Four Feet More

I'm back.  Did you miss me?  I've been gone for much of the month, and it feels nice to be home, settled back into our normal routines.  I did have a couple of great vacations though, the first of which was a road trip to Arizona with the family.

We left early on July 30th and drove all day to Tucson, Arizona - my home town.  It was a 13-hour drive, but the kids did great.  It's amazing how much a portable DVD player can reduce the "are we there yet?" nonsense.  We arrived in Tucson around 8pm, and met up with my mom and Ed at their time-share resort in the foothills.  It is a beautiful place, and if you can ignore the solpugids that wander into your room, it's quite relaxing.

Gila Woodpecker on an ocotillo

We spent many of our mornings sitting on the porch, watching the local wildlife, which was made up mostly of birds.  We were fortunate in that the first few days were cooler due to recent monsoon storms, and there were plenty of birds out.  A covey of quail visited our porch daily, a mother cardinal fed her baby in a nearby Palo Verde, and Morning Doves, cactus wrens and Gila Woodpeckers perched on the ocotillo and saguaros out back.  There were also occasional cottontails, trying to blend in with the desert sand, numerous lizards, and during the nighttime, a herd of javelinas that visited the grounds around our room.  Vika and Eamon had a great time exploring the Sonoran Desert and trying to lure in animals for a pet or two.

Family at Midway Molina's

While watching desert wildlife was a huge part of our trip, the reason we went down to Tucson was family.  Our second night in town we had dinner with the cousins at Midway Molina's - a truly great Mexican restaurant with the best cheese crisps in the world.  We caught up on each others' lives, met new family members and remembered my great aunt Mary, who passed away in June.  This was the first time that Vika and Eamon had met many of the family members, and fortunately, they made a good impression.  It is a bit sad to see how the Arizona family has changed though.  It seems that all we have left now are cousins because the older generation has all passed on, and others (including us) have moved away.  The family I grew up with simply no longer exists.  But the new family that is evolving in its place is pretty cool too, and hopefully Vika and Eamon will grow up with fond memories of them.

Old friends catching up

In Tucson, I also had the opportunity to visit my oldest friend, Kathy.  She and I have been friends since the age of 5, and much of my childhood was spent at her house.  Through Facebook, I have reconnected with other childhood friends as well, one of whom was Howard, a boy I played soccer with and who was a good friend to both me and my brother Joe.  Howard goes by Jason now (I think Howard was his middle name), but despite the name change and goatee, he looks exactly the same!  It was strange and cool to see him after 25 years.  He, Kathy and I met up at a local park and chatted about our lives now and old times while Jeff and the kids played.  Vika and Eamon loved Kathy's dog, Dookie, even though her enthusiasm sometimes resulted in them being dragged around the park.  They also liked meeting these friends from my past, and we all had a fun afternoon together.

Me, my sisters, mom and Eamon

The highlight of the trip was having dinner with my sisters and their families.  What?  You didn't know I had sisters?  Well, neither did my kids.  Basically, I have three half-sisters from my dad's first marriage.  I didn't really meet them until after my mom and dad split up, but once they got divorced, my sisters were over all the time.  In fact, they kind of adopted my mom as a member of their family.  Sadly, after my mom married her second husband and we moved to California, we didn't see the girls as often and drifted further apart.  In fact, it has been 6 years since I saw them last, and they had not yet met Vika and Eamon, so this reunion was one we were all looking forward too.  And it was a great time!  We met up with two of my sisters, Kelly and Traci, at Kelly's house out in Marana.  She lives on 5 acres, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and has a bunch of dogs and two horses.  When Vika saw them, her eyes grew wide and she could hardly contain her joy.  She loves horses, but has never before been near a real one.  Eamon was very excited too, and before you knew it, Kelly and her husband Jake had the kids mounted up on horseback and were leading them around the property.  Both kids were in heaven, and I took about a thousand pictures during their 45-minute ride.  During this time, my nephew Andy (who is in his 20's and a firefighter) taught Jeff how to use a lasso, and he later gave Eamon some lessons as well.  After the ride, the kids fed the horses and we all went inside.

Vika pretending to go for a ride

All of us except Eamon and Jake, that is.  Jake has a golf cart which he drives around his property, and after taking Eamon for a spin in the vehicle, he got out from behind the wheel and said, "You want to try driving this thing?"  Naturally, Eamon shrilled an excited "YES!" and the driving lessons began.  I was too nervous to watch, so I went inside, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  Eamon came back a while later, safe and sound, and bubbling over with the thrill of driving his first car.  Vika was slightly jealous, but was soon distracted by the many Chihuahuas around the property.  Kelly does Chihuahua rescue and Vika connected to one dog in particular, a blue teacup named Willie.  I actually fell for this dog too and wanted to smuggle him home in my purse, but Kelly kept too sharp an eye on him.  Dang it.

The best thing about this night with my sisters, and the whole trip to Tucson really, was the relaxed feeling of not needing to be anything other than who you are.  My kids were able to play around and be noisy children, and I didn't need to worry about them getting in the way or offending anybody.  Things are a bit slower down there then they are in the Bay Area, and since were were on vacation, we had no major schedule to stick too.  It was as if I could truly take a deep breath and relax.  What a wonderful feeling.  The day-trips to Mission San Xavier and Mt. Lemmon, an evening at Trail Dust Town (complete with Western stunt show and dinner at my favorite restaurant, Pinnacle Peak), and the discovery of Ethiopian food (who knew they had such a great African restaurant in Tucson?), all made the trip a memorable one.

Family at Pinnacle Peak for dinner

In front of Mission San Xavier del Bac

Tomorrow, we will hit the open road, headed for Disneyland. I'm so excited, I could just spit! Except that I don't spit when I'm excited. That's just gross. But you get the idea.

Anyway, I'm thrilled that we're taking the kids down south to visit Mickey and the gang. I grew up going to Disneyland often, and I want my kids to have the same happy memories there that I do. There's just something about walking through those gates and into Main Street, USA that lifts my spirits every time.

Two years ago we took the kids to Disney World in Orlando, FL and while it may have been a bit soon for them to be exposed to so much Disney goodness (they'd only been home for 9 months, and sensory overload was definitely an issue), we still had fun. The video below captures some of the memories we made at the Magic Kingdom and also features Cathy and Matte, our good friends who got engaged right next to the castle. It is amazing to see how little the kids were! Eamon especially has grown a ton in the past 2 years. And yes, he does wiggle his butt like that when he's excited. Vika spontaneously breaks into dance. Often. Sad thing is, she has some better moves than her Mama. Dang kid.

While we're gone, feel free to capture some Disney culinary magic yourself by visiting this site: Disney Recipes. Pretty much anything from Boma is good, and the Sweet Potato Pancakes from Boatwrights are GLORIOUS. Have fun, fellow foodies.

Oh, and before I forget, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHY!!!! I hope you have a great one!

Enjoy the video!

We are back from Chicago, and finally I have caught up enough to post about the trip. The funeral went fine, and it was great to see family that I have not visited with in a long time. It was also nice to meet extended family members whom I had no idea even existed, but who knew of me and welcomed me with big hugs as if they’d known me for years! We’re Italian. People do that in our family. So all in all, the trip was a good one.

Except for the weather.

The romantic notions I had of snowy winters soon blew away in the flurries of freezing Chicago rain. It's all well and good to imagine cozy nights by the fireplace while fat flakes of snow slowly drift to the ground outside, or fun days making snowmen and having snowball fights. But seeing some poor sap parked on the side of the freeway, frantically scraping ice from his frozen windshield wipers as wind and slushy rain beat down on him, illustrated all too clearly the dark side of the “Winter Wonderland.”

Upon arriving at our hotel in Chicago, we all happily got out of the car and crunched through the snow. Sure it was cold, but this would be fun, right? it couldn't be worse than Russia in December! how naive we were. Eamon did his usual trick of jumping up onto the curb to "ride it like a train" (I have no idea why he thinks walking on a curb is like riding a train, but it seems to make sense to him). What he failed to see, however, was the transparent coating of ice covering the curb. When Eamon jumped up onto it, the poor kid’s feet slipped right out from underneath him and he fell, face down, onto the cold, slushy ground. After he recovered enough for us to join the family members that were waiting for us, we began walking, a bit more carefully, across the frozen ground. As we reached our family we were greeted not with hugs or exclamations of “I’m glad you made it here safely!” Instead, we were pelted with wet snowballs by my brother and his two stepsons. Welcome to Chicago.

A few hours later, we all piled back into the car to have a family dinner at Pappadeux. The freezing rain was starting to stick to the windows and mirror by this time, making navigation difficult, indeed. The wedges of icy snow blowing off the cars in front of us, and smashing into our windshield made the journey even more treacherous. However, we arrived safely at the restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful Cajun meal.

Then it was time to make the dangerous drive back to the hotel. As we approached our car, we saw that a solid block of ice had formed around the car's side view mirrors! Holy crap! When Jeff chipped it off, it looked like he was taking the mirror off with it, the ice was so thick. The door panels and handles were equally icy, and let me tell you, those cute fleece gloves from the Gap do NOTHING to keep your hands warm and dry when opening said door for your kids to scramble into the car. In fact, the gloves actually freeze to the car, resulting in a struggle to free your hand from its frosty trap, while not slipping and falling onto the icy pavement below.

Once we arrive safely back at our room, we cranked up the heat and settled in for a snug night’s sleep. The weather was supposed to be warmer the next day, so things should get better. What we didn’t realize was that warmer temperatures also mean melting ice.

The first crash of ice falling from the roof by our bedroom window was alarming. The next 10 crashes were annoying. The enormous chunk of ice that smashed into our window and wall was terrifying! It jolted Jeff and I awake, and we had a hard time getting back to sleep afterwards. I am not pleasant when my sleep is interrupted, and I so badly wanted to find someone to get mad at for making all the noise! However, there is not much that can be done about Mother Nature, so I buried my head under a pillow, hoping to block out the thunderous interruptions.

My brother Joe didn’t clue into the fact that falling ice was a natural occurrence due to rising temperatures. He actually called the hotel front desk, complaining that “some kids” were throwing blocks of ice down from the floors above. After the crash that hit our wall, he jumped out of bed and got dressed, determined to take care of the problem himself. It wasn’t long after he went outside to confront the "punk kids" that he realized his mistake, and returned to his room (hopefully feeling very foolish – I like to think of this as his Karma for the snowball greeting).

The next day was the funeral, and it went really well. It was a Catholic mass, and I had to do the first reading of the service. Luckily, I got through it OK, and then was able to sit down and relax the rest of the time. My brother had to do a reading as well, and I smirked quite a bit at his expense when he finished his speech with, “The word of the Lord,” and began walking back to his seat. As the priest and congregation responded “Thanks be to God,” Joe froze in his tracks, and looked over to the priest with an “Am I done?” expression on his face. After the priest smiled reassuringly at Joe, my brother grined, did a jerky, “we’re cool” head nod, and resumed walking to his seat. I’m only surprised he didn’t flash the priest a “thumbs up” as well.

All in all, the service and the visit to Chicago were fitting ways to say goodbye to Gramps. I hope that wherever he is, Gramps was able to look down on our family gathering and see how much he was loved and how much he will be missed. I'm also sure that somewhere, he is shaking his head in amusement over our reaction to the frigid weather and Joe's heathen response during the Catholic service.