We're on the road for home after a four day visit with my parents in San Diego. It's been a good visit, and a Christmas after Christmas as well as a chance to experience an all-night drive again for the first time in a few decades.

Yes. It was a 16-hour drive from Colorado through to San Diego, we headed East along I-70, and then went south on I-15 through Nevada and into California, and there was something surreal about driving through LA at 2 am and having the freeways be so sparsely populated. Just zooming through, and while there were people, we just ghosted through the mountains and into the flat plains of light in all directions. By then it just seemed silly to stop and try and sleep in the middle of the city, so I pushed through and we arrived at my parents' house at 4 am. They let us in, thankfully, and we slept in until noon and had a second Christmas that evening.

( Cut for pictures and more stuff... )

The trip was really good: busy, warm, and wonderful. We stuffed the SD trip full of great food, beaches, the Zoo, mounting paintings, and seeing my family again. Since we'd gotten our ticket so late, we came home again on Friday and had the whole weekend to make our own turkey (yum, leftovers!), pumpkin pie, and stuffing with gravy, and then John's birthday was Sunday. We celebrated that with a three mile walk around a lake, and going to dinner where he wanted and my "chocolate thingy"s for dessert.

I like that Jet decided that the recipe for my chocolate thingy's should remain a family secret and that he was going to make them for his kids some day. *grins*

( More details and pictures for those with the time for them. )

All five kindergarten classes from Eagle Crest went to the Zoo this morning on two buses. They all wore tie dye. Most of the classes had about twenty kids and about 10 parents or teachers with each class. And the teachers had the cell phone numbers of every parent.

It's good to plan ahead, with Kindergarteners. *giggles*

The good thing was that it meant that each parent had two kids to watch. Mrs. Bauer counted John and I as one parent, and we got the kid that pretty much needed the most attention, which worked out as Jet's one of the kids that needs the least amount of attention and between the two of us, it was pretty easy to stay on top of both of the kids and get their needs met.

( Read more... )