California: Day 9 (Mon)

As I sit here writing this, I am surrounded by family:  my husband; my parents; my older brother; my younger sister; and the three nephews that I get to see the least (the little kids are sleeping).   We're all sitting around the living room on chairs and floors; three of us are on our computes/internet as we chat with each other and plan how we want to spend the next few days; it's very relaxing.

I'm still not feeling terribly well - my cold is better, but it's gone into my sinuses and I've had a wicked headache for the past number of hours.  I napped for a while, skipped dinner out with the family, sipped green tea and freshly squeezed orange juice that my sister brought for me, and slurped up some chicken noodle soup that Geoff made.

It probably didn't help either my health or disposition that Geoff and I took Matthew and his like-aged cousin, M, to Legoland for the day today.  Legoland here is a huge amusement park - with rides, stores and lego statues.  This being the vacation week between Christmas and New Year's, I think the entire population of California showed up there; it took fifteen minutes just to enter the parking lot, along with seven other waiting line-ups of cars!  We swallowed hard as we waited to pay for our tickets, knowing the kind of day we were in for.  As it turned out, we got the kids onto four rides, and we waited approximately an hour for each of them.  It was crazy busy...and expensive - the admission cost was high enough, added to which some of the rides cost extra money, and a very basic pasta and pizza lunch for two adults and two kids cost a whopping $47!  The kids had fun, but from the perspectives of the adults who took them, it was waaaaaay too much money for what we experienced.

Oh well - at least the kids were happy little munchkins.  Matthew and M are only six weeks apart in age and are very close - they fight like brother and sister, and they love each other like only siblings or best friends do.  All day long, they were whispering and conniving, heads together in conspiratorial huddles.  As usual, I loved watching them together.