Day 23

Alert the media: we made it out of our campsite by 9am again! It was cooooolllllldddd, and I really didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag, but we had somewhere to be.

The aquarium has summer diving activities for kids 8-13. We’d tried to get the kids in yesterday, but they were booked, and today (Thurs) there were two slots at two different times, so Drew has to be there by 9:30 and Jaden at 11. The kids get to put on dry suits and SCUBA gear and go surface SCUBAing in the aquarium’s bay area. Because of Andrew’s Aspergers, they assigned him a one-on-one instructor, and he did great and had a really good dive. He would have been fine with the 3 kids/1 instructor ratio, but it's always nice to have more attention for him just in case. Jaden said he “had fun but it wasn’t an ‘Oh WOW hurray yeah!’ thing.” Me, I got plenty of pictures and some video and was mildly jealous that my 9- and 11-yo sons have been SCUBA diving, and I’m 33 and have never been. Hrmph.

Left the aquarium, took over a Laundromat, and used almost all available washers and dryers to get laundry done. Jeff actually had most of it done while the boys went diving, and then all of us folded and sorted and repacked everything. We have a lot of dang clothes on this trip.

After that, though, we got to go to Dennis the Menace park to play. My cousin Micheal and her two little boys, 7 & 9 years old, drove down from Gilroy to play with us for a couple of hours. I grew up in the same town as Micheal and was the flower girl in her wedding forever ago, but I haven’t seen her in probably thirteen years, so we sat and talked nonstop the entire time. I was enormously pleased to see her, and the kids had fun playing with Gabriel and Seth.

Dinnertime came much too soon, and they had to leave, so we piled in the car too. After stopping at Costco for pizza and hot dogs, we are back in the car driving. The plan is to drive straight through tonight to get to Phoenix. I know we’ll have to stop for a nap or two, but it’s twelve hours of driving, so I think we can make it by around lunch or between lunch and dinner. Another cousin, Micheal’s sister Linda, lives in the Phoenix area, along with my aunt & uncle (Micheal & Linda’s parents) whom I haven’t seen in a while. And oh yeah, my dad too. Linda has invited us all to spend the night with her, which will be fun. I don’t think she’s met Jeff or any of the kids before. (I did say to her, when she offered her house, “You know there are eight of us, right?”)

I am already a little tired, so I think I need a nap…