Monday, February 15, 2:49 PM PST

It's a long story.

Mayhaps you noted the time zone above.  That's right, I'm in California. 

My mother-in-law, bless her heart, turns 70 in a day or so -I don't know the exact birthday.  To mark the occasion she insisted that the entire family go on vacation together to their time share out in Newport Beach, California.  You see, my brother-in-law lives out here and they visit him often enough that they bought the place, and so on. 

Now, if you know anything about me you know this: I don't do family vacations.  I don't do it with my family and I don't have any desire to do it with my wife's.  At all.  We used every excuse we could think of.  We had plans, so they rescheduled around us.  We pleaded poverty, so they paid for our airfare. 

So here we are.

The flight out was entertaining.  It was a direct flight on a 737-700, which is three and three.  Chris and my two girls, Emerson and Reagan, 2 and 4, sat next to each other and I sat across the aisle from them.  I slept a few hours and otherwise kept to my side, and the kids were okay for it being their first time on an airplane and it being a 5-hour-plus flight. 

We got in yesterday around 4 PM local time and did dinner and drinks out with my brother-in-law Tommy and his girlfriend Dana.  It was nice, a place in Laguna Beach called the Laguna Village, with tables outside along the cliff overlooking the ocean.  We got ourselves unwound pretty good and the food was very nice.  I had fish tacos and Chris has calimari steak.  Very nice.

A funny moment: at some point we ordered these raw wasabi scallops on the half shell.  I've got Chris, Tommy, and Dana saying "cheese" while I line up a pic with Catalina Island in the background.  The scallps come and I put the camera down out of reflex to admire them, and there was anarchy.  I guess you had to be there.

It was an early night - we went back to the place around 10 PM, which our bodies thought was 2 AM.  Sleep came quickly.

This morning I am awoken by Reagan hitting me in the head.  "Daddy...Daddy...Daddy...Daddy..."

She was hungry.  The clock said 4:59 am.  I told her to go wake her mother.  She told me that Mommy told her to come wake me up.  I told her to go back to bed. The poor thing, she thinks it's 8 or 9 so I understood, but...no.  If I'm going to function today I need to try and sleep as late as possible and adjust.  Fortunately, Chris cracks before I do and I get to sleep.

So today was the day we're supposed to go to this big aquarium, but we got a late start (at least, it felt late).  We went to Ruby's Diner for a good breakfast and decide that we're going to just hang by the pool today.  Super, great, I love it.  We get back to the timeshare - and it's a really nice Marriott affair - and get into our suits and hit the pool.

I immediately notice the bar out by the pool's edge.  Score.  I get everybody a round - it's crazy expensive.  Boo.  Doesn't stop me from drinking enough Corona Lights that I need a mandatory nap, during which my other brother-in-law makes his appearance.  he's got his wife and three kids.  Now we have four adults and five kids under ten in a two-bedroom suite.  Yeah.

Tonight there's a big bonfire thing on the beach that Tommy is arranging.  I run down to the Rite-Aid to grab a couple pair of flip-flops, which we forgot to pack.  Now I'm going to maybe try and take a nap so that I'm not passing out on the sand.  Damned jet-lag.  Or is it the Coronas?

Anyway, I'm out.  I'll try to get some pics of the place and the family so you can place everyone. 

Tuesday, February 16, 7:00 AM PST

My eyes open.  The first vestiges of sunlight are filtering through the thin break in the curtains.  I had gone to bed with my wife and I'm now with my daughter Emerson.  Chris is nowhere to be seen.  I assume some form of child crisis occurred in the night which resulted with Chris sleeping elsewhere.  It wouldn't be the first time.  I go back to sleep.

I'm awoken about half an hour later by Emerson.  Daddy, I want to go on the airplane.  Go tell your mother, I tell her.  She leaves and surprisingly has the presence of mind to close the bedroom door on her way out.  That's my girl.  I go back to sleep.

I am awoken about half an hour after that by five girls jumping all over me on my bed.  Now, I've had fantasies about things like this, but in my dreams the girls aren't between the ages of two and ten and they weren't related to me.  Needless to say, I'm up now. 

I'm the last one to wake up, surprisingly, at this early hour.  The good part about that is that coffee is made.  I pour a cup and set to write in my vacation journal.

So... the bonfire.  It was right on the beach.  The differences between west coast and east coast continue to reveal themselves in stark detail.  Back home, a bonfire is done right on the sand pretty much anywhere.  Here in CA, the suckers, er, taxpayers, have placed an entire cotiere of cement fire pits in a wide swatch of beach designated for bonfires. Okay. 

There were about twenty people and maybe a dozen kids including ours.  Food and beer, wine was provided.  I tried Bud Light Lime for the first time and I unexpectedly enjoyed it.  There were sandwiches of the supermarket platter variety and several sides.  The fire was nice - I love a good beach fire.  Unfortunately, the fun was fairly smothered by heaping helpfuls of my least favorite game, "chase the children".  Who's running away down the beach?  Who's getting too close to the fire?  Who's missing now?  Etc. 

The group nearest us was a bunch of, ahem, young adults, who had that Olympic Pot Smoking Team look to them.  I mean, it was like the Spin Doctors and Red Hot Chili Peppers decided to have a bonfire.  They decided, in their wisdom, to dig a hole in the sand so deep you cold bury a cow.  No joke.  As I'm thinking, "who digs a hole like that and for what purpose?", and I'm beginning to be alarmed at our relative proximity and what it might mean, the police make their first appearance in my vacation.

They were drawn by the hole, which the stoners set to work refilling.  Unfortunately, even though we were being discrete and using cups, they must have spotted a can or something because they mosey on over and have everyone pour their beers out.  They tell Tommy, the orchestrator of the event, that the cooler with the beers has to come off the beach. 

East-west dichotomy part two: these are the nicest cops I've ever encountered.  They were clean, fit, and polite to a fault.  The female cop was smoking hot, too.  Now, if this had been back home, they would have been fat, bearded, and ornery.  They would have either made us open and pour out all the beer in the cooler or they would have confiscated the cooler, and they would've been assholes about it.  The female cop wouldn't have been smoking hot.  She'd have been one of those women that you look at and spend the rest of the evening wondering about if she was a female at all.

My wife, bless her heart, decides to empty the cooler, and places all the beer under the covered table.  Tommy then makes a show of taking a now empty cooler back to the car.  The cops move on after the big hole is filled. 

At some point - I've completely lost track of time - we head back to the suite.  Everybody crashes except me, but I can't watch TV or anything because there's sleeping people everywhere, so I reluctantly go to bed.

And now it's Tuesday.  Lego Land today, allegedly.  I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Tuesday, February 16, 5:06 PM PST

Just got back from Lego Land.  I have to admit, it was pretty damn cool.  Not much of a amusement park as things go - the rides were very mediocre - but the stuff they had made of Legos was very impressive.  The aquarium part was very well done, also.

Before we left it was a very pleasant and relaxing morning of breakfast grazing and paper reading at your own pace.  There was no rush to get out.  It was enjoyable vacation time. 

We've got dinner reservations at a restaurant that Tommy says is great and hard to get into, so I've got to go get ready.  I hope y'all are enjoying the snow. 

Wednesday, February 17, 8:25 AM PST

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

Dinner was fantastic.  The place was very high-end with ambiance to match.  The service was beyond impeccable.  The food was amazing.  (For the record, I had black truffle risotto to start followed by osso buco and something for dessert but I can't say what because...)

The gibsons I was drinking were large.  All six of them.  There was also the Irish coffee. 

Now, I'm no lightweight.  This is the guy who, on his thirtieth birthday, drank almost an entire 1.5L bottle of Belvedere by himself and was last man standing.  I also drank thirteen Makers Mark on the rocks on night and got myself home, undressed, and in bed before passing out.  But I made a rookie mistake.

I had a big sandwich at Legoland around noon, but only a small bowl of baby carrots while getting ready to go to the restaurant after that, so I didn't have much in my stomach.  Damned rookie mistake.  I patented the grab-a-slice-on-my-way-out-to-meet-the-guys maneuver in my heyday.  I know better than to drink on an empty stomach.

Needless to say, I don't remember anything from ordering dessert forward.  I feel like I'm a reject from the Hangover.  (Speaking of hangovers...ouch.)  Christine tells me not to worry, that I was perfectly fine and didn't embarrass myself at all.  That was a relief, but I'd feel better had I not been such a moron about the empty stomach thing. 

Today is Disney.  Good part: it's just me, Chris, and the kids.  Bad part: the hangover.  Time to strap it on and cowboy up.  My family is counting on me.

UPDATE: Jimmy tells me I had a pear tart for dessert.

Wednesday, February 17, 9:37 PM PST

Today was a good day.  I managed to keep it together to eat a decent lunch at the park and after that it was easy.  The kids loved Disneyland.  I liked it, too, perhaps even better than Disneyworld because it's smaller and more focused, and thus easier to manage on a single day. 

We got back to the suite around 6PM which gave us just enough time to get cleaned up and go meet everyone for dinner at 7PM over at Benihana's.  I love Japanese hibachi.  I had steak and shrimp.  Mmmmm...

I'm keeping this short.  I'm tired and we still have the San Diego Zoo tomorrow, and everybody is coming which is going to make it all the more...you know.  I'm loving the action I'm seeing in TR and I'm glad Dave's back and hitting up the games.  I wish Christen was back to work her magic for Betty but I'll take what I can get at this point.  So close to the big reveal!  *wrings hands*

Thursday, February 18, 8:55 PM PST
 
The San Diego Zoo was great.  Not only did they have all the animals you'd expect, but they had lots of them and they seemed more energetic and active and not simply "there".  Emerson's favorite was the elephants.  Reagan's was the hippopottamuses. 

It was a long drive, though - at least a good hour and a half south on the 5.  I had my first Jack in the Box experience on the ride home.  It was okay.  Nothing I can't get back home under a different banner.  I'm still waiting for that meal where I'll think, yeah, okay, I can't get this at home.

Tomorrow is a free day.  I think I'd like to just hang by the pool and recharge a bit, but I know I'm going to end up doing whatever the kids want to do or otherwise entertaining them.  I used to like vacations, but since I've had kids it's a lot more like work sometimes.  If you enjoy your freedom, never have kids.  The constant dependency can be soul-sucking sometimes.  Not to say it doesn't have its perks, and there's nice things about being a dad that I really enjoy, but vacations aren't part of that, for the most part.

I wanted to get the new MD move written, but Chris bogarted the laptop and was on it all damn night and I lost my creative drive.  Sorry, guys, you'll have to wait until I get it back.  Maybe tomorrow by the pool.

Sigh.  Reagan's doing the "I can't sleep" cry/whine thing.  Let the soul-sucking commence. 

Friday, February 19, 8:48 AM PST

Oh, sure.  My one day to do nothing but relax by the pool and it's overcast with an expected high of 64 and chance of rain.  Fie!

I watched Tiger Woods this morning while having breakfast.  Boy did he look beaten down.  (paraphrased) "As my wife told me, my apology will not be in my words but in my actions from this point forward."  Translated, that means, "I will be paying for this for the rest of my life." 

Okay, so I need to go get in on the day-salvage planning.  I'm hearing the words "walk around the mall" and that's not my first choice.

Sunday, February 21, 2:41 PM EST

There's no place like home.

Friday we decided to take the kids over on the ferry to Balboa Island.  There's a merry-go-round and ferris wheel and a boardwalk-type setup along the beach.  The sun came out and made it a nice, slow, easy day with the kids running around on the rides and in the arcade.

Reagan insisted on doing the picture booth but it turned out really great.  I have a strip of four awesome shots of the two of us.  I'll be taking that to work for my desk.  Emerson found a neat shell in the sand, and was very pleased with heself all day.

At night, my in-laws watched the kids and Chris and I finally had a night to ourselves, so we went to this sushi place that turned out to be outstanding.  We sat at the sushi bar and ordered al la carte and drank sake and met all manner of local peeps and had a womderful time.  I ate sea urchin, giant clam, octopus, red snapper, blue fin tuna, yellowtail, and this thing they had called a baked california roll, which one of the locals said we had to try but I didn't care for it.  Sushi shouldn't be hot.  I did have a salmon skin roll that was ungodly delicious.

Jimmy and his family were gon for their red-eye flight before we got back.  We packed and went to bed, and got up early to make our 7:45 AM flight home.  We were at the airport an hour and a half before the flight and almost missed it.  The bag check line was long, and the TSA now does this thing where families with small children have to go through a special line, which didn't move because they only had one team screening passengers.  It was insane.  We were literally running down the terminal screaming at the gate attendants to hold the plane, which they did thanks to a guy wqho was two families in line ahead of us telling them that we were stuck in security.

As soon as we boarded they closed the door and started to taxi.  We were moving before I had everything squared away, that's how just-made-it we were.  I bought the guy who saved us a drink.  The kids slept on the flight and it was fairly uneventful.

We landed at Newark Airport and got to the cars and split up.  Chris took the kids home.  I had one more mission for my vacation week: a fraternity brother's bachelor party up in Darien, CT.  She went south, I went north. 

Needless to say, there were thirty guys, all from the years I was in college.  It was just like being back at school, but we were all older and greyer.  I swear at one point I was playing fooseball and I looked around at the whole scene and for a moment it was 1990 all over again.  It was the best night I'd had in a long time.  I didn't crash until 5:00 in the morning.

I think I damaged something, though.  I got home okay this morning but I can't think.  I'm pretty much writing this on autopilot.  I need sleep.

Back to work tomorrow - the vacation's over.