Yes, I’m blogging on vacation. Did you really think I could stay away?

The trip here yesterday was an adventure. There were times I felt like we were doing our own episode of The Amazing Race… my challenge was to get myself and four kids through security while Hubby parked the car in the long term lot. Take off everyone’s shoes and jackets and put them in bins. Get all carry-ons into the x-ray machine. Take the 3 year old out of the stroller, fold up stroller and toss that on the belt too. Get all kids through the metal detector without a meltdown. Wait, pull the laptop out of the case and put that in a seperate bin too. Now in one minute or less, put everything back together and get out of the way of the long line of people behind you! And we had to repeat the entire process in San Francisco because we changed airlines.  such fun.  Well, we’re here now so I’ll try not to think about the fact that I have to do the whole fun trip in reverse in six days!

We didn’t get into the hotel until almost 10pm and the kids probably weren’t asleep until almost 11:00. So it was really fun waking them up at 7:30 this morning so we could drive 90 minutes up to Long Beach. But I am so proud of us, we actually got there in time to see the parade. (We have a long and sad history of missing parades because we are so late to everything) It wasn’t the most impressive parade ever, but it was definitely the coolest Cambodian New Year parade I’ve ever seen. Here’s a few highlights:

float with a model of Angkor Wat

Aren’t these girls beautiful? When R~ saw them she said, “mom, I wish I had my Cambodian outfit on.” Sadly she doesn’t own an outfit that cool. (the ones we bought in Cambodia are much more generic “asian” style) And the clothing shop we went into today said kids have to have them custom made. But I’m going online tonight to see if I can find something.

It was cloudy and not quite 70 degrees this morning. Can you say “brrr”?

Cambodia follows the same zodiac calendar as China and Vietnam, so it’s the Year of the Pig for them too. But it cracked us up to see Porky Pig on a float for a local Cambodian restaurant. Pork anyone? LOL.

The little festival in a park after the parade was pretty lame and the kids were hungry so we headed to a Cambodian restaurant for lunch. The place was a total study in chaos theory (no hostess taking names or seating people, really busy because it was on the parade route) but the food was really good and there was a live band playing contemporary Cambodian music. K~ even enjoyed some of it – it was like rock, just with Cambodian lyrics. (sometime I’ll post about K~ and her less than positive attitude toward Cambodian and Vietnamese activities. I’m too tired to go into it now.)

All in all, it was a good day. A little out of our comfort zone, but totally worth it.