We made it back

We had a great time in CA. The weather was really nice. It was funny to see people bundled up for 60 degree weather. We wore t-shirts and long sleeve shirts. We felt fine.

Now that we are home we've really had to bundle up. Just today it warmed up to 40 degrees. The last couple of days were in the low 20's, and even down to 12. That was the temperature and one night the forecast said that, with the wind chill, it felt like 6 degrees below zero. Crazy! On the first day of 2008, it snowed. It got scary while we were on the road home from a dinner at a friends house. It had just snowed and the roads were icy--we ended up skidding a little bit. Thankfully there weren't many other cars out. At least none near us. Shane valiantly got us home safely.

Anyway, being in CA was good for me. I saw friends and family that I'd been missing. It felt like we'd never left. I ate way too much! We ate at Tommy's, CPKs, In-N-Out, Mimi's Cafe, Old Spaghetti Factory, Claim Jumper, Canters, and my favorite.... Pizzamania! Oh man, I felt like I must've gained about 10 pounds!

By the way, we learned from the owner of Pizzamania that their style of pizza is hand-tossed, thick crust pizza, so maybe we can find some of that out here.

Aside from visiting friends and family, we also got to see some sites around L.A. county.
- Venice Beach
- Venice Beach Canals
- Melrose
- Naples in Long Beach
- Old Town Pasadena
- Brea Mall
- Uptown Whittier
- Universal City Walk
- and of course, endless hours stuck on the freeways

We also visited family up in Oakhurst (just south of Yosemite National Park). It was freezing there! It snowed on the day we left. It was great to visit with Shane's grandma, aunt/uncle and cousins. We got to celebrate his uncle's birthday and see some little kids put on an impromptu show.

All in all, I am glad we went out there. I will note that, I don't like flying. Turbulence has got to be one of my greatest fears. I have to fight becoming afraid of flying altogether. That would be huge problem for us, since we like to travel to far and distant lands. If anyone has any advice about how to get over it, please do let me know. And you can't just tell me that turbulence is an airflow regime characterized by chaotic, stochastic property changes, `cause that doesn't make me feel any better.