SATURDAY: We decided a few months back that it’s time we visited our good friend, Anne Eurose and her family. We woke up at 3am on Saturday morning and was on the road by 3:40am. Brooke wasn’t too happy about this but Aidan woke up alert and naming all the things he sees (Stars! Moon! Light!). They were both up until 4am and fell asleep until 7:30am. We stopped at Harris Ranch for the exotic McDonald’s breakfast, changed the kids out of their PJs and were on our way. On the road, the kids amused themselves with ‘trees’ and ‘mooooos’ (aka cows). We didn’t really need to use the DVD player until the last hour of our drive.
We reached Tracy around 10:30am and Mike took a nap while Eurose and I entertain our kids. They LOVED their Ate Eurose’s house. I have since they coined it as “Abris Daycare”. Completely stocked from a beautiful yard with a playground and toy cars/bikes to a toy room downstairs (of course, well organized). They were super comfortable there. Brooke kept asking to go outside. Once outside, she wanted to go in to watch Nemo. We had lunch and George came by to visit and we caught up and talked about old times until the kids’ nap time. Around 1:30-2pm we left Tracy to continue our adventure to San Francisco.
The kids napped in the car on our 2 hour drive into the city. Our plan was: Kara’s Cupcakes, Exploratorium, Golden Gate Bridge, Fishermen’s Wharf/Pier 39 then Ghirardelli Square. We never made it to Ghirardelli and ended up having dinner at Hard Rock at the Pier but not bad for a one day trip! We met up with an ex-coworker of Mike’s who is the coolest couple. Their daughter, Simone, is gorgeous and so well behaved. It was way pass all the kids bedtimes, but they were all doing great. Especially my little troopers considering they have been in a car all day!
Here we are with the sea lions at Pier 39.
On our way to the hotel we considered driving home which would put us home at 3AM making it a true 24 hour trip, but we weren’t THAT crazy and spent the night a little south of San Francisco to avoid the ridiculous parking fees in the city.
Family photo at the exploratorium.
SUNDAY: The family was on the road again by 8am. We decided to take the 152 through Gilroy to get back on the 5 freeway which turned out to be so much fun. We stopped at the first fruit stand advertising 8 ears of corn for $1! (SO WORTH IT! We ended up cooking it for dinner once we got home.) Driving away from that stand, we stopped at the next one for garlic ice cream. (SIDE NOTE: I remember being a kid and hating stopping at these…it’s official, I’m an old Asian parent.) We then drove off to stop at a stop I did growing up with my parents: Casa de Fruta. Man, it has changed. It actually expanded a lot! There’s casa de…EVERYTHING! Brooke saw her first peacock but insisted it’s a chicken. I’m not going to argue with a 1 and a half year old. We got mah-mah some wine and continue our drive home. The kids ended up napping a long ways after lunch. Overall, it was a very successful trip. So proud of the husband for driving the entire time. And equally proud of the kids for making it through another Lam family vacation.
Casa de Fruta
Working the railroads at Casa de Fruta