Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Weekend in California, Part 1: Saturday Afternoon

I've spent the past hour and a half sitting quietly, eating a BLT sandwich, reading things on the interwebz (aka: my daily perusing of CNN, People.com, and Facebook) and now I'm curled up in bed, ready to take a nap. But first, I'm going to hopefully stay awake long enough to write this post.

The past 96 hours have been an absolute whirlwind--I traveled over 4000 miles, got to see over 40 of my loved ones, and said goodbye to my dear Grandpa Felix. The weekend was definitely bittersweet but it was most definitely everything I could have hoped for it to be.

Friday night, Boyfriend and I didn't end up going to bed until nearly 3:30, only to wake up an hour and a half later in order to be out the door by 5:30 on our way to the airport. We kept to our schedule pretty well and were in the car driving away before 5:40 :) It was so early. So SO early. I, of course, was too excited to be going back to California to think about being tired. We got to the airport in plenty of time, but thanks to an incredibly busy TSA checkpoint, we didn't get to our gate until about 15 minutes before our plane was supposed to depart. We were literally some of the last people to board the plane. And due to the combination of some people being inconsiderate a-holes by stuffing their rollie-bag, their laptop, and their jacket into the bins and airlines' inability to provide enough overhead storage space, we were forced to check our carry-on luggage. I was so annoyed because I really didn't want to have to wait at baggage claim. We got to our seats and I had just enough time to get situated, text my mom to tell her she could leave later to allow us time to go collect our baggage, and buckle my seat belt before we were on our way. 

I've never flown to or from Chicago in the daylight. I've always taken red eye trips. Boyfriend had the window seat and I spent the first part of the flight leaning over his lap to look out the window out at the clouds. Later I snapped some pictures of the snow capped mountains in Colorado and the colorful Grand Canyon whose various rock levels were visible thousands of feet up in the air.



I was able to nap for a bit on the plane, but not too much. I fell asleep with my face on the sleeve of my sweater and woke up with some awesome lines on my face that lasted for the remainder of the flight. We landed 15 minutes early and I texted my mom to see where she was. Her response: Anaheim! Omg, so far. Miraculously, by the time we got off the plane, stopped by the bathroom, and headed to baggage claim, our little bag was already there, spinning in circles. We went outside to wait for my mom since the weather was absolutely gorgeous and killed half an hour sharing a protein bar and an apple juice and tethering my netbook to my 3G connection to shop for a new sectional couch online :) 

My mom showed up around 10:15 and I dove across the front seat of the truck to smother her in hugs and kisses. It was the longest I'd ever gone without seeing her, December 23rd to March 5th. We hopped on the 405 and headed down to Huntington Beach to eat at my favorite Thai restaurant, Thai Pepper. It was amazing as usual, but I was sad that "Thai Pepper Man" as I call him (the owner) wasn't there. Boo. Maybe next time ;)

After lunch we headed to Norco to see my dad since I wasn't sure if we'd be home when he got home from work since I had a dinner date planned with my besties. We all met up at a local park next to a very pungent dairy farm and chatted for a few minutes until my dad had to head back to his route. Then we finally headed for home, nearly 4 hours after our plane had landed :P Once there we took a delicious nap. And that's where I'll leave this for now because that delicious nap's brother is beckoning me and I'm gonna give in :) 

To be continued!!

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