California weekend

California weekend. 13 October 2009

This last weekend we went to Califonria and weree able to visit with Reuben’s entire family as we celebrated 6 birthdays in October (including my own at the end of the month!) Every member of the family or their spouse has a birthday in October so we get a great cake that says “Happy Birthday Chen People” and half of the family sings to the other half. It’s great.

Although our flights didn’t work out so well as far as getting Ariana to sleep (a bedtime flight and a naptime flight that just didn’t work that way) she likes Dora the Explorer in Chinese so much that she was content to just sit there in her seat for the entire 4 hours both ways. Of course some spontaneous screaming and some kicking of the seat in front of her (that poor guy never said anything but doing that looking back stare that we knew we were in trouble.)

We got there finally and after waiting for our luggage for 1 ½ hours we finally were on our way to Ama and Agong’s house. Saturday morning Ariana still woke up at 6:45 in the morning. I thought I was going to die after going to bed at 2 am or so. It’s hard being two hours difference, especially with kids. I thought that she was going to have a good nap that day but we ended up hanging out with friends all afternoon. We went to the Redondo beach pier and got some churros and fish tacos with Cassie, Dave, and David Jr. and also Peiting, Wei, and Enos. Then we met Reuben at the manufacturing plant and went on to get Boba drinks. Afterwards it was time for the celebration dinner at Lawry’s steakhouse in Beverly Hills for our celebration dinner. The kids watched Monster’s Inc on our portable DVD player and that made it a fabulous evening. Although Reuben fell asleep on the way home at 9:30, we still ended up eating cake and staying up talking until 2 am again. Good times!

The next family day was fun and great to see Ariana and Anabelle playing together. They would just look at each other and start laughing. After seeing them having so much fun, I was so happy for her. I felt like a good mom when I see how much my daughter is enjoying her childhood. They wore matching dresses to church too- pictures to follow.

The next day we prepared to leave and started thinking about some things to consider if we decide to move back to California after Reuben is done with his practice. It’s exciting to think about missing out on the winter and enjoing great weather, but after being in California I remember what everyone says to complain about LA. We lived in Irvine for 4 years so it was different but the traffic there really is bad plus everything is really expensive and although there are a lot of things to do, everything is really spread out there. It’s a good realization. It also makes me want to make the best of our time here. We have such great opportunities in living in this area. Really, there is so much stuff to do here, and we have annual passes to almost everything. It’s a great place to raise kids.

Whatever is good or bad about it whatever area, I have to say that living near family is super important for us, especiall after seeing Ariana and Anabelle together. The best thing about growing up for me was that I grew up with my cousins and I had a wonderful childhood. I’d love the same for our kids.