trip report

Jul. 4th, 2012 12:31 pm
cahn: (Default)
[personal profile] cahn
Just got back from epic almost-two-week trip to Boston, Washington D.C. (this part was unintentional -- thanks United for the surprise overnight stay, sigh), St. Louis, and Omaha, involving six airplanes, four hotels, one brand-new just-built humongous 4000-sq-ft house, both D's and my full complement of family at differing times (including two dogs and five children), one wedding, and approximately two billion times E. was asked to say "cheese" (mostly by her grandparents), scattered among those places.

Various random things:

-The wedding was seriously incredibly awesome. So was the music ;) Also, as I may have mentioned, J's friends are totally wonderful. D rose quite well to the task of supervising E for basically the whole weekend, although I think he's a little relieved that it's over.

-It wasn't particularly great (though to be sure, not particularly terrible either) traveling with E. when she'd just turned two, but it turns out that 2.5-year-old E., when she's not exhausted, is an incredibly good traveler. (It helped that she finally nailed using the potty in non-home locations literally the weekend before we traveled, whew.) She's just old enough to find the lights! and escalators! and moving sidewalks! and stairs! and JUICE in the airplane! and airplanes taking off at the airport! and looking out the airplane window! incredibly fascinating, whereas when she had just turned two it was only the escalators that registered. Even our missed connection and unexpected layover in D.C. was a source of fascination for her, especially the part where we got to take a BUS to the hotel. Now, by the end of the trip she was seriously short on sleep, and then the tantrums picked up again (she had almost no tantrums for the first half of the trip).

Still, the entire trip was very encouraging, and now I'm way more jazzed to try it again (hi, people in Bay Area! :) )

-My sister and I (and relevant spouses) went to see Chicago. I'd seen it years ago and had not been at all impressed, but this one was... awesome. The actors were all very good, including Justin Guarini as Billy Flynn, who according to my sister (I don't watch American Idol) was not All That on Idol, but who we both thought was quite excellently smarmy. I think it helped that they didn't have elaborate sets, so they had to make choreography and acting fill in for what would have in a larger-more-glitzy production have been done by rotating sets and spangles and I don't know what -- because I will always be sold by choreography and acting over glitzy sets. I think it also helped that I knew the music already, so I wasn't expecting it to be something it wasn't (because? I did really like this production, and it's got its moments, and some interesting ideas, but honestly, the music kind of sucks), and it probably helped to not be watching it in London (I know, I know).

-We went to D's family reunion, the big one (his father's mother was one of thirteen children), the one with more than 200 people. You guys, I don't think I can describe how surreal this thing is -- it's like being plopped down in a Norman Rockwell painting, or something. It's 200 blond, blue-eyed, Lutheran, happy smiley people who like to spontaneously break into song. I am not kidding. The reunion has a theme song. There was a church service at the end of the reunion (with thirteen hymns, one for each of the children, and after which there was a spontaneous singing of "God be with you till we meet again"). It's... kind of awesome, actually. I would never have believed it existed if I hadn't been to it myself.

(Also: vast majority blond-blue-eyed, with the occasional brunette in-law, and then... there's me! Hi, can you tell I married in? I don't usually feel weird about being of Asian descent, except at this reunion because I am the only POC at all in a huge conglomeration of people.)

-I didn't take my computer -- too much extra weight. WOW did I miss it though.

St Louis?

Date: 2012-07-11 12:45 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
So you are saying the only thing you did in St Louis was see Chicago? ;-)

Profile

cahn: (Default)
cahn

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
1516171819 2021
222324 25262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 6th, 2025 11:53 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios