Day One: The (mostly) Open Road

We made it safe and sound to San Clemente today! We also cut almost two HOURS off our drive time from last May. What a difference a year makes in the potty-training world! At this time last year, Amelia was potty-trained well, but not completely. She'd figured out that yelling "PEE PEE" made her parents drop everything and take her to the potty. It was the perfect out of any situation for her. . . like being in her car seat. So last year on our drive down, she said she had to pee every five minutes and being a newly potty-trained tot, we never knew whether to believe her. Yeah, so that sucked.
But today was a million times better! As exhausting as she can be, Amelia really is a great kid. She didn't so much as whimper once during the whole 8.5 hour trip! Not once. We didn't even have to bring out the big guns (DVD player/movie) until the last hour and a half. She took a nap and we stopped every two hours or so to hit the potty. That totally works out since I have the same pee schedule at the moment. No incidents whatsoever. In terms of the kid I mean.

However, any or all of the following may have occurred throughout the day.

*Amelia threw a map when she couldn't fold it.

*My feet and ankles swelled so badly that I couldn't move my foot and could feel my skin stretching.

*In trying to find a Starbucks (which should be easy since they're on every goddamn corner), Justin got us lost and we turned into an airport and then had to snake our way out.

* When realizing we'd turned into an airport, Justin began to laugh, while his swelling, sore, tired, hungry, been-driving-for-7-hours, pregnant wife yelled at him.

*While trying to recover from said debacle, Justin asked, "I wonder what airport this is?" To which was replied, "I don't know. Maybe it's the Bob Hope airport like the 50fuckingmillion signs around here say. Maybe if you read a goddamn sign, you could find a goddamn Starbucks!"

*While whizzing down the 5-South in LOS ANGELES, Justin felt something on his leg, went to scratch it and realized that it was  LIZARD. On his leg! He promptly opened the door in the middle of the freeway and kicked the stowaway out.

*When we pulled in front of the apartment, I pointed out the window and asked Amelia if she could see the beach--to which she yelled, "I do see the beach mama! HOORAY HOORAY!"

*After getting Amelia down for bed, Justin wandered onto the balcony and glanced to his left--to see our vacation neighbors having sex right in front of the window facing the beach.

*Upon this discovery, I pressed my ear against the wall to hear.

I'll let you decide on the truthfulness of the above.

These are the only pics I got from today --- a long day of traveling.

Beach Bound! This was taken at our house at 8 am. Look how excited she is.


It was sunny for the whole drive and then we were welcomed by cloudy skies. Sad face. Supposed to be cloudy tomorrow and then sunny for the rest of the week. This is the view from our balcony. Happy face.

What shall tomorrow bring?