruckus. The summer after my sophomore year I lived in North Carolina. I worked at a store, and around the 4th we started selling fireworks. I was terrified...those were illegal where I came from (which is silly...what's wrong with fireworks in the middle of the forest?), and as far as I knew fireworks were illegal everywhere. Honest to goodness, I was afraid we would get caught and I would go to jail. Fortunately someone informed me that in the Outer Banks fireworks were not, in fact, illegal, and that I would not go to jail for working in a store that sold them.

And then I graduated. And I had a job. For a few blessed years I worked on the 4th in an empty restaurant. Once freed from the bondage of restaurant work, I found that the 4th was no longer what I'd experienced when I was young. Costa Mesa does not shut down, and my friends were not interested in spending a day in traffic to go to the beach, have barbecues (we all lived in apartments anyway), or run around and play. The magic of the 4th was gone.

For the last few years Matt and I have routinely forgotten about the 4th until it was too late to plan something. And somehow we got left out of everyone else's plans. I don't like to invite myself places, and apparently other people didn't feel the pull to invite me. So we've had quiet 4ths with the two of us and some poppers from Target for the last few years.

This year I wanted it to be different. I want Ben to grow up the way that I did. Now, my patriotism and relationship with my country has been waning since I began studying its history in depth lately in preparation for my big test (two weeks!), so my cynicism has been a bit of a philosophical obstacle in gearing up for the big day (nothing says "GO USA!" like the Trail of Tears and Manifest Destiny); but I have these potent memories that will not abate. So when we found out that some friends of ours that live in the mountains I grew up in were having a get-together and didn't invite us, I got sad. I miss the mountains, the neighbors, the hot dogs, and the ice cream eating contests.

And then God said, "Shannon, how about a good time here in Costa Mesa?" Okay, it wasn't entirely orchestrated by God. I may have tried to squeeze myself in. But we ended up getting kind of invited to a neighborhood party across town. We don't live in the neighborhood, so it felt a little like cheating. But to be fair, we live in a dumpy apartment complex next to the freeway, so there isn't much of a "neighborhood" for us to belong to anyway. So we adopted one for holiday purposes. I'm okay with it.

First up, though, was a trip to Hades Hemet. It was a toasty 109 degrees. We visited with my dad, which was really nice. He was having a yard sale. There were a few people who came, and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice everyone was. You'd think living in Hades Hemet would make people cranky, but they were actually quite kind. They talked to my dad about fishing, birdhouses, camping, traveling, and just life in general. The neighbor came by to bring us some barbecue. Then he brought Ben and I to his house to meet his family and gave Ben a little stuffed animal. I miss that. I miss having neighbors that come by to chat and share food. In Orange County people don't do that quite as often as they cut you off with their superfluous SUVs while talking on their bluetooths in the Starbucks drive-thru.



We returned to the OC and rested for a bit, then headed to our surrogate neighborhood. I will admit, albeit embarrassingly, that I have dreamed of going to this party for several years. It actually takes me back to high school a bit. I was on the margins of the "in" crowd. I was friends with the popular people, we hung out at school and ate lunch together. But I didn't get invited to things with them outside of school. We were just school friends. To be sure, I had a great group of people that I spent time with outside of school. But when it came to the cool kids, I was the one that was liked by everyone but not in any inner circle. I'm sure it had loads to do with my crippling shyness. I'm a tad socially retarded. So when it comes to this neighborhood, I feel like that half-cool teenager again. But this year, I got to go. Again, I may have asserted myself a bit. But it was for my kid, I swear.

Either way, we had a great time. We missed the parade, but we enjoyed a marshmallow war, a truly terrible talent show, and great company. While I largely kept to myself and a few people that I actually am close to (remember the crippling shyness?), I did make a new friend. Matt and I took a walk around, taking in the delicious freeway-free peace and quiet, perfectly manicured lawns, and friendly neighbors. We dreamed of some day living in a neighborhood again, where Ben can do lame magic tricks for his talent and blow marshmallows through PVC pipes while Matt and I drink wine from a sippy cup and wait for the completely legal fireworks.