Home at Last!

Um, I think it’s officially still Tuesday, 8:03 pm in Los Angeles

Monday evening we went to dinner at a simply heavenly Italian restaurant called Covo, on Fort Street. The food was stupendous. Unfortunately, the very friendly host screwed up and put our order in wrong, so it took forever and the kids were very cranky. But, oh, the food was yummy. The Napolitano sauce tasted exactly like my Grandpa Ralph used to make.

Tuesday David had a 5:30 am conference call, and then he was off to work again. The kids and I slept late and took our time getting out in the morning. We had to clear out of the kids’ room, so we moved all the luggage into David’s room and I finished packing up.

Then we left for the Art Museum. Lovely, really. Sam especially loved it. He got to walk around by himself, and one of the very enthusiastic young docents (I think they were all art students at the university) helped him out. Sofia and Micah had fun in an optical illusion room, full of mirrors and stripes.

We snacked at the museum before we started looking around, and that was about the largest meal of the day. After the museum, the weather had cleared nicely, so we took a long meandering walk, through the Auckland University campus and then down along the waterfront. We crossed over the foot-bridge again, and took a little trolley tour around the waterfront area, then walked back up Queen Street. Took most of the day.

When we got home, we had just a few minutes to prepare a little surprise for David (some treats to be delivered to his room every few days), and then he was home. We had a while to wait for the shuttle to the airport, and when we finally got there, found nearly nothing to eat for dinner. But David did come with us, which was nice.

The flight was fine. Sofia fell asleep before takeoff, but she woke a few hours earlier than I would have wanted. I watched 8 or 9 of the first Glee episodes (they had seasons 1, 2 and 3). I have not seen all of them. LOVE IT!!! And the episode where they introduced Becky, the girl with DS, has completely touched me and stuck with me all day.

We were of course the last ones off the plane, but that was fine because our luggage was last out too. Got some carry on stuff transferred into the checked luggage before going through customs, so that lightened the load a bit.

Then we took a cab ride. Very nice Armenian gentleman was our driver and host. He took us on a tour through Hollywood Boulevard and then to the Santa Monica Pier. Cost a fortune and took over an hour, but he was very pleasant.

Pier was perhaps a bit too crowded and loud for Sam. We walked a little, got lunch (more fried fish - I’m SO done with fried fish), and walked back to the main road. Stopped for a ride on the Carousel. Then a cab back to the airport.

And here we wait, several hours early for our 10:27pm flight. Almost home! I can’t believe this trip is over.


Thursday night some time... in Ashland!

We made it home. I nearly murdered Micah when we got onto the plane, since he would not take direction. We were the first ones on the plane (yes, I play the special needs card!), but he took forever to get settled.

Flight was ok. Harried going through Logan. Enough travel. Took a while to connect with our driver. But eventually we got home.

Slept off and on most of the day. Just exhausted. I let Sam and Sofia skip the MWJDS picnic and stay asleep, which was a bad idea. We were awake until after 5am! I would have slept, but Sofia does not like me to sleep when she is awake, and insisted on waking me any time I dozed off.