First real snow

Upon waking to 2 inches of wet snow on the ground...

My CALIFORNIA kids - "Snow! Snow! I can't wait to go out and make a snowman!"

My WASHINGTON, DC roots - "Ooo! Did they cancel school? Check the website."

My BOSTON reality - "Two inches? We don't even bother updating the website! See you at 8:30!"

How time flies

This must be a new low in blogging: blogging about topics that happened a year ago. But you know how sometimes there's special times or memories that you just don't want to forget? Holidays especially. Here are some things that I found in a blog draft (or actually a self-addressed email draft) from last Christmas. YES, THAT MEANS XMAS 2007.

Once in a while, usually while driving through our new town or while unpacking at our new house, I stop and think about what has happened in the last year. A year ago, we were still just getting the word out to our local friends that we intended to move. But nothing had really happened except for our exploratory trip to Boston. We hadn't even decided whether Boston or DC at this point last year. And here we are a year later, not just moved, but moved into our permanent home. D&D didn't believe we would do it this fast and therefore planned on a holiday without us. Sometimes I can't believe that we finally did it.

But back to 2007...

Part of what made Xmas 2007 special was time with my brother and sister-in-law. Since they've lived in Asia now for upwards of 4 or 5 years, opportunities to hang out with them are few and far between. And it's nice to hang out with them because they don't have kids and therefore, to me, are inherently more interesting to talk to. Well, and they ARE more interesting than my usual crowd of moms or engineers. They're journalists who at their very core are inquisitive and are versed in a range of topics. Okay, well, at least that describes my Pulitzer prize winning and Olympic torch bearing sister-in-law. My brother is still my brother. :-)

Xmas 2007 will remain in my memory as the Wii Christmas. No, we didn't buy or receive a Wii (and based on our addiction that vacation, we probably never should get one) but my brother actually brought his from Asia! Even Tobey and Eli were addicted -- they'd wake up in the morning and especially if it was Tom or Andrew who was up with them in the morning, within half an hour, they'd all be in the basement playing Mario's Beijing Olympics on the Wii. Tobey got the hang of javelin, fencing and bowling. He also got the hang of the hammer throw which he demonstrated with one of his stick shaped toys when we got home (!). Eli would often parrot whatever the Wii said -- nothing funnier than hearing a 2.5 year old say with an evil tone, "Maaaario!". We made Mii's of everyone and even got my dad to play golf. And were introduced to other wacky games Andrew had like bunnies that danced to the beat or trying to hide from a boss while you goofed off at work.

But by far the event that made this the Wii Christmas was the late night tennis matches between us and Andrew. Yes, that is "us" (plural) and Andrew (singular). It was clear he was the Wii veteran and us the rookies because playing tennis he was sitting in a chair just flicking his wrist while Tom and I were just short of running the length of my parents' cavernous basement reenacting real tennis. He'd easily beat us 2 against 1 playing LEFT handed as Tom and I would use our daylight Wii time obsessively trying to perfect the timing of the power serve. Just when we'd get to the point of almost beating him then he'd up his game playing right handed and when we got closer even still, then he played true doubles with our visiting cousin as his doubles partner. Night after night we'd challenge them until 2AM in the morning, laughing and yelling in the basement, breaking for Klondike bars, while the rest of the family slumbered two flights of stairs away. Finally, the night came when Tom and I actually beat Andrew and Chris and just to make sure, we played a couple more hours to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Probably after 20 matches or so, we could claim 3 as victorious.

And boy were we sore.

Other memories from Christmas a year ago: we spent Christmas with Tom's parents in Pittsburgh. The best gift they gave us was the gift of sleeping in each morning. The boys would wake up and thank goodness they'd just wander downstairs where they'd usually find Nai-Nai or Yeh-Yeh more than willing to give them breakfast. There were days we slept in until 8:45! Ahhh, I'm excited just thinking about it since in a couple weeks we're going back! We also waited with anticipation the arrival of the Christmas card from one of my friends from MIT/church in Boston. His life is insane -- 4, or is it 5?, kids, no kidding each year we get a card there's always a baby announcement in there, he works full time, he does a night program MBA or PhD...or both...and he preaches part time at his church, all while enjoying time with his dozen of children while supporting his wife who homeschools them all. We used to feel pretty lame after reading his letter until two years ago when we realized that he's not normal and life is not a competition. And now we like reading his Christmas letter to laugh at ourselves and embrace our slacker lifestyle.

The last "full circle" moment from last year's Christmas to this year's is Life. I'm not being philosophical, I mean Life, the board game. For those with the same opportunity as we do to go to your parents home and dig up old "vintage" classic stuff from your childhood, you'll understand the thrill of finding a board game that you haven't seen in 30 years and getting to play it with your own kids. Tobey's a little young (and we always played while Eli napped) but he knows enough of how to play a board game that we played it with him. It was hilarious and unexpectedly a great way to springboard conversation about, well, life! For one thing, I chose not to go to college, much to Tom's dismay. "Don't follow Mommy's example, Tobey", was Tom's fatherly advice. Turns out that we made about the same amount of salary, college educated or not, giving Tobey a lesson that there are different kinds of smart and one can make it in life even without the treasured diploma. See if I still feel the same in 13 years when Tobey announces he's skipping college to be a painter (his latest "what I wanna be when I grow up" is a painter, and I'm not talking an artist painter, I'm talking a painter of walls, like the guys who have been coming to our house everyday for two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving). Life was also a good way to introduce Tobey to money and the larger money amounts, most of which just flew over his 4 year old head. Jump ahead to 2008 and I just bought our own game of Life. I guess something about being holed up in a house on a cold day conjures up memories of wanting to play Life.

Thinking back of 2007's Christmas memories in DC and Pittsburgh really grounds me. So much has happened to us this year but I can remember all of those memories like it happened yesterday. Finally, as I look back at my list of things to blog about from a year ago, it's kind of funny to see some things not change all that much. I marked down that on 1/21 I packed my first box after weeks of procrastinating. Now I look at my big pile of boxes to UNpack and I feel like procrastinating all over again. I also wrote that I was excited to "purge" a lot of stuff as I packed, not wanting to take too much extra junk with us to our new life in Boston. Now I am still excited to purge a lot of stuff, which begs the question, just how much completely useless junk did we have if there enough for me to want to purge twice?? I have "school conundrum" jotted down, which I think back then meant whether to register Tobey for Yew Chung kindergarten not knowing if his school would return my deposit when we moved away. Now I face a different school conundrum of whether/when to tell the district we moved at the risk of them forcing Tobey to switch schools midway through the school year.

It's weird to think that things can change and yet stay the same at the same time. Our whole environment has changed and yet looking back a year, especially at Christmas time, there are some things that surprisingly and thankfully ground us and stay the same.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I've been unusually seasonal this year with Christmas. We just moved in 2 weeks ago and I'm most excited about decorating for Christmas! Part of it is the East Coast vibe. Even when I was growing up, I liked the colonial houses with one candle in each window -- someone here remarked that's very New England. And I love that we have a little lamp post in front, a la Narnia, because I can't wait to put a garland on it. And I never really cared to have a wreath on the front door but this year I find myself eyeballing them everywhere from Wilson Farm to Stop & Shop. And I usually don't bother with day-after-Christmas sales but this year, I can't wait to go to get some good deals on decor!

I think part of it is also the new house. As I remarked to Tom yesterday: I care about this house. I guess it feels like home, not that we are that used to living here, but it's supposed to be our home for as long as we can see. Unlike our Sunnyvale home where in the back of our minds we were still wondering whether we'd move to the East Coast. This house is big enough, new enough and perfect enough that we can't foresee needing to move for the sake of the house. So with my mind thinking more permanently, then it seems fun to decorate a house that I "care" about. Tom echoed the sentiment, not about the decorating (although he is outside in 37 degree temps with Tobey figuring out how to hang Christmas lights, but that this is a house that he cares about.

Part of it is also the Mom-to-Mom Christmas brunch talk by the women's pastor, Cynthia Fantasia. She talked about traditions and for the first time, I felt like I could actually act on making traditions in our home for the holidays. Maybe because we aren't going to move anymore. Maybe because, as far as OUR plans are concerned, this is probably "it" for the size of our family. Maybe because for the first time in five years the kids are at an age where traditions can be appreciated and done by both kids, when I'm not so frazzled by the thought of parenting much less the additional efforts of the holidays. I immediately set out to do simple gingerbread houses with the kids and ripped a bunch of our holiday CD's into iTunes. I dropped by Michael's yesterday, totally delighted that they were having a big sale on Christmas decor. It was just what I needed to get completely in the holiday mood. I even bought candles for Advent and looked up Advent devotionals we can do with the kids at night. Maybe we'll make ornaments, maybe we'll have one to commemorate each year, maybe we'll make up traditions as they come. But I feel like we can finally start to have traditions.

Last night we had what we thought a very traditional Christmas moment. We went to Lexington Center where they were having a shopping festival. We waited on the town green for Santa's arrival and there was free hot cocoa and cookies courtesy of the Selectmen (like a town council). There were carolers singing traditional Christmas carols that dared to mention the birth of Jesus. Santa arrived on a Lexington FD fire truck and handed out candy canes. Then they lit the town tree, all with progressively "green" LED lights. All in 36 degree temps. The boys had fleece lined jeans, I'm thinking maybe Tom and I need some too.

It truly is a wonderful time of the year and Eli summed it up nicely while Santa gave out candy canes. As he sat on Tom's shoulders amidst the mob hoping for a candy cane, Eli says, "I love this guy!"

Moving Day!

I think at least 10 times today already, either Tom or I have declared, "I can't believe we have this house!"

8:00AM - Dennis arrives with E&R to babysit the kids at the house

8:30AM - Oscar's Moving Company arrives

11:15AM - All loaded, drive to the house

11:30-1:15PM - Ang stands in 22 degree weather directing the flow of boxes

1:15PM - Last box moved in

2:15PM - Breakfast

3:15PM - Ang finally takes off coat after 2 hours in house

3:30PM - First box emptied

4:30PM - Kids' bedroom all set up with beds and sheets

5:00PM - Internet up and running (priorities!)

5:15PM - House starts to feel like ours, not the Y's

5:30PM - Kids in our hair, just sent them down to the basement. Man, I LOVE THIS HOUSE!

6:00PM - Tom's parents arrive from Pittsburgh

9:30PM - Kids in bed in our first night in our new home.

And who knows how long before Tom and I get to bed. It's been great to have Tom's parents here visiting. Kind of fills the house with more love. I mean, I'm going to love all the new space. But the new space is only as good as the people who fill it.

Thank you, God, for this house. An 11-month journey and we are finally home again.

Closing

We closed on our house today!

Yay! And aw... at the same time!

Yay of course because we now are homeowners again. Boy was that a long escrow period. It was pushing 60 days because we had to get a 60 day lock on our (AWESOME!) interest rate, 45 was not quite enough. And we started a week or two after our offer was accepted. It was almost like being pregnant, just waiting and waiting and waiting, but without excruciating pain at the end.

The actual signing meeting was none like I've ever been to. In CA, as buyers we signed our papers a day or two ahead of time and the actual closing day was a pretty quiet wire transfer for the money. We could do the whole transaction without ever meeting the other party. Not so in MA. We were there, our realtor was there, the sellers were there, I suppose the seller's agent would have been there...except she was our agent too, our lawyer, their lawyer. The atmosphere was upbeat. We were happy with the price, our rate and the fact that they picked us at all. I think they were pretty happy that we were a nice family moving in and with where they are moving, they get to pay off their house and pocket a nice chunk of cash. They knew their lawyer for 20 years so it was like a reunion for them. We were just excited to have the house. It was friendly chatting all around. You'd almost never know it was a business transaction except that our lawyer occasionally would say, "Keep signing..." as we made our way through our ream of papers to sign.

The closing was a little sad though because, speaking of the selling family, we started to befriend them. They were a very devoted Christian family who was friends with some of my old BCEC friends as well as best friends with my new mom's group leader. And after I met the mom face to face for the first time, we realized that their youngest and my boys were actually in the same summer program at Eli's school this past summer when we first got to Lexington. What a small world! We went to the house almost weekly with appts for contractors and each time the whole family was at home (mom homeschools, dad works from home). They made us cookies when they accepted our offer, we made them rice krispy treats when we came for our contractor appts. We gave them a going away/road trip gift, they left us an area rug and some custom made cushions for a sit in bench. They were really happy that we hoped to use the house much like they did: hosting friends, potlucks, Bible studies and the like. (The house is set up well for those types of things.) It was by far the friendliest and most congenial real estate transaction we ever had. I think we would have totally been friends, except that the circumstance that brought us together was that they were moving away! It was almost sad to say goodbye to them as they left for their new home in North Carolina. 

When the signing was over, we got the keys and said our goodbyes. Me and Tom's first instinct was to go to the house, as if something about the house had changed in the two hours we were last there for our final walkthrough?? But something did change -- our outlook -- because the house was now OURS. The house was now finally empty and it was one of the first times that we were in the house without the selling family or our realtor also there. After we did our little happy dance, thrilled that it was finally ours, we drove off to resume normal life of work and picking up the kids. But when I drove away from the house and out the usual streets on the way to Tobey's school, things definitely felt different. It wasn't just roads that made their way through Lexington, now these were roads that we were going to drive every single day, OUR street, OUR intersection, OUR landmarks to tell friends how to get there, OUR Seattle's Best coffee, OUR Mobil gas station. In one 1.5 hour signing session, my entire outlook on our house changed from "the" house, to OUR house.

So now our sights turn back to our house and the work to be done before we move in in a few weeks. Now that the "pregnancy" is over, it's time to put all of our planning into motion. First up: tomorrow, the painters come and start taking down wallpaper. Yipee!

Full circle

I was driving through north Lexington, on our way to Tobey's classmate's birthday party at the Y. It was an overcast day, not too cold, and mid-fall when all of a sudden I had a flashback. Not a deja vu where I think I had been there but actually hadn't. But a real flashback.

It was exactly a year ago this week that we took our Boston "recon" trip, a weeklong trip to the Boston area. We packed the boys in the car and took our own driving tour of Lexington. The weather and time of year was exactly the same and thus, the flashback. I remembered north Lexington specifically because the streets on the map seemed more spaced out, like maybe there would be bigger lots and bigger houses there. So we headed in that direction.

There were a lot of flat level lots, different from the hillier tree lined streets of Lexington. The houses in this part of town were multimillion dollar, I'm sure. Although we knew we couldn't afford the mansions, we thought it'd be nice to get a similar lot and just a smaller standard colonial in the shadow of the mansions. Don't they say you don't want to be the nicest house on a less expensive block but rather you should be the cheapest house in the most expensive neighborhood? I think it was then that I thought I could really like Lexington.

Fast forward a year later, we are about to close on our own house in Lexington in just a few days. Amazing what can change in a year. Oct 2007 we were just starting to tell friends that we were moving and 12 months later, we already said goodbye and are ready to say hello to new friends here.

Temporary vs. permanent

My sister-in-law has commented several times that she didn't know how we were surviving the move. To be living out of a suitcase for 3 weeks, to live in corporate housing for one month, to move to another apt, to live another month without furniture or our stuff, to not even know which town we were going to live in -- all that was unthinkable to her. And I just shrugged it off, saying it wasn't as bad as it sounds -- the trip was fun, the corporate housing was niiiice, no furniture meant more run around space, living minimally gets me motivated to purge even more "stuff", and not knowing where we were going to live was just a phase. 

When we first got our stuff in the apt, I realized how much nicer it is to live in a place that can pass as a "home" instead of being reminded every time I slept on the air bed that we are in transition. And when I got a taste of it (plus 2 months of fruitless house hunting, plus the thrill of the road trip was long gone), then the whole "being in transition" thing was starting to get old. I was also looking forward to the start of school for routine and the start of making real friends, among other obvious benefits to shipping your kids off to public school. :-) 

Through all this transition, the one part of all this transition that I never was in denial about was the missing of our friends. I started seeing all the places in my daily life that used to have a friend in it now had no one. We initially kept busy seeing a couple of old friends and seeing our realtor more than anyone else. But as the summer wore on and there was not much new to report to old friends and fewer houses to even see our realtor, then sometimes the more I'd catch myself thinking, "What have we done??" I never panicked that we made a mistake moving here. Just more that I had to remind myself that if it took 15 years to get all the friends we left behind in CA, then I've got to be a *little* more patient about how I'm going to get all those friends here.

And then we got this house.

All of a sudden, everything in my mind changes. For one thing, we are still excited -- GIDDY -- about the house. I am constantly thinking about how to make the place look ours, what furniture we'd need eventually, how we'd use which space for what purpose. It's FUN. I never had to think about that when we had an apt and I never bothered window or catalog shopping when there was no where to put anything. I never even bothered decorating the apartment, not even after we got all our stuff, because our lease was 6 months. The only decoration we have is the boys' bedroom walls plastered with their artwork from the summer. Otherwise, boring white walls. But now I can think in color again and I find myself combing Craigslist for deals on extra furniture or looking through catalogs gathering ideas.

But on a deeper level, my heart is finally calm about being here. There's no more, "What have we done??" because for the first time in 4 months, I can look forward and see something concrete, instead of wondering where, when, if ever. I don't have to wonder if we're doing this house hunting wrong, if we're in the wrong price range, if we're going to end up with a dream house or if we will end up with a fixer upper (we ended up with a little of both!). 

And how much in my mind have I put "on hold" because we didn't know where we were going to live: church, friends, neighbors...fun. Not that we haven't gone on fun day trips or explored the city because we have. But whenever we had a free weekend, it seemed like we had to do something towards finding a house, be it going to open houses or hanging out in prospective towns, not for "fun" but more for "research" to see if we like it there.  And on the few occasions when neither of those things happened, it seemed almost irresponsible to have fun when we didn't even have a house.

But now we can think about making friends with neighbors, getting involved with school (although I still have to figure out whether to try to keep Tobey at his current school or whether to switch to our new school mid-year). And even though church could have been decided on independent of house, it wasn't for us for various reasons (ethnic makeup and location of towns for one thing). But now we can think about where to go to church. I had asked Eli's preschool for flexibility in withdrawing if we moved away but now I don't have to worry about that. We can join community activities and not feel like outsiders but instead that we belong. 

We have a town to call our own. A house to call our own. And now, life may go on.

Welcome home

It's amazing to see how God has brought us this far. Upon leaving Sunnyvale, sad as it was, it was really apparent that God was paving the way for us. It started with Tom's job, just a couple weeks before he was thinking of asking his manager if he can telecommute from Boston, there was reorg done in the company and the opportunity to ask fell right into Tom's lap (with a favorable response). The sale of our house went better than we could have ever asked for and our realtor's advice to sell early really paid off. Now we hear about declining markets, even in the Bay Area, and we feel lucky to have just beaten it.

When we got here, we were pretty much settled on Lexington. The more I spent time here, the more I liked it. But the more we spent time here, the more we'd hear about disgruntled residents, often about the competitive schools. The house hunting, while somewhat fun, wasn't quite working out. We had one offer not accepted and another that we pulled out on due to water problems. On both houses we felt okay about not getting them, feeling like God will take care of us somehow. But there were certainly days that I wondered where our house was going to come from.

And then we expanded our search to Concord, which is 2 towns out. It's quaint, quiet and we bid on a house that we really liked. I was unsure about the quietness and the homogeneity, but on paper, there was much this house offered: cul-de-sac, great house, great school (newly renovated). We put an offer only to find that the sellers wanted a lot more and weren't in a rush to compromise. Fine, we'll wait. Then we put in an offer again when another family put in an offer. We were both rejected! Boy, couldn't say we didn't try!

We were really at a dilemma point. We liked both towns, they both had their pros and cons, neither are perfect. So which to choose? I definitely fel tlike we weren't just buying a house, we were buying a new life for us and our kids, what neighborhood they live in, what kind of school they go to and what kind of friends they have. The stress was a bit unbearable at times. I couldn't quite make a decision so I did the only thing I could do: asked God to make it clear, ask God to decide. In a way, whichever town we get a house in is where we would live and yet, how would we choose which houses to bid on if we couldn't decide on a town?

Then this house came on the market, just at the right time. Because we had already loved Lexington, tried Concord, and were open to either. Maybe had this house come on the market even 1 month earlier (which it would have except the selling dad wanted to do the handyman work himself), we wouldn't have been so sure we wanted to be in Lexington because we were in our "Concord phase" at the time. Had we gotten the first house we bid on, we would have been behind a noisy street instead of the lovely cul-de-sac we're on now. Had the Concord sellers not been so greedy, we'd be in a different town altogether, possibly always wondering if we really belonged. But because things happened in the order and timing that they did, we end up with a house that love in a town that we are really enjoying.

And all those pros and cons? We're trusting that God will help us through those cons and we'll remember to thank him for the pros.

And 27 houses later...

We arrived in the area May 16. And now, 27 houses later, we can say: we have a house!

We are super excited and feel blessed to have gotten this house. It seems like we squeaked in our just-good-enough offer just-early-enough. Within hours after our offer was accepted, we found out that they canceled two more showings and there was another family who was prepared to write an offer.

It's the right balance for us. The location is great, a cul-de-sac close to the town center, but not in a neighborhood with a name which raises the price sometimes by 100K. The house is not new (1977) but seems like over half of it is newly renovated (2004). Actually, if the house had been completely renovated or any younger, it probably would have been out of our price range. And now there's some updating leftover to do that I get to choose myself. 

More to come, including pictures and more commentary about how we got to this point in our house search. But just putting it on the record: we are homeowners again.

On the lighter side

I'm having a great time grocery shopping here in New England. Call me crazy but I've always liked grocery shopping. Out of the common add-ons to the stay at home mom job, grocery shopping is the one I don't mind doing at all. Once I get to know the stores, where I can find my staples, where I can find my deals, where I can find new and unique items, I am happy as a clam to go grocery shopping.

I thought it couldn't get much better until I saw that the big name supermarkets here all have self checkout. I don't think I've ever said this aloud but my secret dream growing up was to be a grocery checkout person. Especially back in the day before UPC scanners, I had this "thing" for the clickety clack of the register buttons. Whenever we'd go on MARATHON trips to Best or Bell (remember those showroom stores -- my parents would spend what seemed like hours there getting a vacuum cleaner or a new crystal bowl and it seemed even longer for our item to come careening down the conveyer belt), I'd just hang out in the typewriter section and pretend to check out groceries. Mind you, a lot of times the typewriters weren't even plugged in but all the better because those felt and sounded more like a grocery checkout register to me. Tack on the added expectation from my parents to always hold a white collar job, including high school summers, the grocery checkout clerk dream was even more elusive.

I was as excited to do self checkout as the kids so that I can scan my own items, although they always fight over who gets to scan next. But now there is no clickety clack, just the --beep-- of the scanner and the quiet touchscreen. I only go if I have a small number of items because I inevitably upset the system by not bagging at the right time. 

But now I believe we have experienced the ultimate in self checkout: Stop & Shop's EasyShop. I go around with a handheld scanner, a la bridal registry, and scan as I go. For produce, we use a special scale that will print out a scannable sticker. I bag as I go with 3-4 ready to go reusable bags open in my cart (the best bags are double paper w/ handles -- these puppies have lasted me for three months), testing my aforementioned bagging skills. I think it is the fastest way for me to shop when I have a big load. I solo tested the system while the kids were at VBS and then I took them for the first time last week with the self-scanning system. Granted with the kids, things took more than twice as long, especially because it was their first time. But boy will this keep them more than interested and occupied during grocery trips. They can learn a thing or two, like what the produce #'s mean, how to read money amounts (I make Tobey repeat the price back to me) and bagging items into the right bag (produce, meats, dry goods). 

The only downside to my grocery world right now is how hard it has been to get to an Asian market (drive into the city/almost or halfway around the highway). It's killing me to pay $3.79 for a small bottle of oyster sauce or $1.99 for a block of tofu. So I've heard the 99 Ranch equivalent here is Super 88 and my goal is to get to Super 88 sometime this week. I will stock up on sauce and lots of frozen convenient Chinese goodies that were a part of my cooking repertoire back in CA. And then my world will be complete.

Recent "down"

I mentioned the ups and downs of us having moved here. I think I'm currently navigating through a "down". We're amidst a negotiation (well, a lop-sided one, we are clearly not bidding high enough for the seller so it's almost moot) on a house in Concord. Since we had always been targeting Lexington as "our town", I am still getting used to our recent decision to expand our search to Concord. It has made be reevaluate aspects of picking a place to live that I didn't expect to, like ethnic diversity and proximity to errand shopping. I think I have come to a point for indecision for the two towns -- they both have different pros and cons that if we find a house in one town, I might at first feel disappointed that we didn't live in the other, but then I'll remember the "cons" and then be okay with living in the first. And vice versa. Maybe this is a good place to be because in my mind we can't lose. But there's also a weird feeling of we can't win either.

Through all of this is a fact that keeps hitting me square in the face: we have no friends. I make it sound much more pathetic than it is because we do have old friends around and have gotten together with some of them and for that I'm really grateful. It's just that without a routine and a permanent home base, there are no friends that I would see on a daily or even regular basis, like at school, a small group meeting, at the Y or at church. Especially for Concord, it's hard to imagine life there without knowing a single person who lives there. We know several people in Lexington and I figured if they live there, I could too. But Concord? I've only talked to a friend of a friend who just moved there last year. Otherwise, all other attempts to "hang out" in Concord have just left me wondering whether we'd fit in.

Maybe I really *need* blogging

Wow, I haven't been here since July 7? There have been many ups and downs and having just gone through a "down", maybe I need the outlet of blogging more than I think I do. Reading about the good times on our trip and anticipating being in our Newton corporate apartment makes me feel like that was ages ago. And yet it's a good reminder of how far we've gone and the promise of what's yet to come...

Life without TV

Yes, I'm still here. We've been out of town and we are starting to feel the need to settle. Since I've done as much as I can on Facebook without feeling like I'm completely wasting my time, I thought I'd better catch up on life in the blog.

So things are quiet around here so to speak. During the day, they are quite hyper actually. And after the kids are in bed then they are very quiet. Why? Because we have no TV. Eric & Chia-Chi were right -- we probably were the ones that got them hooked on watching TV at night after we stayed with them for a month. When we are tired and not looking to do anything in particular, we'd flick on the TV. And because we haven't gotten our stuff from the movers STILL, then we are without TV for another 2 weeks.

I used to rely on TV in "the witching hours", the half hour to hour before Tom comes home. I'm trying to cook dinner and the kids are getting a little hyper. TV was the Great Calmer. My laptop doesn't haven't a DVD player so I can't show them a movie. And we lent our portable DVD player to Dennis & Denise so I don't even have that to get myself some peace and quiet. So now I'm down to super simple meals anyway and we watch clips of Word Girl on PBS Online when Mommy wants a nap.

As for nighttime, Tom and I still revert to some screen time, but now on our laptops. If you've seen increased Facebook activity from each of us, there's a good reason: no TV. Good thing it's summer. If I were missing Dancing with the Stars or my canceled favorite, Men In Trees, then it'd be a little more painful not having TV. Apparently there's a Discovery Channel special on the changes in China as reported by Ted Koppel. But since none of our family has cable (NO ONE), we're usually the ones TiVoing for the rest of the family. So this no TV thing isn't just hurting us, it's hurting them too.

So when we get our TV back, I feel like the house will be a little noisier. When I was in high school and staying up late to finish homework, I used to like having the TV on in the background (be it Leno or Letterman) because it kept me company, as if someone else was awake in the house. I feel like our little apartment will come alive a little more when our little 24" TV comes back. But then again, our bad habits will probably be back too.

From one Avalon to the next, setting up house

Despite wanting to patronize local businesses, searching for an apartment has led us to the "Starbucks" of apartments: Avalon. We were in an Avalon in Newton, a beautiful 3/3 new apartment that Tom's company put us up at for a month. It was literally bigger than our house in Sunnyvale, had 2 indoor parking spaces for us, elevator, A/C, and a kitchen nicer than any kitchen that I think we'll be able to get in a house in Lexington at our price point (dark wood, brushed nickel hardware, granite counter tops).

So either because of that Avalon in Newton or just wanting to "move on up" (cue the theme song to The Jeffersons) from our Sunnyvale house, we ended up in another Avalon apartment complex but in Lexington. We only really had 2 choices in town because of our desire to have a shorter term lease (6 months). The only other one willing to do it (and barely, based on the dates we had) was an old apartment complex which greatest strength was its location and a free membership to the Hayden Center. The kitchen and bathroom in those apartments were so old that I'd rather use the ones in our Sunnyvale house because at least we could pass our Sunnyvale bathrooms for "retro". It was cheaper too, but I just knew everytime I would walk into that old apartment, I'd be like, "ug" and I just can't live that way for 6-12 months. So Avalon it is: "Time Well Spent" is their logo. More like, "Money well spent".

So we signed a lease for Avalon which is known for being a little nicer, a little newer. There are two here and we are in the "old" one (12 years old). It reminds me of our condo, just a little older, but still in a much newer category than our house so it's "movin' up". I realize that with the Newton apt and this one, I really don't mind "setting up house" since the apartments are clean and newer. With our Sunnyvale house, I just remember thinking (and smelling) "musty" whenever I put away stuff in our kitchen cabinets, needing/wanting to lay down shelf paper first. How nice and easy to *maybe* wipe down a cabinet but otherwise just start putting things in. My fridge in Newton has never been so clean and organized, not cluttered by barely opened jars of mysterious Chinese sauces. And in Newton, since we only lived there for a month, I was also able to keep the pantry uncluttered, not wanting to overbuy and have to move boxes of food over to Lexington.

It is also fun to set up house because we don't have a lot of stuff to unpack into our little 1100 sf apartment. We won't get our stuff from the moving company for another month so we're borrowing and living on the minimum now that our nicely furnished apt is no longer. But that's okay. I take it as continued lessons in living less cluttered. I anticipate having a nice big garage sale sometime after moving to a permanent house. If I can live 6-12 months without some of our stuff, I can bear to give it away.

Now that we have a "permanent temporary" place, a real mailing address, I can start to feel more settled: more willing to make a friend, more willing to move forward on registering for school, summer activities and finding doctors. We are true Lexington residents now. Just waiting for a house to buy.

Little things about Boston

Yes, I know I'm still in the United States but still, there are little things, little reminders, that tell me that I'm in Boston/east coast and not CA anymore.

Limes - They are all over the place! Anywhere you'd expect to see a lemon (wedges for water, lemonade, etc.) you also see a lime! Minute Maid frozen lemonade pops? Nope. Frozen limeade. Paul Newman's lemonade? Yes, you'll find it next to the Paul Newman's limeade. Chipotle had two dishes at the fountain bar, one with lemon wedges, one with lime. Who knew? Which reminds me, can't wait for my first raspberry lime rickey again.

American cheese - In CA, all we could get was the orange kind. It all tastes the same but I always felt like the orange was as unnatural as the thought of the processed American cheese food itself. White American cheese always made me feel a little better since the days back in high school when I first ran across it in MD. But I could never find it in CA.

Buying liquor - Leftover from some archaic law about not selling alcohol on Sundays (blue law?), you can't buy beer or wine in grocery stores, most of them anyway. Most of my friends know I don't drink but I just wanted red and white wine to cook with again. Can't find it anywhere! Thank goodness MA law allows 3 stores of every chain to sell alcohol and I found a Trader Joe's in nearby Brookline who sold wine. I felt a little like a lush, frustrated whenever a store clerk would say they don't sell wine.

Driving - I'm still surprised that the drivers are often nice here. Crazy, yes, but nice. They let you in when traffic is tight. They wave at you if you let them in. It's much more interactive, it makes you feel good.

Although today at Trader Joe's, some guy was beeping a lady who wasn't getting into her car fast enough. She was waiting for me because I was getting my kids out of my car next to hers. She was so ticked at the honker, she said she was going to stand there longer just because. Ah...east coasters.

Roads - The roads here are just nuts. They aren't straight at all. I've never depended on the GPS so much in my life. And we're getting used to the crazy pattern that a street named after a city means that street leads to that city. In Lexington, you'll find Bedford Street, Woburn Street, Winchester Street and Waltham Street. As soon as Waltham Street cross the border into Waltham, it is called Lexington Street. It's confusing but I used it once to my advantage while lost in Newton and trying to get to Lexington. I saw a Lexington Street and blindly followed it and it worked!

Lexington itself is its own tangled web of confusing roads. There's a 4/225 route which in some parts of town is Mass Ave and others it's Marrett Road. And in other parts of town I think Marrett is 2A and in yet others Mass Ave is 2A. Mass Ave and Marrett do end up intersecting in two places in town. There's 2 and there's 2A, 3 and 3A, which are not the same. Sometimes a street will split and the small side road retains the name of the big road and the big road continues on with a different name. There are lots of spider web like intersections, not just 2 roads crossing at right angles, but 3-5 roads converging at random angles. And of course, roundabouts.

Weather - It has rained its fair share here and I'm surprised I'm not more appalled by the regularity of the rain, seeing that I've been out of it for a good 15 years. It's somewhat refreshing. I always used to say that I like rainy days because if I'm in a crappy mood, then at least everyone else is too. When I first arrived in CA, the day in day out sunnyness started to get on my nerves, like everyone's supposed to be happy all the time because it's sunny all the time. Maybe I'm back in my element now, going with the ups and downs of the weather, feeling relieved that it's okay almost relieving to stay inside for the rainy day, and being extra appreciative for the beautiful day that follows.

Still "on the move"

Our cross-country trip is over but I still intend to update the blog with posts (past due and present). We still are looking for a house and of course we still feel like we just got here (because we did) so there's plenty of relocation thoughts still to come.

But for faithful friends who have been reading and wondering what we've been up to...

Temp housing - We are now in our second week of corporate temp housing. It's a great apartment -- 3BR, 3BA, which is bigger than our house in Sunnyvale! (And possibly more square footage too.) I've been enjoying having more space and less stuff -- I'm actually not really looking forward to getting all of our stuff from the moving company because it's been rather liberating living minimally since when our house was staged. Just goes to show how much *stuff* we Americans accumulate. Also a lesson for our next relo: get rid of stuff before, not after, you move. I already did, but I think there's a lot more that we could live without.

Exploring the new - It's been fun for me to explore the area. I enjoyed grocery shopping before (I know, bizarre), but now with new brands, new stores, new stuff (like WHITE American cheese), it's like an adventure for me. Some people prefer bush whacking in the jungle, I prefer finding new grocery stores. Last week I also made it a point to get into Lexington, our intended place to buy a house, once a day to get a feel for the town even more. I went to Wilson Farm for produce and the park at the center of town, even met a mom!

Getting around - Driving here has been an experience. It really is funny to see how the habits differ from coast to coast. My first venture out by myself was pretty insane. The GPS (thank GOODNESS for the GPS!) took me via local roads two towns over to the closest Target. None of the streets are straight nor intersect at 90 degree angles here so no wonder drivers here do crazy maneuvers to get where they want to go.

I was honked at no less than 3 times for not starting fast enough and while I thought I was abiding by the law by waiting for my right of way, I'd find Bostonians frantically waving me to go first like I was crazy not to take them up on their generosity. But when in Rome: I find myself feeling a little generous at times and waving my share of people into line.

Tobey has asked about the T a few times. And I'd love to take the kids on a T ride some time. But it seems like anywhere we'd go on the T is for "fun" and until we settle a little more, I'm afraid we won't have time for fun like that for a while.

Renting an apartment - Our timing was such that unless we went into 30-day closing the first day we got here, we'd have to find a rental apartment as an intermediate step from temp housing to buying a house. We wanted the flexibility of a short term lease so there were really only 2 available places in town, one old and one new. The newer one of course cost more but I could literally see myself hating the old place every time I had to do laundry in the basement or every time I banged my elbows on the narrow doors. And the kitchen of the old place was older than the kitchen in our house in Sunnyvale so in an effort not to move backwards in the housing food chain, we opted for the newer place. For local friends, we'll be at the Avalon in Lexington -- come drop by!

Finding a house - We interviewed 3 realtors, one of which we ruled out within 10 minutes of meeting him. Nice guy and humble, but just not the kind of realtor we need as people brand new to the area. We are still undecided between the realtor Sophie recommended after screening her realtor network or a realtor that a friend of friends used to buy their house in Sunnvyale. Each realtor has her strengths, both we like. We went out with the first realtor to see a couple of houses and were impressed with her attention to detail and willingness to point out the negatives of a house (and not just sell us anything to make a sale). We plan on going out with the second realtor as she seems to think outside the box, find properties early, act quickly. I feel like I'm on eHarmony, dating two realtors and needing to decide on committing to one in the coming weeks.

As for the houses themselves, we are slowly coming to the conclusion that the kind of house we intended to buy is at the tippy top of our price range, if not a bit beyond. So Lexington is still expensive although we still get more for the money than in Sunnyvale. We considered getting an older house on a good lot/location and then renovating it ourselves but even that isn't quite within range (or doesn't exist?? or just hasn't come on the market?). We opened the possibility of neighboring (cheaper) towns with good schools. It's just hard to believe that we made out so well selling our house in CA and we still struggle to find what we like here in Lexington. Makes me wonder if we are jumping a step from starter home to dream home. And I'm not even talking about dream home here, just home for the next 20 years kind of home. So I need to remind myself that God brought us this far and not to get too discouraged.

Friends - We do miss our friends back in CA dearly, but it has been nice to have some friends to reconnect with here in MA. We went over to my old roommate and college buddy Cecelia's house -- they live in Lexington and it was nice to vent about our housing search with them (as well as have play friends for Tobey and Eli). We saw many old friends at church the first Sunday we arrived. And tonight we're having our first friend over for dinner -- hosting at our tastefully decorated and furnished temp apartment that I had nothing to do with. :-) But we have no school friends yet (because no school) and no church family, and probably not for a while.

Family - The main reason for our move was to be closer to family and let's just say it's starting to pay off already. With our move to our apartment coming up, both my mom and Tom's mom offered to come up and help and while they probably would have (and DID) had we lived in CA, it's nice to know it's not such a big burden for them to come out and help.

As far as being within an hour and a half of Tom's brother's house? That's been GREAT. We went to their house last weekend (our first) to pick up our 2nd car which was shipped to their house. We just spent the day up there. This past weekend we went up for an overnight for the long weekend. It's been great to see the 4 kids play so well together. And their New Hampshire lifestyle certainly is like a vacation for us. It's nice to just spend the whole day basically at home or at the local playground, without feeling like we had to "do" something together. It's nice to be able to say goodbye without feeling like it will be another 6-12 months before we see them again.

What's next - We are starting the ball rolling on getting pre-approved. We are also getting ready to move into our apartment June 13 -- happy anniversary to us -- what a way to spend it. After we move in, we gotta turn around and head out to Indiana for my cousin's wedding, a week's vacation with my family and a nice little return visit to the Bay Area for Melissa's wedding that I'm standing in. After all that, maybe we'll start to settle in a little more.

The Eagle has landed!

My dad says "The Eagle has landed" every time they touchdown at an airport. As much as I'm tired of that historical phrase, I feel it appropriate after our long journey:

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED!

We made it! We made it to Boston! It's a little surreal to be here. We haven't seen anyone we know (yet, we're going to Tom's brother's house tomorrow), I haven't seen anything I truly recognize (I don't know Newton very well), we've got an apartment that does remind me of the 3-star hotels that we've been in for the past 3 weeks. Even the towels in the bathroom were folded the same way!

I felt like I left the west when the landscape turned green in eastern Texas. Still don't know when I will feel like I've moved here -- when we sign our first lease or contract? When I buy my first staples like food and toilet paper (which will have to be tomorrow!)? When Tobey starts school?

More later...

The Tally

Miles driven: Around 4,000, including day/side trips! Lego/Disneyland weren't exactly "on the way".
Miles driven by Ang: 0
Days on the road: 21
States crossed: 13, including CA, MA and the 13 miles in West Virginia
States with "welcome" sign caught on camera: 9, none for CA as we were leaving and 3 to be caught tomorrow

Cities stayed in: 14, not including Boston
Different hotels stayed in: 11
Days in a hotel: 14
Days we stayed in a Hampton Inn/Suites: 6, 7 if you include the Hilton in Scranton (same rewards program)
Times we swam in hotel pool: 4
Times Eli rolled off the hotel bed: 2, and then we started getting cribs for him everywhere
Favorite hotel of the trip: Drury Plaza Inn in St. Louis

Homecooked dinners: 5
Tom's Starbucks: 9
Ang's Starbucks: 2
Times eaten at McDonald's: 1
Times we duplicated a restaurant: 1, if you count the In-N-Out in Gilroy, just 45 min. into our trip. Otherwise, 0!
Times we ate at a Chinese restaurant: 1

National Parks/Monuments visited: 4
Amount spent on admission to National Parks: $78.50
Amount needed for annual pass to National Parks: $80
Days before we finally crossed CA border: 6

DVD's watched in the car: 0, as long as we can get through tomorrow without it too
Number of portable DVD players kids think we own: 0
Surprises/new toys given: too many, that's why we got away with no DVD's
Windmills counted: 54, mostly in Texas
Fights in the back of the car: I have a headache just thinking about them
Gadgets in the car: 5 (GPS, Blackberry, 2 cell phones, iPod)

Days left on our trip of a lifetime: 1

Day 20: Pittsburgh to Scranton

Our day's summary:

- Breakfast and pack at Tom's parents'
- Drive
- Stop for potty
- Drive
- Stop for potty
- Drive
- Arrive in Scranton
- Wild goose chase for Olive Garden dinner
- Swimming at the Hilton pool
- Easy bedtime because the kids were tired

Today our destination was Scranton because it's about halfway to Boston. I had heard of Scranton but didn't think much of it. And then The Office came along and Scranton all of a sudden has a kind of celebrity status for me, as if I think I'm going to see Steve Carell or Jenna Fisher walk down the street. I did look for the sign from The Office (parts of Scranton are indeed as industrial as the opening credits make it look) but it seems like they might have updated the signs since filming although I don't think I ever saw the true location of the sign. Unless it's a fictional sign and then I feel silly.

This is how you know we are "just making time" on our trip now -- we saw an interesting coal mine tour, but we thought maybe we should just get to MA tomorrow instead of stopping for something fun -- we do have a full 5 hours to drive. But so long as our kids are still youngish, if we ever do drive to Pittsburgh, we probably will be stopping in Scranton (and at this Hilton if the rates stay this low and the pool stays that warm!) and have a chance to do the tour another trip. Speaking of coal, I saw a sign that said "Anthracite Museum" and Tom was like, "Oh yeah, that's one kind of coal. The other is biticul-blah-blah-blah." He said he learned it in school. That's a Pittsburgh kid for ya.

Curiously missing from our day's summary is "lunch". That's because we ate lunch on the road. We first tried it on our 6.5 hour drive from Indy to Pittsburgh and Auntie Pauline made us sandwiches for the car. That saved quite a bit of time, calories, money (if we were paying!) as well as grief. It worked well so when Tom's mom offered this morning, I took it. I used to think of our lunch stops also as a stretch break but sometimes the kids are so hyper about being out of the car that half of the conversation at lunch is "Eli, get down from there" or "Tobey, use your restaurant voice." It's almost easier to stay in the car. They don't mind so much staying in the car if they are busy eating. We take other short potty/stretch breaks, but skipping a lunch stop certainly helped us get into town earlier in the end.

I first thought, "Darn, we should have thought of this sooner!" But 1) who would make us sandwiches when we stay in hotels? Me? Ha! Grocery shopping and food storage was the last thing on my mind this vacation. And 2) we were making tons of stops and weren't necessarily needing to make up time on the road.

These last two legs of driving (Indy to Pitt to Scranton) have been smooth. We're not looking for anything in particular but I've found a pattern for the day. Eli konks out soon after we get on the road. Tobey can either absorb himself in a book, play car games with Tom, or like this morning, take a nap himself! So sometimes I get to catch up on a morning nap while Tom is fueled by his Starbuck's. After Eli wakes up, it's usually time for lunch. After lunch, we are all awake so we try to do car games, stories, general car entertainment, listening to VeggieTales for the 3rd time in 2 hours. When the kids start getting antsy, it's time for a surprise from Collin, who is a schoolmate who gave us a goodie bag of "little" goodies to keep the ride interesting. Not that other friends didn't give us great gifts for the trip -- some we also gave during the trip or I'm saving for when we are in Boston. But the goodie bag by Collin's mom just happened to be all wrapped (upping the excitement factor) as well as "little" surprises (she said so herself) that I don't mind giving daily. Some of the other surprises were actually so nice that I would wait for a bigger event to give those. Anyway, after surprise time, there's usually just an hour or so left and it's not so bad when we are all anticipating an end to the driving day.

I realized when we sat at dinner tonight that it was our "last supper" on the road. Sure, we will probably eat out tomorrow night after we arrive into our corporate guest housing in Newton just because we will have nothing to eat at "home". But it will be different because we will already be "home", in our new home area. Kind of weird to think that. And like I predicted in the middle of our trip, I am sad to see this vacation end. It has had its ups and downs but mostly ups, many big ups and little ups, and some great family time. I can't believe we've made it all the way across the country. You can see the distance we drove on a globe. The trip we've talked about for so long is just about finished. I'll savor our last day on the road. And then it's time to move on.

On the road again...

My scribbled notes about Days 13-15 are in the car, so I'm still not caught up with the Midwest portion of our trip. But just to update, we've been in Pittsburgh at Tom's parents' for the past two days. It's been a nice break, home cooked food, getting to sleep in, even getting a movie night tonight (Iron Man -- quite good!). We went to the Pittsburgh Zoo and today mostly stayed home, played with silly string (thanks to Ramsey, Collin's mom), did some errand shopping for the remainder of our trip. The kids are quite self entertaining here, either with toys that we have from the car or just running around in the family room. And it sure helps to have the loving watchful eye of two grandparents around.

But as we prepare for the last two legs of our trip, I realize we are out of routine. Out of the road trip routine. When I was cleaning/organizing/repacking the car today, I saw the old relics of the first two weeks of *the* road trip: a map to Legoland, the EZ66 guide book, the kids meal toy from the Sonic drive in. We've only been here for two days and some of those things seem like ages ago already. Just like how, sadly, some aspects of life in Sunnyvale seem like months ago, even though it's only been a couple of weeks.

And though we embark on the last two legs of our trip, it's not with the same leisure that we did the first umpteen legs. We are trying to "make time" now, even more so than getting to Indianapolis before dinner or our 6.5 hour "marathon" to get here. In getting to Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, it was to get in before dinner or within a reasonable hour so we have time to spend with family in each place. But now, we are trying to get to Boston, to resume regular life.

We'll have to look for a rental, interview real estate agents, start working, apply for driver's licenses, etc. Cook, run errands, grocery shop. And although making and reconnecting with friends will hopefully be fun, it also comes with the extra burden of *needing* to make friends in order to start to feel connected. It wasn't the leisurely optional friend making, it's the kind where we hope to find someone to replace the Thomas & Alice's and Eric & Chia-Chi's of our lives. To find a church, a growth group, a mom's group, a school(s), housing, neighbors, etc. all to try to regain a semblance of the comfort we had after 15 years in CA.

It's been fun to talk to a couple friends from Sunnyvale. Our neighbors said it was weird to look across the street, see "our" door open and to feel like someone else was living in our house. Our growth group called and left a voicemail on the cell all saying Hi. I got to talk to Alice live and Tom got a message from Richard. It's nice to be in touch a little as we head into completely new territory.

Sooo, back on the road tomorrow. The kids did great in the car from Indy to here, 6.5 hours, our longest day. We have two 5-hour days ahead of us -- although there's a little bit of apprehension on my part, not knowing how the kids will do on the road again, I'm quite excited to roll into Boston and finally enter into this next phase of our lives

Cars and Route 66

I wish I had seen this guide to Route 66 and the Cars movie before our trip so I could make more connections between Cars and the real Route 66. Some of the fun things I didn't know were that the tractors were probably representative of the burros we saw wandering around Oatman and the "RS" that I never noticed on the rocks in Radiator Springs was a tipoff to the "T" that I DID see on the mountain in Tucumcari in real life. Well, but even so, we did make a lot of movie to real life connections and we watched the DVD extra where John Lasseter talks about the inspiration to Cars. It's nice to see someone who knows the Mother Road to put in the work into deciphering the movie to the rest of us. It makes me fall in love with the movie all over again.

So while we were driving through Shamrock, TX -- actually, we were just there to eat at the Pizza Hut but we drove through "town" since it was right off the highway. We found the tall Conoco spire that I wanted to see because our Route 66 guidebook author said it was great neon. While we passed it, Tobey says...

Tobey: "I want to see that! That!" (pointing)
Us: "What do you want to see?"
Tobey: "The thing that looks like Radiator Springs!"

And so I feel like all of our effort to choose Route 66 over the shorter northern route was all worth it. I was waiting for something to "click" for Tobey, that he recognizes Route 66 as being from the Cars movie that he knows so well. And to hear him mention Radiator Springs unprompted just makes it all worth it.

Route 66 Thoughts (Guest Blogger Tom)

Traveling on route 66 has been fun, but not for the reasons that I expected. I was expecting a lot of the old buildings, gas stations, and signs to be restored to their original pristine condition. In reality, only very few have been. Most of the sights are as run down and decrepit as I'd expect for being unmaintained for almost 30 years - faded, covered in graffiti, broken neon, etc. And it doesn't help that the guide that we bought seemed to be exaggerating the descriptions of the sights. A building would be described as being "well preserved and having vivid colors", and the only thing left would be 3 walls covered in grafitti. Maybe I'm exaggerating now, but that's what it felt like. We learned to take the descriptions with a grain of salt. When I heard about the Route 66 mini golf, I was joking that maybe they just give you a stick and a rock to play with. Also, the poor preservation of the Route 66 sights just seemed to pale in comparison to my trips to Europe, where buildings and sculptures seem to last for centuries in excellent condition.

I think the fun part for me about traveling Route 66 is that it's like a giant scavenger hunt played over thousands of miles. Drive for a few hours down some deserted road, and then look for some ruins described in the book, and snap a photo of it. It doesn't matter that the ruins look even worse than the guide's description. Point is, that we hunted it down and captured it (on camera). I don't think the kids understand at all -- they are barely amazed at the Grand Canyon, why would they be remotely interested by some broken neon sign? But that's how I'm "getting my kicks".

However, there have been some true gems on Route 66. Cadillac Ranch was a really fun stop. The only painting I've done in recent memory is the inside of my now-former house and I had to be very careful about not getting anything else dirty. And I can't remember the last time I did any spray painting, so it was very freeing to just buy 2 cans of spray paint at the local Home Depot, and just freehand paint on the cadillacs. And the idea of an orange construction sign with "Chang Xing '08" seemed to perfectly sum up the spirit of our trip.

- Tom

Finally moving east (warning: schmaltz ahead)

I am aware of the fact that I don't have a "travel blog" for yesterday and today. I haven't forgotten them nor Day 5: Disneyland, but out of fear that I will forever be behind, I will go ahead and blog some general thoughts I've been having, now that we've crossed the halfway point of our trip (time and mileage wise) and get back to the travel details later.

[By the way, I hope to make a book a la MyPublisher or Blurb of our cross country journey, pictures, edited entries and all. I'm really excited to do it (when I'll have the time, who knows) and I just wanted to say it publicly so that maybe someone will keep me accountable to it!]

Just east of Amarillo, we started noticing something we don't usually see in California this time of year: GREEN. The grass turned green. And then the trees that we saw weren't just dark green bushes that survive in deserts, they were real trees with real leaves, not pine needles. It looked lush, alive, and the vibe is totally different. Granted, the scenery along the interstate is more motonously green vs. the interesting rock formations or flat desert of the southwest. But entering the green zone really made me feel like I've left the west. In addition, at some point on the way to Tulsa today, we came down a hill and I could see a lot of green ahead and a couple tall buildings popping out in the distance. It totally reminded me of driving Route 2 from Lexington to Boston and you come down a slope and you can see the Boston skyline ahead over green trees. It just drilled in the point even more that we were maybe closer to Boston than California now.

I can't believe that Disneyland was only just over a week before and our house in Sunnyvale feels like at least a month ago. It's weird that the week leading up to our leaving, I couldn't imagine actually making it to our move date and I couldn't comprehend what we were getting ourselves into. And now that we're on our trip, I have a hard time thinking back to before our move and of course I can't comprehend what lies ahead for us. It's a little surreal. Today I talked to Denise, Tom's sister-in-law in NH. She said it hasn't hit her that we are moving into the area. And I said, "You're not the only one!"

Being on the road for 2 weeks really makes me miss our friends and family. We've called our parents once every couple of days to check in and make sure they know we are safe. And I'm blogging to let you all know (as well as keep a journal of) how our little trek is going. But for the most part, we are isolated. And so this is when I realize what we have left behind: numerous friends that we've gathered over 15 years, some that we see every day at school, multiple times a week, some we see weekly, some that we only see less than once a month but who have known us since our single days. We knew that no matter when we left California, it would never be easy to leave friends but I am starting to realize what leaving the friends feels like. We really do miss you guys -- it might be easier to be the leaver than the leavee, but it still wasn't easy for us to leave you all.

In between leaving past friends and making new ones, it's been fun being a little family pod (literally in our minivan, it feels like a travel pod for 4!) and we've had some great family times. I will be sad to see this vacation end. If you've been following our blog, being together with the boys 24/7 has had its ups and downs. But I will take it all, because I do feel like we are on a really special trip. How often do we get to be on vacation for this long without worrying about work or school schedules? And to see and learn different things from the grandest of all Grand Canyons to the craziest little sno-cone stop on Route 66? At this point in our trip, we just need to make up some time and even with 3 weeks allotted, I feel like we could totally spend more time exploring (or finding things in this giant scavenger hunt like Tom writes). Alas, reality awaits but even so, re-rooting down in Boston will also be exciting, just a different kind of exciting.

Tomorrow we visit St. Louis. We will only be there a day and given the time, the only thing we will see is The Arch. We'll probably have to do something nostalgic, like the four of us cross the Arch at the same time, symbolic of us moving east. It's cheesy but that's what I feel right now: a bit nostalgic. I think it will be strange when I go back to CA for a friend's wedding at the end of June. I wonder if I will feel like I never left or if I will already feel like a foreigner in a strange land.

Day 12: Santa Fe to Amarillo

We lost another hour due to crossing a time zone. At this rate, we're gonna be waking up at noon! But who cares? We're on VACATION! :-)

Our day's summary:

- Breakfast at the hotel, Inn of the Governors in Santa Fe

- Blogging from the road

- Lunch in Tucumcari, NM

- Flatlands into TX

- Cadillac Ranch

- Dinner at the Big Texan in Amarillo

BREAKFAST - I just could not eat much this morning. While we are NOT at a Hampton, I guess mediocre hotel food is getting to me. I eat the same exact breakfast everyday at home and don't get sick of it. But on the road, I guess I just have to be thankful I don't have to go grocery shopping or cook. Be thankful, be thankful...

BLOGGING FROM THE ROAD - For the first time, I'm blogging in the minivan! No internet connection of oourse, just laptopping. But I feel very high tech right now. Today we have no "real" stops, just getting to Amarillo and Cadillac Ranch (okay, so that's a stop but that's practically in Amarillo). So I've been doing some reading to the kids in the car, letting them play with toys, uploaded Tobey's camera photos (and thus, pulled out the laptop). The view out here is getting pretty flat and my ears are popping left and right. We must be hitting the plains where exits are dozens of miles apart. Of course this is when Eli wants a potty break. Thank goodness for "the jar" and boys.

The boys are currently doing fine in the car -- taking pictures (of each other) with the kiddie camera and playing with the slinky and crinkle tubes. I think we can get through today without mentioning the DVD AND we might get into Amarillo early enough to do a family movie night tonight. Uh oh, Tom just turned on the country music. It might be a long ride to Amarillo yet.

LUNCH IN TUCUMCARI - We did a fast food lunch (KFC, thought of you, Alice...and Krista!) and realized that we have yet to "repeat" a restaurant on this trip. Then again, when it comes to road food and fast food, how different can it really be? We are trying to do local fare when practical. We are saving McDonald's for when we encounter the biggest McD's in the world, somewhere in OK or MO. Tucumcari, while a real town, didn't have a Starbuck's for Tom to load up on caffeine. That's how you know you're in the middle of nowhere.

FLATLANDS - I read in our EZ66 book about counting windmills when we get into TX. So when I first started seeing them after Santa Fe, I suggested counting them. Tobey protested of course but when Tom and I started to count them, he got into it too. Current count into Amarillo = 32, if you include the fake one at the Big Texan (we excluded the windmill farm full of the big white modern windmills). It sure did make the "boring" ride into TX more enjoyable and another thing we would have missed if we had pulled out the DVD.

CADILLAC RANCH - The most exciting part about today was Cadillac Ranch, a bunch of old caddies dug into the ground nose first, a canvas for "public art" (read: graffiti). Although it was never on Route 66, it's kind of a Route 66 classic and its semblance even made it into the rocky scenery in "Cars". We dropped by the local Home Depot, bought some spray paint, and made our contribution. I think our family picture there might best represent our trip. It was mighty windy and when Eli tampered with our spray paint can, he sent a plastic glove flying down the flat cow field never to be seen again (he cried like he lost a balloon). We met some nice locals (even one who was proud to be barefoot) and had fun being part of a classic 66 tradition.

BIG TEXAN - The Big Texan is the restaurant where if you can eat a 72 oz. steak (plus sides) in 1 hour, you get it for free. It's an insane amount of meat but we were happy that one guy from Abilene TX tried to do it while we were there so we could be rubberneckers. We finished our dinner while he was at about the 38 min. mark (as in, 38 min. LEFT) and it seemed like he was already slowing down. After some arcade games and a whirl through the fudge and gift shops, we left the restaurant to find he had given up. I'm kind of glad he did -- it's kind of crazy to be able to finishing that thing. It was HUGE.

Texas is fun, lots of character. Sometimes when I hear a native talk, I keep thinking they're faking it like they are playing a movie role or something until I realize: they really do talk like that. We won't see any other cities in TX on this trip but we have 2 Chang cousin weddings coming up in the next year and it will be fun to come back and see more of the Lone Star state.

Tomorrow, Oklahoma!

Notes about being on the road

As if I didn't already have enough to say. Tom's co-worker once told him about how a friend of his took a trip and blogged about it. But the wife also sometimes wrote the blog. Whenever the wife wrote, the post was super long, explaining every detail. Whenever the husband wrote, it was like, "Today we went to Paris. Saw the Eiffel. Saw some museums. It was fun." I wonder what the posts would look like if Tom were to write?

So, some of my random notes about being on the road:

• This southwest weather is DRY. Tom and the boys are getting their signature Chang dry skin patches again. And I don't know if it's the white balance on the camera or what but our unmoisturized legs in shorts are looking mighty chalky.
• I'm *trying* to eat well. I never thought that after just 2 days of "road food" (i.e., burgers) that I'd be opting for small town Chinese food (Flagstaff) and grilled fish with veggies (Cracker Barrel in Gallup). And ever since our 2nd ever pitstop in before the Grapevine in southern CA, I vowed not to get a Starbuck's unless I'm the driver in need of sugar/caffeine. And since Tom's done ALL the driving so far, he's had like 10 Starbuck's mochas by now (well, I don't know about 10, but somewhere between 5-10).
• What kid doesn't love hotels because they get to watch TV? If it's still early in the morning, we can catch good shows for the kids (Clifford, Super Why) on PBS while we pack. But like today and at least one other day, we're gettin' close to check out deadline and the only thing on is Spongebob and Tom & Jerry. But what does Tobey like to watch? The Weather Channel! Hallelujah, a safe alternative!
• Speaking of weather, I wonder why Tobey is so interested in weather. Is it possibly because Northern CA weather is so boring? Tobey seems quite intrigued that it could rain in Boston in the summer. And with isolated T-storms in this southwest/southern area, I'd actually not mind getting caught in a thunderstorm, as long as it's just a driving day and not a day we want to see anything. So far on this trip, the weather has been nothing short of perfect. One day in Sedona it was in the 80's but it was so dry, you don't feel yourself sweating. As long as we don't get caught in a tornado while going across the plains states, I wouldn't mind seeing a little rain out here.
• Mad Libs - We call them "silly stories". We first encountered them in a Travel Activity Book that Tobey's teachers gave us. Tobey is the King of Silly so he has fun not only filling in the blanks (I write, he learns about nouns and adjectives), but he likes hearing the stories days later. My Cracker Barrel Country Store find? A real Mad Libs book.
• I think I mentioned in a previous post about (mostly Tobey's but sometimes also Eli's) disobedience. Things finally came to a head two days ago and Tobey earned himself a spanking for outright disobedience. I know sometimes a 2 year old can't control his impulses which is why Eli has still been getting time outs which mostly seem to work on him. But Tobey was getting out of control and I hated trying to nag/teach him the same rules and things over and over and over again (times two because Tom's been correcting him too). So one morning while we were packing, things just got so bad that he had to get a spanking and a lecture. I must say that by the next day, behavior has been markedly improving. Much less of his out of control, silly/hyper, lack of listening to us. And that means a much more enjoyable trip for all.
• On that note, I also wondered if the kids needed more attention from us. Hard to believe that you could be with someone 24/7 and them still not get enough attention. But since we're doing this trip on the fly, there's a lot of navigating and sightseeing going on and perhaps not as much "family time", the kind of simple family time that kids crave. So that's why I pushed for swimming this morning and Tom's been looking for an evening to do a movie night (which the kids love -- too bad the Route 66 Drive-In theater in Carthage, MO is only showing PG-13 movies). There's a Route 66 mini-golf in Oklahoma City and some rest stop in western OK that the book says is a must-stop because of a nice playground for kids. So especially since some of the big sights are behind us, we hope to do more "family time" kinds of activities.

One last note, don't forget about our Flickr pictures. We uploaded some more tonight.

Day 11 (today): Gallup to Santa Fe (with props to all of our technology)

Today we wanted to see something different: "a city different" -- Santa Fe, NM.

Our day's summary:
- Breakfast and indoor swimming at our hotel
- On the road at 1:30PM!
- The crazed search for the Continental Divide
- FUN lunch at a real Sonic Drive-In!
- Quick stop at Up N' Atom, the museum shop for the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque
- Checked in to our Santa Fe hotel and walked around the "Plaza"
- Dinner at a concierge recommendation, "Tomasita's", listened to Mariachi!

BREAKFAST & SWIMMING - We were not very adjusted to the change to Mountain time. It doesn't make a big difference when you're on vacation but given that we are already starting to sleep later and wake up later, then lose an hour crossing a time zone, at 9:30AM, the kids and Tom were still sleeping. I go downstairs to gather up some of our usual Hampton Inn breakfast items and bring them upstairs. I think this is the 5th straight day of Hampton Inn (& Suites) in 3 different cities. There's something nicely comforting of finding the same thing while we're on the road for 3 weeks -- Tobey even knows how to help us set up the bathroom for our showers/baths and Eli's potty, it's pretty funny. But 5 days of the same breakfast (and I LOVE breakfast) is starting to get to me. I felt awful for leaving half of the food I brought upstairs but we just couldn't eat anymore of the same. We keep picking Hampton because we figured if there was ever a time to try to gather "frequent traveler" points, now is the time. I think we're gonna need to pick some other hotels in the same program soon. Waldorf-Astoria in Amarillo, Texas, maybe? ;-)

Today didn't have any big stops in store so we thought we'd take advantage of the time (and the indoor pool, given that isolated thunderstorms are in the region) and have some family time at the pool. We had a grand time, this time the kids throwing out the skimmer discs into the pool and me and Tom racing for them. I think they got a kick out of Mommy & Daddy playing together. I got a kick out of us playing together. It was nice to have a private pool!

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE - So because of swimming and late checkout, after a gas pit stop (NM gas is 86 octane, not 87?), we were finally on the road looking for the Continental Divide. It is no more than a brown sign commemorating the divide. We missed it the first time because we were distracted by the brightly colored Route 66 gift shop that said, "CONTINENTAL DIVIDE!! AND INDIAN KACHINA DOLLS!", which completely overshadowed the understated official brown sign off across the road.

Now I remember as a kid looking for the CD (pictures show that I was about 6). I didn't know what it was then and only now can I comprehend what it means (the west side is where the rain water drains to the Pacific, the east side to the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico). Eli was konked out in the car so we just took pictures of Tobey (and me) at the CD to send back to his school friends. Apparently, they are still excited about the "Where in the World is Tobey Chang?" activity I started for them before we left. Ms. V says that the kids fight each day to see who gets to move Tobey's "head" to our next destination. I'm glad they're so excited about it. I feel bad that our progress is so slow (I did tell them it would take us 3 weeks!). Luckily, when we stayed in Flagstaff for 3 days to explore Grand Canyon, etc., it was the weekend so I didn't have to call 3 days and say "We're STILL in Flagstaff."

SONIC DRIVE-IN - At this point, it is 2:30PM or so and our original plan of finding "lunch" in Albuquerque (while still finding late green chile dinner in Santa Fe) was not working out, we went to our trusty GPS to tell us what restaurants were coming up in the area that we could eat at. The usual chains (McD's, Taco Hell, KFC...) popped up, but so did Sonic Drive-In. I had seen Sonics in CA before but have never been. So if we're just looking for a quick bite anyway, why not try a "new" fast food restaurant?

Turns out, Sonic Drive-In was AWESOME! The food was typical (although there were a plethora of frozen drinks to choose from from slushies, to creamy slushies, to shakes, to malts, to Java Blasters, all with multiple flavors. We lost some time just figuring out the menu. But what made lunch AWESOME was that this was a true drive-in restaurant. There were two rows of parking spaces each with a menu like when you do drive-thru. You push the button, call in your order and within a few minutes, a Sonic server bolts out the door and brings the food to your car! The only thing better was if she were on roller skates! So we had a fun lunch complete with tater tots and we were on our way to Albuquerque.

UP N' ATOM - Thanks to our EZ66 guide, we read about Up N' Atom, the museum shop to the National Atomic Museum. I guess there's all this space/atom bomb/nuclear stuff in NM because of Los Alamos, Sandia and all the testing, etc. done in the state. All we wanted was a little something fun to give to Tom's brother who works in a nuclear power plant. We arrived with 15 min. to spare (as reminded a few times by uptight older ladies who thought we were a bit *late* in coming). We walked out with a tie for Dennis (with nuclear atoms on it), a periodic table mug for my dad (chemical engineer) and a t-shirt for Tom's dad (physics prof) that says, "THE LAWS OF PHYSICS DON'T APPLY TO ME." The kids had a good time too because the somewhat nerdy young woman who was manning the register distracted them with cool toys. We were out of there in 15 minutes as promised with nothing more than a "Why are we leaving so fast?" from Tobey and a bagful of goodies.

PROPS TO TECHNOLOGY - We checked into our hotel in Santa Fe and at this point, I must say, how could we possibly do this trip without our trusty GPS, Blackberry, cell phones, laptops and hotels with wireless hi-speed internet connections? We change our itinerary day to day. We didn't expect to go to the Grand Canyon but in the end, we couldn't resist it. We are still deciding how many dayw we can spare and what to do with them before arriving in Boston. I suppose that being able to look up hotels and sightseeing suggestions each night makes it possible for us to be so spontaneous. At the same time, if we didn't have this kind of flexibility, I don't think this trip would be half as fun (and it would be twice as stressful). Oft in time, we driving out for the day, I've highlighted some Route 66 sights for photo ops, but otherwise, I'm on the Blackberry, looking up or calling hotels while we're just 1-2 hours away from checking into them. We look up info about suggested sightseeing to see if it's really worth our time. It's the ultimate in flying by the seat of our pants and the only way that is possible for semi-picky people like us to do this trip is with technology.

Having said all that, I have to also say that the trip is also not possible without our EZ66 book which gives us turn by turn map info that maps these days don't give for Historic 66, as well as our paper maps from AAA which give us a good overview of where we are going. There have been a couple of times that we've had to ignore Mr. GPS because he doesn't know about 66 or he isn't quite understanding where we are trying to go (we WANTED to take the windier scenic route out of Grand Canyon). But of course, after we put the kids to bed, Tom and I are back on our laptops, blogging, uploading photos, and researching our next stop.

SANTA FE - Santa Fe is truly a city different. All Southwest pueblo looking architecture and decor. We got a chance to walk around the shopping area before hititng our dinner place. We even picked up a Mother's Day gift for Tom's mom. (When the store owner mentioned Mother's Day, I was like, oh yeah, I forgot! I'll be on the road for my Mother's Day!). Tom asked me tonight if I wanted more shopping time tomorrow in and around Santa Fe. Besides the fact that I'm not into Southwest decor, the kids almost tore up the store we were in for Tom's mom's gift, I dare not bring them into an art gallery or fancier store. Thanks, but no thanks. Tomorrow, on to Amarillo.

Day 10 (yesterday): Flagstaff to Gallup

We're making forward progress again!

Our day's summary:
- Yet another Hampton Inn breakfast bar
- Spent 30 min. repacking the minivan again
- Visited Meteor Crater
- Stopped for a few photo ops on 66
- Sped to Petrified Forest National Park/Painted Desert
- Sped to Gallup, NM
- Dinner at 9PM (Mtn time)!

METEOR CRATER - I thought visiting the site of a meteor crater would be a 15 min. photo op stop. Little did we know there was a whole museum (for $15 per adult!) to be seen. The museum was well done -- hands on and interesting for the kids. We even got to experiment with different meteors and have them crash into Earth and see what happens (we made "total destruction" more than a few times). It was windy, it was interesting, it was worth the short detour off the highway.

PHOTO OPS ON 66 - The main photo op today was getting to the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, AZ. The Wigwam looks just like the Cozy Cone in "Cars" and was a must-see for me to show Tobey, to try to have him see the connection from the movie to real life. Of course Tobey falls asleep literally 2 minutes before we find the Wigwam. It was important enough to me that I actually wake him up, he sees the "cones", I say, "Does it look like the Cozy Cone?", he smiles and nods, within 5 seconds he's back to sleep. That made me happy that I at least showed it to him. Will he remember that 2 seconds of looking at the Cozy Cone in real life? Who knows but I will be sure to reinforce it to him with pictures. :-)

NATIONAL PARKS - I felt like a true Chang today. It was our 3rd National Park in 3 days (if you include Montezuma's Castle which is in the NPS). And because we spent so much time at Meteor Crater, we were speeding to get to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert so we could see as much of it as possible before they close at 6PM. We made it and the place was really cool. For one thing, being off-peak season and near the end of the day, the place was eerily empty (we'd see a few cars here and there). Secondly, the bizarre landscape just made you feel like you were on Mars and because there was no one there, it really did FEEL like Mars!

After the first stop where we did a 0.3 mile walk to the big petrified log, most of the landscape didn't impress the kids -- or maybe it did for the first mile and the last 27 were just unnecessary. They were good in the car, self-entertaining, self-snacking, but most of that drive was me and Tom going "Wow!" and stopping at various viewpoints, literally jumping out of the car, taking a snapshot, and jumping back in. If our kids were older, for sure they would have complained or rolled their eyes about how picture crazy we were. In our harried state, we weren't really paying attention to the speed limit (empty two lane roads + 6PM closing time + Chang with National Park Fever at the wheel = recipe for disaster). We were spared a speeding ticket because the park rangers caught the guy we saw at one of our last photo stops instead of us. Phew!

MORE ROUTE 66 - Strangely, I had once mentioned (while reading our EZ66 book aloud) about a giant dinosaur statue eating a woman. I mentioned it to Tom in code so as to not scare Tobey. But eventually Tobey not only figured it out but wanted to see it! It was at a typical crazy Route 66 souvenier shop but this time more crazy because you can get free petrified wood, buy American Indian kachina dolls and feed ostriches all at the same place. It was so Route 66.

WE MADE IT TO NEW MEXICO! - By the time we were done snapping pictures of our trip to pseudo Mars and people eating dinosaurs, it was time to book it to Gallup NM. We ate dinner at a Lih favorite -- Cracker Barrel -- and I did my fastest browse through their country store ever because they were closing at 10PM. At this late hour, you would think we would just call it a night and turn in, but no, I saw this great looking neon that EZ66 author dude mentioned in Gallup. And it sounded like it was working neon so what better time to see it than at night! So after Tom realized I was hell bent on seeing it, we went looking for it at 10PM at night. I was looking for this great big neon with a car riding into the sunset and a big "Route 66" sign all in neon. Apparently, it turned out to be no larger than a large bathroom mirror. Eh, I took a picture anyway (in a scary part of Gallup) and we finally retired to a hotel.