Day 1: Goodbye, Sunnyvale

Over a year of thinking. Six months of talking. Four months of preparing. Moving day finally came. This morning we took off from the hotel, dropped off a couple of last minute items with friends and left from our neighborhood on the long, long road to Boston.

Our trip summary:

- Left Sunnyvale late morning. Eli already fell asleep and missed our actual departure from Sunnyvale.
- Lunch in Gilroy. Chose In-N-Out since we won't find any of those on the East Coast.
- Headed down I-5. At some point both kids were up and then both kids were sleeping.
- Stretch + potty break before the Grapevine.
- Arrive in Pasadena. Late dinner at CPK with my brother and family.
- Played paper airplanes in our hotel room.
- Turned in for the night. 11:30PM!

While we were either driving into or out of Gilroy, Tom and I wondered when we would feel like we were headed for Boston, that we are actually doing our much anticipated cross-country trip. Since we've done the drive to L.A. to visit my brother before, it didn't quite feel like we were doing anything out of the ordinary. Maybe when we drive somewhere new, like our Legoland detour? Maybe when we actually start driving ACROSS (versus down!) after we leave SD? Maybe when we encounter our first rain, something we don't see in CA this time of year?

Who knows when we will feel like we are moving, but part of the purpose of us driving instead of flying to Boston is to have a significant transition time. To show the kids and us just how far Boston is, to have some time, more than just 5 hours of flying, in between Sunnyvale and Lexington. Sometime it will hit us exactly what we are doing.

Weird moment #1: randomly as we were getting closer to L.A. and Eli was probably just bored, he says, "Go home?" Uh oh -- we kind of assumed it would be useless to try to explain to Eli what was going on. I easily distracted him with, "We're going to see Kelsey and Morgan!" but at some point in the middle of nowhere, he's going to say, "Go home?" again and we'll probably tell him about our new home we are going to try to find.

Weird moment #2: Tom was telling Tobey something (forgot what) and he said, "...where we used to live..." That felt weird to him. If someone showed us our house right now, of course it would still feel like home, even empty. But it's not our home. We can't get in anymore. It USED TO BE our home.

Weird moment #3: On the back of the kids' menu at CPK, they had a form you could fill out to join their kids club. And for the first time ever, Tobey asked what that form said (Name, Address, City, etc.). I told him "Name", so he wrote Tobey. Then I told him "Address" and he asks, "What's our address?" Goodness, he chooses NOW to be the first time to ask what our address is? Now I was the one to say he could put down our *old* address (since we weren't turning in the form anyway, he was just filling it out for fun). Wait until we are "homeless" to ask about our address -- what timing!

Although the boys did well in the car, I noticed they weren't really playing with the stuff in their activity box strategically placed between their carseats. My guess is because it's "old", their two LeapPads that Mommy seems to always suggest when they are bored. Tobey likes looking at the GPS and out the window. Eli just putzes around by himself, at one point, amusing himself with the zipper on Tobey's jacket. But at some point, Eli also looked like he was about to fall asleep, just 1.5 hours after his morning nap in the car. He only looked tired because he was bored out of his mind. I tried giving him stuff to do when I discovered a problem we will have the DURATION of this trip unless we figure out a solution: Eli drops EVERYTHING on the floor, whether on purpose or not. My short arms can't always reach and Tom's driving. This part of the trip will not be fun.

Tonight we are bunking at a Westin, the fanciest hotel we've been in as a family, on a beautiful evening in a beautiful part of town. Not a bad start to our trip.