Disclaimer: This post was written some time in mid-January and I have been too lazy to edit any of it.
Well, we're back to our normal routine after the holidays. It was fun to visit Katie's family in San Diego, but I'm happy to be home.
For anyone interested, this is how our trip went.
Sunday, December 19
Stay up way too late, past midnight, doing last minute packing.
Monday, December 20
Wake up way too early, before 5:30, to get to the airport by 6ish.
Fly to Juneau. Have lunch in airport. It truly is amazing how mediocre a $3 banana can taste. Watch a movie in the terminal. Fly to Seattle. Have an early dinner at the Wendy's in the airport. Fly to San Diego. Divide our belongings and children between three cars to go to my mother-in-law's house, where we will be staying for the first several nights. We have a little get together with family and then it's off to bed for the kids, at about 10:30 pm local time.
I won't bore you with the day by day details of our trip but only touch on some of the highlights.
We had Christmas Eve dinner at my father-in-law's with all the family. We spent the night there and the next morning opened gifts and had breakfast. We then headed to my mother-in-law's house for Christmas part II. More gifts, more family, and more food.
One of the main reasons for the trip to California was to attend my sister-in-law Andrea's wedding on New Year's Eve. Katie and I had agreed to do a small cake, a chocolate cheese cake groom's cake. After some discussion with Andrea, we were now going to be making a wedding cake with a few fake(styrofoam) tiers and one real cake tier for them to cut at the reception. This was my first time doing fake tiers, but it turned out pretty good. Tempting Mother Nature, Andrea had the reception held outside. It turned out to be a big hit and only mildly chilly.
On Monday, the day before we left, I took Parker and Kenley to Disneyland. We had annual passes we bought last January that were still valid. It was raining all the way up to Anaheim, but the sky cleared by the time we got to Disneyland, around 1pm. Since it was the first day back for most schools, and the morning downpour, the park wasn't even close to slightly crowded. We were able to hit everything we wanted by the time we left at 6:30pm.
How much did we do? Here's the list:
Picnic lunch
Storybook Land Canal Boats
It's a Small World, still set up for Christmas
Jungle Cruise
Winnie the Pooh
Pirates of the Caribean
Astro Orbiter
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
Autopia, twice so that each kid could "drive" once
Watch the "Star Wars Training Academy"
King Arthur Carousel
Dumbo
Mad Tea Party(Teacups)
Watch the Holiday Fantasy Parade and the Holiday lighting of the Castle
The next day was time to pack up and head home. By coincidence, Katie's grandmother and aunt were on the same flight back to Anchorage with us. We left San Diego around 1:30pm and stopped in Portland. From Portland we headed to Anchorage and arrived just after 8:30pm. We were greeted at home by our dog Lucy. For the next few days, she would get a nervous look on her face, like we were going to leave her again for a couple of weeks. We got the kids to bed, unpacked a little bit, and headed to bed ourselves. Katie worked the next day and Kenley went to preschool. It took a couple more days for the kids to get back on their sleep/wake schedule, but they're all fine.
By the begining of last week we were all back to normal. Temperatures are hovering around zero, I have all 5 car seats back in the minivan, I'm shuttling back and forth to preschool, I'm watching the cousins a couple days a week, and my classes at UAA have started again.
