after thanksgiving we planned a trip down to southern california to visit friends and relatives that hadn’t been able to make it over to hong kong.  unfortunately due to family members being in town, etc. we were unable to leave the bay area until early sunday afternoon for the normally six hour drive down.  and more unfortunately, half of the state of california had the same problem and left at the same time as we did.

i slept through the first two hours (with alicia and kai) and woke up to find that we hadn’t moved very far.  as in…half the distance we should have covered.  my brain slowly began to compute that we were in for an 11 hour drive.  with an 18 month old.  and my parents.

on the upside, i planned ahead for heavy iphone usage and had an a/c adapter all set up to allow continuous power (provided there was signal).  we quickly became adept at reading the map app’s traffic monitor and calculated alternate routes through central california that helped us get through the trip a little faster.  we were also able to locate in ‘n out on the fly and give kai a taste of quality hamburgers.

a looooong time, many dora/diego/toy story episodes later, we arrived in glendale and got settled.  the following days were filled with kai meeting grandma child, grandma theo, aunty carole, and a lot of good friends we hadn’t seen in a long time.  we were not in town long enough to see everyone we wanted to.  so we will have to go back!