A CHENG's Life: Misadventures

It's taken me awhile but I finally have a moment to add a little update. First of all I'm very proud of Daniel for getting his second choice overall for our orders and we're looking forward to re-locating to FL in just over a year from now. Between now and then we'll bounce around from a summer in GA, to Newport for one real good winter, then finally to FL. The question at hand is if we buy a house there. The prospect is only slightly terrifying to me.

Now you're probably wondering why the title of this is "Misadventures." Let me explain. Upon receiving our much delayed orders we decided on a last minute trip to San Diego to see our best friends before we moved 3,000 miles away from them. Good idea right? Before I list our series of unfortunate events let me say this, in my lifetime I have found that really good friends are difficult to come by. I'm not talking about people that you meet for drinks on an occasional Friday or chat with once or twice a year to catch up. I'm talking about people that would walk through fire with you and vice versa. So I want to give a little shout out to our friends Chris and Melissa. You guys rock. I love that we as a family can come into your home and feel not just welcome, but AT HOME in the truest sense of the term. Our lives are not just enriched but better with you in them. Thank you for your love and thank you for being our friends. I am trying not to dwell on the fact that we had to say farewell for long stretch but that we have many more family vacations to look forward to together and that no matter what we will always be the best of friends.

Okay, misadventures. We decided to head down to SoCal the day before we actually left which led to quite a hectic day of packing and getting ready. This feat accomplished, we all piled into the car last Friday afternoon with excitement to see friends and visit all our much loved San Diego destinations. It was a dark and stormy night. Literally. Eight hours of driving in the pouring rain we made it to San Diego. It's one something in the morning, get the kids tucked into bed, Emma throws up. What followed was 4 days of pouring rain, everyone taking turns with a stomach virus, and freezing cold weather. (I realize that "freezing cold" in San Diego is different then ACTUAL freezing weather.) Amongst all the chaos were moments that shine like bright lights. Seeing Aiden and his best buddy Carter play and connect like they saw each other yesterday instead of 8 months ago. Emma and Noah holding hands and Noah teaching Emma how to crawl. Taking a beautiful walk with my family on Coronado Beach. Seeing Aiden's face the first time he saw a killer whale up close and personal. And simply having lots of time with our dearest friends.

We made it safely back to Monterey yesterday in the aftermath of Daniel being the last one to give into the stomach virus on Wednesday night. The drive was actually really nice with Aiden completely zoned out on DVD's so distracted he didn't even break out the dreaded "are we there yet?" until 5 minutes from home. Emma did give us several examples of her explosive diapers during the drive but at least MOST of the places we stopped weren't in the scary Port of L.A.

Today I got to play catch up a little bit and Daniel was fortunate enough to hook up with his friend Charles who was playing the the Pebble Beach Pro. Am. this weekend. I'm only a little jealous that Daniel got to meet President David Palmer (aka Dennis Haysbert) and schmooze with him this afternoon.

I, unfortunately, had just changed a diaper that was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back and was less than gracious to my sweet husband when he got home. After his heroic driving on the trip and all that he had done I kinda dumped on him and completely took the wind out of his sails after he had this great exciting day. I goofed. Honey, I'm sorry. And now what I know you've all been waiting for, pictures of the kids!