Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Back to Cali Cali...

Bubba has been so excited for our trip to Southern California, ever since his birthday party was over on Cinco De Mayo.  He has been eagerly asking how many days, a few times we meant to make a countdown chain, but it never happened.  They have been SO excited about visiting po po and gong gong and jiou jiou, that we've begun more religiously studying and practicing Chinese words here and there.  Bubba will ask me how to say it in Chinese now, for pretty much everything, because he is so diligent about practicing so he can show po po and gong gong.  "We're going to California!" they've been telling pretty much EVERYONE and ANYONE who will listen.

Jordan's last day of school was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, we had a neighborhood ice cream social that Andy was helping to plan (he bought a ton of ice cream for it), and then Friday morning was a whirlwind of packing before Andy came home.  We made our way out at 2:30 PM, and ended up making a stop in St. George at Evens Stevens Sandwich Shoppe (one of our favorite places in SLC also) before making the long drive to LA, getting in around 12:30 AM CA time, 1:30 AM Utah time.  Our sleeping arrangement was Andy, Cooper, and me in the queen bed, Dagny in the pack n play next to us, and the boys on the sofa pull-out in the room down the hall from us.  We tried to make it into the home without exciting them, we had learned from our last trip during Spring Break that our kids can indeed wake up at 1 AM and create chaos for a few hours, laughing and joking with one another.  So we first strategically put Dagny into her pack n play, which she loves.  I think she is attached to that bed as she spent four months in it during all our rotations last year.  She groggily asked, “where are my boys?”  I ignored her, hoping she'd go back to sleep.  She peeked up and saw Andy sneaking into the other room with Bubba and explained to me, “Oh, there’s my Bubba” and then as she saw Jordan, “Oh, and there’s my Jordan.”  Me to Dagny, please go to sleep.  “What are the boys doing?” she asks.  They are sleeping I tell her.  “Oh, so am me.”

Saturday – I managed to sneak in a haircut appointment at 10 AM, so off I went with my mom while Andy took the kids to grab donuts with my dad.  We met up with them and my cousin, Thomas, at the Arcadia mall for lunch at the newly updated and renovated, also very Americanized and a bit too fancy for my taste, Ding Tai Fong (the food took forever to come, it wasn't like that before!).  We stopped over at the Disney Store first, where the kids all picked a towel from my mom.  Lunch was good, but the kids were so hungry because Andy and I did not let them have any donuts since they already had breakfast with my mom when they woke up around 7:30 AM, but unknown to us was the wait would be an hour, even though Thomas and Andy both arrived at 10 minutes past opening time.  It’s just super busy on weekends!  We have found that the kids eat better when they’re hungry, so we let them be hungry.  Too bad the food took forever to come out and then once it was out, it was too hot for them to bite into immediately!  Jordan had 17 xiao-long baos, which he has deemed “bag dumplings” and Bubba asked for soup and drank all of his chicken soup.  Afterwards, I tried to shop a bit with my mom, but it is not fun shopping when you still have baby weigh to lose.  We quickly stopped and joined the kids in the mall playground.  Two mall playgrounds and one automated coin ride later, we were back home.  Andy was still tired from driving the night before, so he took a nap while the rest of us played outside in my parents' backyard.  The weather was great and the playground, newly painted albeit a bit dirty from lack of use, was awesome!  We played until it was time for dinner and then sent Andy off to get something he wanted.  The kids LOVED the backyard, but po po said they could only play supervised because there had been recent coyote sitings in Arcadia (my parents' backyard is completely fenced, so we were safe).  My parents also added a covered patio in their backyard, so there was also plenty of shade for a nice respite in a cushioned couch.  It was great, I really do miss the weather in California, and the flat backyard since we live up in the mountains.  They scootered back and forth for what seemed like forever, and then enjoyed the playground as well.  It was nice to just sit back or stroll Cooper if he got anxious, and so great to hang out with my parents and my kids in the backyard.  It gave me the idea that maybe we should just cater Sunday reunion brunch with the rest of the family, especially since the backyard was SO awesome and inviting.

He came home with Malaysian and Hawaiian food.  It was a LOT of food but it was delicious.  The kids went to bed and then I met up with my HS friend, Jenny, and we tried to get Rite Aid ice cream and Half and Half, but both were not available or closed, and we ended up at good old Tapioca Express for some papaya milkshakes and lots of catching up.  I could have stayed up all night talking to her but I realized I had to be an adult and get some rest as Church was at 9 AM the next day.



















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