Travel Log and Afters
We left for LA Thursday afternoon. Didn't have much time to stop in San Leandro on the way down as we wanted to avoid traffic heading through Pleasanton and Livermore. That didn't really work but I wasn't driving at the time so it didn't seem so bad. We stopped for dinner at the Del Taco in Santa Nella. I was thinking about just eating in the car as there is an indoor playground there that we didn't want the boys to play in. This turned out to be prophetic. We went inside and Eli immediately wanted to go to the playground. And there were no highchairs so we had no place to contain Robin. They both started screaming so I took them outside and we brought the food out as well.
Our hotel reservation was still up in the air as we were driving. The authorization for the convenient place we normally stay hadn't gone through. So at 5 o'clcock we started calling other places while driving. We were able to get a room at what used to be a Holiday Inn. It is now the Angeleno. Little more expensive, but it should be covered. The rest of the drive down was more or less uneventful. The boys were fairly good and Lexi and I took turns driving. We got to the hotel around 11. The Angeleno is trying to be quite a bit more upscale that the Holiday Inn was. For one thing there's only valet parking. Which runs $18. Fortunately that was included in the special rate we for hospital patients. They told us they'd have a crib. Which they turned out not to have. There's two beds. Lexi and me on one, Eli on the other and Robin on the floor. But with nothing to keep him in place Robin was just up and wandering about. I had Lexi go to sleep while I stayed up with the boys. I put some Elmo on the laptop and tried to ride it out. Eli fell asleep around 2 and I finally got Robin to sleep by turning the lights out and holding him down with me. That was about 3:30. Yay.
We got going at 8 and headed over to the clinic. Didn't get there quite as early as we'd have liked, but not too much later than we wanted to. The lab draw went well with only one stick and we got into a room before too long. The surgeon says things are going well. In his opinion, the biggest problem Eli has is the eczema. After ballooning the IVC went well there aren't any othe major problems. We just need to get the eczema under control. He was rather compliant with the suggestions we brought with us from UCSF derm and was pleased overall. In unrelated and otherwise uselsess information, he has changed from a Sony Clie to a BlackBerry, That was one of the first things I noticed when he came in.
I went out to the car to rest as I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep. Lexi stayed with the boys hoping to keep them occupied with a video on the laptop while waiting for the GI doc to make it by. That took some time but they evenually got done. After that we got out and on the freeway with Lexi driving again. Our plans were to visit some friends in Santa Barbara so we took 101 instead of 5.
The friends in Santa Barbara live right across the street from a really nice park. It's a big wooden castle-y like thing. So we spent a few hours lounging and chasing the boys and our friends kids around the park. I had to carry Eli away when we were done but it wasn't too bad. It was a nice break for the boys who had been in the car most of the previous day and were in for 6 more hours in the car.
We grabbed some food from a Jack in the Box and ate it in the car down near the beach. Eli was pleased to be able to see an Amtrak train that passed behind us while we were stopped.
Driving on I thought that coming home this way would take us about as close to Santa Cruz as we ever intentionally get so we may as well try to stop by Brian's, a good friend from high school. He was around that evening so when we got to Salinas we cut over on 183 to 1 and then a little up 17 to where he lives. We got there around 9:30. The boys had been sleeping on and off and were very happy to be out of the car. And the house had stairs! This was very exciting to them. Robin spent most of his time walking up and down them, only falling down 2 or 3 times. Brian lives in a rather large house with 4 or 5 other people. Who were all very accomodating towards the boys. They were randomly invading rooms and flopping on beds and pounding on piano keybords. Brian also has a large blue yoga ball that was freely thrown about. Lexi took off with Brian's GF and brought back some Mexican and then we went to some place in Santa Cruz that makes their own ice cream. Eli wouldn't eat anything at first, which was no surprise but did end up munching on an empty sugar cone. I shared some strawberry sorbet with Robin. He was working on it with his own spoon supplemented by spoonfuls I gave him. Since I was feeding him he returned the favor by giving me some from his spoon.
We got out of there and were really headed home by midnight. We stopped briefly again in San Leandro. My mom had make some alterations to the new pajamas she made Eli so I picked those up off her porch and we stopped in at the in-laws long enough for me to stretch and have a drink as everyone else was asleep in the van. Home by 2:30. I stayed up a little longer, which was good as Eli got up 2 times after I put him in bed.
We all got up on Saturday around 11. While going out to some pharmacies to pick up various meds the right front tire went flat. Much better happening on Saturday in Petaluma than who knows where on Friday. Lexi did most of the work changing the tire, and all while wearing a corset. Hot. Hey I got the spare out and we were trying to pick up my asthma medicine which was why she was picking up the slack.
So two new tires from Costco later I got to work a little late. Shortly after that Eli committed some unspeakable acts while he should have been napping. More on that another time.
Our hotel reservation was still up in the air as we were driving. The authorization for the convenient place we normally stay hadn't gone through. So at 5 o'clcock we started calling other places while driving. We were able to get a room at what used to be a Holiday Inn. It is now the Angeleno. Little more expensive, but it should be covered. The rest of the drive down was more or less uneventful. The boys were fairly good and Lexi and I took turns driving. We got to the hotel around 11. The Angeleno is trying to be quite a bit more upscale that the Holiday Inn was. For one thing there's only valet parking. Which runs $18. Fortunately that was included in the special rate we for hospital patients. They told us they'd have a crib. Which they turned out not to have. There's two beds. Lexi and me on one, Eli on the other and Robin on the floor. But with nothing to keep him in place Robin was just up and wandering about. I had Lexi go to sleep while I stayed up with the boys. I put some Elmo on the laptop and tried to ride it out. Eli fell asleep around 2 and I finally got Robin to sleep by turning the lights out and holding him down with me. That was about 3:30. Yay.
We got going at 8 and headed over to the clinic. Didn't get there quite as early as we'd have liked, but not too much later than we wanted to. The lab draw went well with only one stick and we got into a room before too long. The surgeon says things are going well. In his opinion, the biggest problem Eli has is the eczema. After ballooning the IVC went well there aren't any othe major problems. We just need to get the eczema under control. He was rather compliant with the suggestions we brought with us from UCSF derm and was pleased overall. In unrelated and otherwise uselsess information, he has changed from a Sony Clie to a BlackBerry, That was one of the first things I noticed when he came in.
I went out to the car to rest as I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep. Lexi stayed with the boys hoping to keep them occupied with a video on the laptop while waiting for the GI doc to make it by. That took some time but they evenually got done. After that we got out and on the freeway with Lexi driving again. Our plans were to visit some friends in Santa Barbara so we took 101 instead of 5.
The friends in Santa Barbara live right across the street from a really nice park. It's a big wooden castle-y like thing. So we spent a few hours lounging and chasing the boys and our friends kids around the park. I had to carry Eli away when we were done but it wasn't too bad. It was a nice break for the boys who had been in the car most of the previous day and were in for 6 more hours in the car.
We grabbed some food from a Jack in the Box and ate it in the car down near the beach. Eli was pleased to be able to see an Amtrak train that passed behind us while we were stopped.
Driving on I thought that coming home this way would take us about as close to Santa Cruz as we ever intentionally get so we may as well try to stop by Brian's, a good friend from high school. He was around that evening so when we got to Salinas we cut over on 183 to 1 and then a little up 17 to where he lives. We got there around 9:30. The boys had been sleeping on and off and were very happy to be out of the car. And the house had stairs! This was very exciting to them. Robin spent most of his time walking up and down them, only falling down 2 or 3 times. Brian lives in a rather large house with 4 or 5 other people. Who were all very accomodating towards the boys. They were randomly invading rooms and flopping on beds and pounding on piano keybords. Brian also has a large blue yoga ball that was freely thrown about. Lexi took off with Brian's GF and brought back some Mexican and then we went to some place in Santa Cruz that makes their own ice cream. Eli wouldn't eat anything at first, which was no surprise but did end up munching on an empty sugar cone. I shared some strawberry sorbet with Robin. He was working on it with his own spoon supplemented by spoonfuls I gave him. Since I was feeding him he returned the favor by giving me some from his spoon.
We got out of there and were really headed home by midnight. We stopped briefly again in San Leandro. My mom had make some alterations to the new pajamas she made Eli so I picked those up off her porch and we stopped in at the in-laws long enough for me to stretch and have a drink as everyone else was asleep in the van. Home by 2:30. I stayed up a little longer, which was good as Eli got up 2 times after I put him in bed.
We all got up on Saturday around 11. While going out to some pharmacies to pick up various meds the right front tire went flat. Much better happening on Saturday in Petaluma than who knows where on Friday. Lexi did most of the work changing the tire, and all while wearing a corset. Hot. Hey I got the spare out and we were trying to pick up my asthma medicine which was why she was picking up the slack.
So two new tires from Costco later I got to work a little late. Shortly after that Eli committed some unspeakable acts while he should have been napping. More on that another time.