Thanksgiving

I guess I am two holidays/trips behind in blogging, so I'll start with Thanksgiving. We went to San Francisco to spend the holiday with Uncle Matt and Grandma Martha. Auntie Emily also joined us for dinner. This year, we decided to drive up to the Bay Area, and all-in-all, that went pretty well. Jack watched videos, including Baby Animals, Diego goes on safari, and "Booze Cruise" (aka Blues Clues) for much of the drive. He was pretty willing to accept that video is only for "long trips" and thankfully has not been asking for video in the car every time we go around the corner.

On the way up, we stayed at a hotel in Livermore. I often wondered why those interstate hotels bother to have those crappy-looking little pools that stink up the place, but I gained a little insight into that: kids. Jack swam for 2 hours on Thanksgiving morning before we hit the road, playing on the steps and then playing a game with Daddy that involved scooting around the edge of the pool from the stairs to the ladder, getting out, and walking carefully back to the stairs. He likes to "go under" like a big kid, but he had some trouble with this because he needs to provide a running commentary of what is going on at all times. I told him if he wanted to go under, he has close his mouth and stop talking, and he indicated that he would postpone going under to another time.

Thanksgiving dinner at Matt's was lovely as always, and we enjoyed being back in the SF, special time with Grandma Martha, seeing our NorCal friends, visiting playgrounds and even riding the endangered species carosel in Golden Gate Park. Apparently, I forgot to unpack the camera while in SF, because I don't have any photos from that leg of the trip.

On our way back to LA, we stopped in Davis to hang out a bit with Zach, Brady, Shanae, Lamar, and Nona. As always, Lamar got Jack very worked up and giggly, and they had a good time playing in the park and jumping off the coffee table onto the couch. The return trip to LA frustrated my expectations a bit in that we had no trouble getting in and out of the major cities, but terrible traffic jams seemed to materialize periodically along the 5. Still, we made decent time, and Jack was a trooper, didn't complain much at all.

For a couple weeks after that, Jack spent a lot of time playing "going to Davis," sometimes by car, sometimes by plane.