The Journey Home (Christmas Vacation Day 7)

After almost a week of endless fun, we were ready to head on for home.  We had initially planned on visiting the nearby Carlsbad Factory Outlets before hitting the road, but decided otherwise, given the fact that we had a rather long journey ahead of us.

So after we checked out of the hotel, we headed towards LA.  Ethan fell asleep in the car on the way there, but woke up in time for lunch at In n Out.  After lunch, he refused to go back to sleep and started chattering away till evening.  When we were approaching Gilroy (about an hour from home), he fell asleep again.  It was already pretty dark by then.

We had Vietnamese food for dinner before we drove back to the comfort of our home.

I am, in fact, extremely proud of Ethan for being so well-behaved the entire journey.  We were rather worried about the long haul but he proved that he was able to handle it.  I remember somewhere along the way back, he told us he wanted to “go potty” to “pangsai”, but since we could not immediately find a suitable rest area, he managed to hold it till we reached home!

His sense of direction is rather good too, for he could recognize the route we were on, even though it was dark.  As we were passing by the mountains and hills, he mentioned “horse”, “cows” and “many trees”, which was what he saw 6 days ago.

The memories we shared are like treasures in our heart that will live on forever. The phrase below just about summarizes our most memorable vacation as a family.

Credits
Elegant word art (together have it all) from Bethany
Kit Moment papers from Sueli Colbert
Pacific papers  from Lindsay Jane Designs
Grungy papers from Pillowgirl