California Dreaming.
Around midnight of Dec 9, we were all packed up and headed to the US to spend the Christmas holiday time with Sean's family and our old buddies from California. After months of checking airfares (and deciding that it was too expensive) I found a good price via Tokyo and the 4 of us (Zach was only 8 mths) went for $5500 AUD - still exp, but hey, that's just the fact of living on the other side of the world.
We managed to keep the packing light and had only 1 suitcase and 1 duflle bag for all of us - and that had to cover winter weather and summer gear for our cruise - more on that later. Of course the only way we could do this, was being able to borrow some clothes from family and friends and loaning Michelle's (my sister in law) stroller (and car seats) - thanks so much Michelle!
No sleep and lots of vomit
The Qantas flight to Tokyo was 10 hours and there were no bassinets on the plane, so little Zachary was not very comfortable in our arms all the way. We didn't have any spare seat next to us, so we tried several combinations of seating with him on the seat, and Jasper in our laps etc, but not to much avail. Then when everyone seemed to finally be getting forty winks, Jasper threw up, all over everyone, the seat, himself, the baby.... With no assistance from the staff, we cleaned up the best we could, changed kids clothes and covered the seats, only for him to do it all again. So we spent the rest of the flight in vomit and just waited anxiously to get cleaned up when we got to Narita airport.
Half way there
We were so thankful for our twin day room (which I'd booked a month prior) at Narita airport. We recharged the DVD player, Jasper watched a movie, we all showered and Zachary and I slept a bit. We had an 8 hour layover, and then boarded the American Airlines flight to LAX. The staff were MUCH more helpful, we had a bassinet for the baby and he got 7 hours sleep - yay. Then LAX to SFO and we were met by Ray and Chris (Sean's mom) and all of our luggage made it too - though the suitcase was a bit battered with parts falling off it.
Zach at LAX - who'd think he'd been travelling for 2days and on only about 8 hrs sleep?
Into CA life
Into CA life
The weather in the Bay Area was unseasonally cold for mid Dec - sunny, but chilly days and very chilly nights (dropping to the 20sF/minus 1-4C at nights) brrrr. But it was great to be back amongst such beautiful landscapes. Our first big outing was to Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has got to be the BEST of its kind anywhere. Jasper LOVED it. He saw the otters swimming (called them seals), saw hammerhead sharks for the first time (hammer sharks, as he referred to them), loved the wave tunnel, the jellyfish and octopus displays and enjoyed touching starfish and sea cucumbers etc in the touch pools. It's really geared up for kids and very educational. Zach was only mildly interested for a short period of time, and then protested about being in the stroller. But we'd had a good 3 hours there and with low crowds, we got to see most exhibits and up close.
