It's about time!

Yeah, I know - I was looking at Catie's blog today and I'm now officially 5 weeks out from my last blog post. Of course, if you read the last one, I warned you that it would be a while! Things have been crazy around our house for the last month or so, particularly with my job. Not in a bad way, thankfully - CalArts has no intent to lay anyone off at all. Their biggest concession to the bad economy right now was to raise tuition slightly and freeze all new positions. However, the majority of our shows happen during the second semester, and this year there are twice as many this semester as last. This means that we've ended up working on three shows back to back to back! By the time I get home, I barely have the brain power left to read blogs, let alone to write them... I was actually way behind for a while - I just barely got caught back up in the last few days.

Anyway, on to recent happenings. This also explains the long break in blogs, since there hasn't been much to write about other than work, TV and sleep. We have discovered two new shows - well, new to us, anyway. Both had been on for at least a year, but since everything we watch is on DVR it's hard to find new stuff! Leverage and Burn Notice (TNT and USA, respectively) are both really interesting shows, and have the added quirk of sharing guest stars in similar yet different roles at nearly the same time. Fun, fun shows!

So last weekend was my first weekend off in over a month. We took advantage of the opportunity to run down to San Diego for the weekend! We were looking to hit multiple targets at the same time. We wanted to spend some time with our friends Ellen & Stuart who we hadn't had a chance to connect with since their son's 3rd birthday last year, especially since we had a few things to talk to them about; we wanted to go the San Diego chapter's movie night (conveniently at Ellen & Stuart's house); and we wanted to hit Legoland on the way home before our season passes expire in April.

We packed up and headed out Friday afternoon as soon as I could get out of the office, which wasn't as early as I'd hoped which put us on the freeway through downtown LA right in the middle of rush hour traffic. It ended up taking us nearly 4.5 hours to make the trip that usually takes us 2.5 hours, and Caitlin culminated the trip by falling asleep in the car, leaning back so her post-nasal drip drained back into her throat, and throwing up all over herself in Carlsbad. We finally made it there, got settled in, and let the kids play even though they were already up way too late! Eventually they wore out and we put the kids to bed so the grownups could talk.

We've known Ellen and Stuart for a year now, and have discovered that we have way more in common than is typical for random couples. Some of it is right on the surface - we're both mixed race couples with a Filipina wife and Caucasian husband; we're both mixed faith couples, since Cherylle and Ellen both come from a Catholic background, and while Adventism and Judaism have some surface differences, they are more alike than you'd think. Politically, personality, emotionally, it's almost creepy how alike we are! The gist of this that we want to make sure Caitlin has someone to talk to when she's not willing to talk to her parents, but we want that someone to be somebody we know and trust, and will give her advice we agree with. Particularly since Ellen is an LP as well, she can advise her on things that we as average height parents may never understand, such as sexuality and intimacy, personal hygiene, relationships, dealing with the idiots in the outside world, etc. Essentially we asked them to be godparents to Caitlin. We'd like to make that official, if Cherylle's parents church will allow it, although they may not since Stuart is not Catholic any more than I am. Even if they don't, however, we want them to be unofficial godparents/mentors to her as she grows up, and think they will be really great for her. Plus, it gives us another good excuse to go over and tear up another bottle of Corralejo Reposado - that was way too much fun!

Saturday we laid around the house while Ellen cooked a filipino breakfast with garlic fried rice (my favorite!), then finally left for Seaport Village on the coast. The day was fantastic - the weather was beautiful, the traffic light, and there was a vendor making balloon sculptures for cheap! We had a great lunch at an ocean front cafe, and wandered around browsing the shops for a while having a blast. Ellen and Stuart had to leave early for a chapter board meeting, so we killed a bit of time by letting Caitlin wander while Evan got balloon sculptures and a henna tattoo. We stopped by the grocery store on the way back to pick up some soda and ice for the movie night. The group for movie night was small and intimate, but it was fun! We got to visit with another couple, Lisa and Eric, a mixed LP/AH couple, while the kids got to play with their 10 year old daughter Kiah. She was adorable, which meant that it wasn't too surprising when we learned that she'd actually been a model as a toddler!

Sunday morning, Ellen called around and got a recommendation for a great breakfast joint up in Solano Beach called the Hideaway Cafe. Despite the distance, they decided to drive all the way up and have breakfast with us, which was really great since the kids ended up being able to play some more in a little park across the street from the cafe, and Stuart got some really great shots!

After eating, we said our goodbys and headed our separate ways. We got to Legoland around noon which gave us 5 hours to play there, which was plenty of time for Evan to hit all his favorite rides and still get to wander Mini City for a while.

The ride home had slightly less traffic - it took us 3.5 hours instead of 4.5 hours, although 2.5 would have been great! Sadly, this time Evan started throwing up about 30 minutes from home. He stayed home from school the next day, but he was fine the entire day, so it looks like it was just motion sickness brought on by a long day in the sun, riding rides and having fun.

So, long post for a long weekend. Hopefully it won't be this long before the next one, but you never know!