Is it too late to say Happy New Years? I can’t believe that was almost a week ago! We headed to Fresno on December 26 and planned to leave “early”, but got on the road around 11:30 a.m. As I was saying in one of my recent posts though, Maia is really getting used to our world, and it showed in this road trip. She slept for the first hour-and-a-half and then hung out peacefully in the car until we stopped for lunch in Los Banos. Then we preceded to have a relatively mellow ride the rest of the way. Until this point, we hadn’t had an extended car ride like this where Maia wasn’t screaming the saddest sobs you’ve ever heard for almost an hour. We had a great afternoon with Grandma Jennie and Uncle Michael, and finished out the day by watching Pixar’s Wall-E. We’re probably some of the last people on earth to have watched this movie, and we all thoroughly loved it. It was amazing how much of story could be told with almost no dialogue, something that really appealed to Keana.

The next day we had Christmas, opening lots of gifts and enjoying a generally mellow day, followed by a great turkey dinner, courtesy of Grandma Jennie. Aside from being with family, one of the best things about traveling to someone else’s house for events is not having to worry about food. I feel like many of our days just consist of planning meals and eating, interspersed with sleeping. So with Grandma on all the meals, we actually had time to relax and just play and visit; it was great! Both the girls absolutely love playing with Grandma and Uncle Michael, and Michael is still in school up at Evergreen, and we rarely see him, so it was a treat indeed.

The next day we headed over to Grandpa Robert and Nana Cin’s to keep the Christmas cheer flowing. They are always very hospitable and we can always depend on amazing food and plenty of it. It was great to catch up with them and the girls had fun running around and playing while we visited. We probably could have used a couple more days in Fresno to spend with family there, but we had to hit the road once more for our last stop: Los Angeles.

Getting out of Fresno proved harder than we thought. MIchael took off early for wisdom teeth removal, so we had the house to ourselves to pack up and attempt to find everything to pack. We did pretty good packing and decided to just get breakfast on the road, and as we were putting the kids in the car, Sarah realized she locked her purse in the house and we didn’t have a key. So we called Jennie and luckily she and Michael were almost done, so we went to get a quick bite to eat and gas. Of course the guy at Starbucks forgot one of our sandwiches, so once again, as we got the kids strapped in the car, we realized this and I had to run back in to get the missing sandwich, which hadn’t been made, so it was five more minutes, which is about 2 hours in kid time. During this time Maia had decided this was all bullshit and began to cry. And at this point, none of us blamed her. We headed back to Grandma Jennie’s house and got the purse, and miraculously made it out of Fresno. This did not bode well for our 4 hour trip to L.A. But actually, it was another miraculous day of travel for Maia. She and Keana slept for a couple hours and we made it all the way to Crenshaw without having to stop. We grabbed a quick lunch and headed the rest of the way Seal Beach for Hokama/Uno/Yoshimoto Christmas.

This was the first time the Japanese side of our family was all together since our wedding, so it was pretty special. Auntie Helene and Cousins Helen, Stan, Riki had never met the girls, and Great Nana and Granddad Hokama (from Hawaii) had never met Maia, so it was a momentous occasion indeed. Grandpa Jon made this all possible by orchestrating the rendezvous, and his wife Susan and their girls Grace and Lilli also flew out from Denver. Of course Uncle Peter came down from Santa Cruz, so with the exception of Auntie Julie, Uncle Lance, and Cousin Sasha, we were all there. Oh, and due to crazy schedules we were unable to see Riki, so that was unfortunate too. But we basically hung out in Seal Beach until New Years Eve when we headed to Disneyland for the Keana and Maia’s first visit to the magical kingdom.

Disneyland was in-sane. By 2 p.m. the park had sold out and you could tell on the inside. Lines for rides probably averaged 60 minutes and you could barely walk anywhere. As you can imagine with a one and three-year-old, there were some stressful times, but as a whole it was a lot of fun. We all had to split up because there was no way to keep 11 of us together in that mess, so Maia, Keana, Sarah, and I set out for kiddy rides. We rode King Arthur’s Carousel, Keana rode the Casey Jr. train and the Dumbo ride with Grandpa Jon and Grandma Susie, then the four of us rode the Pirates of the Caribbean, and Storybook Land. Keana really wanted to go into the whale’s mouth and I think she really enjoyed it. Maia did great and was only slightly scared on Pirates. As the day went on, the park seemed to get impossibly more crowded. Somehow we all were able to get a table at the Plaza Inn for dinner, after which our Quadripod had to head home. The girls were so strung out from Disneyland they couldn’t sleep, so they played around in the hotel room to unwind and we rang in the new year with Uncle Peter. What a day.

On New Years Day we headed over to Great Auntie Helene’s house where we celebrated with Helen and her new husband John, Stan, Great Nana and Granddad, Grandpa Jon and Grandma Susie, Aunties Grace and Lilli, and Uncle Peter. It was a lot of fun and we all got caught up, remembered visits to L.A. that Peter and I had had as kids, and played music together. It was really a great time and made me realize how important it was to me to stay in touch with our Japanese roots. Sarah and I both think it’s especially important we make the effort for the girls so they can know about this important part of where they come from.

On January 2nd we hit the road once more, and it took us about 9 hours to get home. A very long drive but very worth it. And so ended Christmas Tour 2008. It’s a ton of work to travel so much with the girls being so young, but the great time we had with all the various family more than made up for it and we hopefully look forward to much more time with family in 2009. Happy New Year and good night!