Trip to Japan...NOT! (Part 1: Seattle)

Most of my readers know that we were supposed to take a trip to Japan earlier this month - the main reason was to visit Grant's brother, John.  We were going to fly from Seattle to Misawa Air Base in Northern Japan on Sunday, June 12, on what's called a Space Available flight, which is a military thing.  We've flown Space A before, way back when Kendall was just a few weeks old.  That time we flew from Ohio to Germany.  Space A is just what it says - if there is space available on the flight, you can get on.  Which means you don't have guaranteed seats.  Which can be a problem.  We ran into a few of those problems back in 2008, when we were trying to fly back to the States from Germany.  It worked out, just not when we thought it would.

However, with this particular flight to Japan, Grant did a lot of research on it, and from what he could tell, the flight was hardly ever full, which meant there was a good chance we'd get on.

We bought one-way tickets from Long Beach to Seattle, leaving the day before the flight to Japan.  Since the weather in Japan was supposed to be warm and humid, and even tropical where John lives, we packed for such weather. 

So Saturday morning, we headed up to Seattle.  I've never been to the Pacific Northwest before, so I was excited to see a new part of the country.  Grant had been up there before, because his mom is from Seattle.  But the last time he was there was probably over 20 years ago.

Once we got in, we took a shuttle to our hotel.  It wasn't even noon yet, so our room wasn't ready.  We walked down, probably half a mile or so to Subway to get some lunch.  Then we walked back to the hotel, and our room was ready.  So we checked in, and amazingly, we all took about a 3 hour nap.  We had already had a long day, so we were definitely tired.

After we woke up, we got a car to take us to the Market.  I'd seen it on TV so many times, it was cool to finally see it in person!  And I was surprised to see that it was so much more than just a fish market.  It had pretty much everything you could want there.  There was even a pasta booth that had dozens of homemade pastas.  Since I'm a pasta lover, I was intrigued.  We also visited the first-ever Starbucks, which is right there by the Market.

Once we got our fill of the market, we started making our way to the Space Needle.  I'm not gonna lie, we wandered around for a while trying to figure out how to get to the monorail, but we finally found it, and that was a great way to get to the Needle.

We thought when we got to the top that it would be windy and cold, but it actually wasn't!  And it was a nice, sunny, clear day, so the view was great.

Once we finished with the Space Needle, it was getting kind of late (well, late for kids anyway), so we started making our way back to our hotel.  Instead of spending the money getting another car or taxi, we decided to use the public transportation.  Which was great!

We got back to the hotel, went to bed, and got up early the next morning for our flight.

When we got to the airport, we were surprised at how many people were there!  I started getting a bad feeling about the flight, and loooooong story short, we didn't get on.  Not to worry, though.  There was a flight to Tokyo the following Tuesday.  So we decided to rent a car, go see some of Washington State, and come back and try again.

To be continued...

Kendall can read!

Okay, not really.  But she has a great memory!


Kendall reads Charlie and Lola from Kelly Spear on Vimeo.

Girl's Weekend!

A while back, Michelle and I started talking about having a girl's weekend before I moved.  After lots of planning (on Michelle's part), it finally happened! 

We went to Santa Barbara, but I'll start from the beginning.  Megan came up from San Diego Friday night to a house full of pukies.  Kendall had been sick a couple days before, and Cami got sick on Friday.  But Megan's contact with the girls was minimal, since she got there after they went to bed, and we were leaving pretty early the next morning.  So of course, Friday night, Megan, Grant, and I stayed up way too late chatting, and then Saturday morning, the plan was to be out the door at 7:30.  Then around 6:30, Kendall threw up again.  So that threw us off a bit. 

By the way, if any of this is sounding familiar to you, it's because pretty much the same thing happened to our family back in April, right before I was supposed to go on the OPC Women's Retreat.  And once again, Grant became husband of the year, for encouraging me to go, even though I didn't really want to at this point.  I was nervous that I was going to get sick while I was gone, or that Grant would get sick while watching the girls by himself.  None of that happened, so that was good.

Anyways, we finally did leave the house, only a few minutes late.  We picked up my friend Ting, and then picked up Michelle, and we were on our way!

First, we stopped at Stan's Donuts in Westwood.  Friday night, I randomly saw some show that was talking about Stan's Donuts, and their famous Reese's donut, and I posted something on Facebook about it.  Michelle said that it could be our first stop on our way to Santa Barbara, and I didn't argue with her!  It was worth the stop, even though I didn't get a picture.  Basically, it's a chocolate covered donut, sprinkled with chocolate chips, and filled with peanut butter.  Delicious!

After that quick stop, we made our way to the Camarillo Outlets, where we all did a good bit of shopping.

It was almost lunch time, so we left the outlets, and finally headed to Santa Barbara, where we went straight to the Arts & Letters Cafe, where the food was delicious.

After lunch, we walked up and down State Street, which is always fun.  The weather that weekend wasn't exactly nice - it was cold and drizzly, if not raining, the whole time.  But that was okay.  If we got cold, we'd just hop in a store every now and then.  Here's Megan and Michelle taking a break in Anthropologie.

We finally made our way to check in at the hotel.  We stayed at the Hotel Oceana, and it was the cutest place ever!  I fell in love with our room.

After relaxing for a bit in the hotel room, we went out for dinner at the Wine Cask/Intermezzo Bar & Cafe.  After we left, I realized that we didn't get a picture there, which was a bummer, because it was so cozy inside.  But the food was great.  Since we had a kind of late lunch, we just ordered drinks and a few appetizers.  Hands down, everyone's favorite was the Gruyere-Dungeness Crab-Artichoke Dip served with Focaccia bread.  I can't even describe how good that was!!

We had to leave quickly, because we wanted to make the 7:15 showing of Bridesmaids, which was at a theatre close to us.  So we walked there, and it started to rain, which was awesome.  But we quickly forgot about the weather, because the movie was hilarious! 

When we got back to the hotel, we decided to get our picture in the lobby. 

Then we all had a cozy night's sleep in our super cute hotel room, got up the next morning and started getting ready for church.  But first, we went to the hotel's breakfast, which was kind of a trainwreck.  The breakfast was in the smallest room ever, and it was filled to over capacity!  People were bumping into each other, there were no plates, and forget about tables!  Finally, Megan and I saw a teeny tiny table open up, and we grabbed it before anyone else could.  Which meant that we were actually the ones who cleaned off the table.  So the four of us crammed into this tiny little two-person table, and as we were eating, the room really started to clear out.  By the time we were done, there was hardly anyone left, so apparently, we just hit it at rush time. 

We finished up, checked out, and made our way to church.  We went to the local OPC - El Camino Presbyterian in Goleta.  When we got there and when we left, it was raining the hardest it had all weekend.  So that's what this picture is all about.

The plan was to eat lunch in Santa Barbara, but since it was so dreary, Michelle suggested that maybe we should just drive south until it got sunny.  We knew it was sunny down here in the South Bay, so we were hoping we wouldn't have to drive too far.  Ting told us about Paradise Cove in Malibu that her and her husband had been to, so we made our way there.  It was a perfect suggestion!  It was right on the beach, and the food was awesome, although we did have to keep our eyes on those seagulls.  They were pretty aggressive.

And that was it!  It was a short, but super sweet weekend, and I'm glad we were all able to go.  I love my friends, and will miss them when I leave, so it was nice to spend this extra time with them.

Kendall Speak - Part 10

Grant was putting Kendall to bed, and he always goes over the catechism questions with her.  I guess she was really engaged in the questions, so she started having a pretty deep theological conversation with him.  They were talking about original sin and death and how that's related, and Kendall said, "Well, I not gonna die.  I don't do bad nings (things)...Cami does bad nings."

If you know anything about LA, you know that there's a ridiculous amount of interstates.  Kendall always wants to know which interstate we're going on, and she usually thinks everything is the 405.  A while back, we had to take two interstates to get to where we were going - the 710 and the 91.  Not the 405. 
Her:  "Mama, are we on the interstate?  Are we on the 405?" 
Me: "No, we're on the 710."
Her:  "Oh, I know all about the 710, you don't need to tell me about that."

She's doing this new thing, where she sits at her little table, "reading".  She'll sit there for the longest time, looking at the pictures of whatever book she's reading, turning the pages, etc.  I was getting dinner ready and I said, "Kendall, are you reading?"  She said, "Yeah.  It's called relaxin'."

The other morning, I got up early to sew, and Kendall decided to get up early, too.  I usually don't let her up before her clock turns green, but this was Memorial Day, and she was standing outside her door saying, "Mama, it's a howiday!  It's a howiday!"  So I let her get up.  So, she was watching me sew, and she said that when she grows up, she wants a sewing machine just like mine.  Except pink.  No, white.  Maybe purple.  Then she said she wanted her own kitchen and I said that someday, she'll get her own house.  She got very upset by that thought, then said that she would get a house right next to ours, and Cami would also get a house next to us.

Connections

This picture may not seem like much to you

But for the Spear family, it means alot!

You see, maybe 50 years ago (actually, probably more than that), Grant's dad was living in Cleveland.  His family became a host family to students at the local university who came from India.  These students would come over to their house to have dinner, and just be part of a family since they were so far away from their own.  Grant's grandmother was actually a very valuable person to the wives of these students, teaching them basically how to live an American life (cooking, cleaning, etc), since Indian culture is so different than American culture.

Grant's dad has done a wonderful job of keeping in touch with many of these families, as they moved all over the country.  Amazingly enough, one of these families lives only about 15 minutes away from us!  We've gotten together with them a couple of times, but not nearly as much as we should have, although we've run into them at Terranea quite a few times.

A few weeks ago was one of those times.  We went to Terranea one Saturday morning, and we saw Sarita, who is the wife of one of those students so many years ago.  So we stopped and chatted with her for a few minutes, and she found out that we're leaving this summer.  She said we should get together before we go, and then it hit me!  Grant's brother John and his girlfriend were going to be visiting, so we should get together during that time - and that's what we did!

Krishan and Sarita, along with their daughter and her family, graciously welcomed us into their home for breakfast this past Saturday.  We had a wonderful time eating and talking, and the kids had so much fun playing together!  I particularly love this picture...

These kinds of connections are special to me, since we make friends all over the country.  Fifty years from now, I hope that Grant and I, or our kids, or our grandkids, will still have connections with those friends we've made over the years.

8

This past weekend, Grant and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary!  And let me just say, I don't know if any other anniversary celebrations will top this one.  It was amazing!

First, I have to give a HUGE shout out to Grant's mom.  Last year, for our anniversary, she got us a very generous gift card to the spa at Terranea Resort, which is only a few miles from our house.  For people like Cheri, who have been to this area, but don't live here, Terranea is between the lighthouse and Trump Golf Course.  It opened only about 2 years ago, so it's still very new.  We go to Terranea alot, whether just to walk around, go to the beach, or eat at some of their restaurants.  It's one of our favorite places to go!  Back in 2009, Grant's family came here for Christmas, and we (along with Grant's brother, John) got Grant's mom a gift card to get a massage at the spa there.  She loved it so much, and had such a great experience, that she wanted us to experience it, as well.  So that's where she got the idea to get us a gift card.

Last year, we tried to make a reservation there for our anniversary, but our anniversary falls on Mother's Day Weekend, so by the time we got the gift card and called for reservations, they were totally full.  So we slacked off until maybe October, and we made reservations then.  Well, our babysitter cancelled because of sickness, so we ended up not going.  Slacked off again until a couple of weeks ago, when we finally made reservations, and got a sitter.

As we were walking to the spa, I saw this little tiny Asian girl with two tiny Asian kids, and it looked like my friend Ting and her kids, but they were facing away from us, so I couldn't see their faces.  As we got closer, I called out her name, and sure enough, it was her!  Right before we saw her, I was just mentioning to Grant how we need to have a date night with Ting and her husband before we move, and then about a minute later, we saw her.  So random!  But this isn't the first time we've run into people we know there.  Everyone loves Terranea!

Folks, let me tell you, I have never experienced luxury like this!  I don't even know if I have words that can describe it, so you'll just have to trust me on this, and enjoy the pictures...

First of all, when you have massage reservations, you have free-reign of the spa all day, which is really nice.  Unfortunately, we didn't get there too early to use the facilities, but that's still a nice feature.  We did swim in the pool for a few minutes before our massages, though.  When it was time for the massages, we were shown to our room, and we were shocked at the view!  I knew this room existed, but we thought you had to pay more for it.  But this is the only room that has this view overlooking the ocean.  It wasn't a beautiful day, so the pictures don't do it justice, but the ocean was right there.

Right as we were laying down on the tables, we noticed all these dolphins, maybe only 100 yards out from the coast.  Then all of a sudden, two whales came up!  We see whales alot around here, but never this close!

After the massages (which were awesome, by the way), we went to the pool again.  By this time, the temperature had gone down a bit, so we didn't swim, but it was so nice to just lay outside, listen to calm music, and just relax.



After that, it was time for us to get ready for dinner.  We didn't have reservations, but we planned on going to Mar'sel, which is the fanciest restaurant at Terranea.  We've never eaten there before, because it is very expensive, and it's just not a place that you randomly go to.  It was perfect for an anniversary dinner, though, especially after the treatment we just received!

While I was getting ready, someone came into the women's lounge (do not call it a locker room!) to tell me that we had a reservation at Mar'sel at 5:30.  I didn't really understand how that happened, but I knew I had to hurry.  It's a good thing I'm not a high-maintenance girl, otherwise we would've missed our reservations!

As we were walking to the restaurant, Grant kept mentioning the strings he pulled to get the reservations, but he wouldn't tell me what exactly he did, but he was proud of himself.  He took our bags to the car, and I went to check us into the restaurant.  The hostess asked if we wanted indoor or outdoor seating, and I knew we definitely wanted outdoor.  She took me to a table that wasn't right at the edge of the patio, so I asked if we could have one right on the edge, and she said yes.  Check it out!

Looking this way, you can see our little town of San Pedro (the furthest out point)...

And this way is facing back towards the resort...

Edited:  I forgot to mention how Grant got us the reservations!  After the massages and the pool, we went our separate ways, and Grant was hanging out in the hot tub on the men's side of the spa.  There was another guy in the hot tub, and as they were talking (okay, this is starting to sound weird, but they didn't have co-ed hot tubs there), Grant told the guy that we were going to Mar'sel.  He asked when our reservations were, and Grant explained that we didn't have any, we were just going to show up.  He told Grant that he could get us reservations, because he was the chief engineer at Terranea!  So if it wasn't for Grant talking to random strangers in hot tubs, we would've been sitting inside at the bar.  Which would've been nice, but not as nice as this.

Our dinner was great!  I felt like I was a judge on Top Chef.  I have never had food that fancy before!  We were given an amuse-bouche, compliments of the chef, even!  Oh, and while we were eating, we saw yet another whale!  Again, it was really close to the shore.  That made it so, so special!

So that was it!  Seriously, the best anniversary celebration we've had so far.  I don't really know how it gets much better than that.

And if you're still reading, you can enjoy pictures of these two babies who got married almost a decade ago.

I love my husband so much!  We've known each other since we were 12, started dating in high school, got married after college, so we've got alot of history together.  I'm looking forward to growing old with my best friend.

Easter

We had a fantastic Easter weekend! On Saturday, we went to the Easter Eggstravaganza at Ft. Mac, which is our little mini-base here in San Pedro. They put on such a great event every year! And I couldn't believe it when Kendall not only wanted to see the Easter Bunny, but she reached for him, so he could put her in his lap. I even got the picture to prove it!  (Oh, about the pictures from Saturday, I totally forgot the memory card to my camera, so I took these with my phone.)

They also have bouncy castles, a petting zoo, karaoke, face painting, balloon animals, food, and lots of freebies!  After we left the Easter Bunny, we made our way to the easter egg hunt.  It's kind of random, they just throw a bunch of eggs and candy in a field, and section the field off for different ages, and have the kids just go for it when they say go.  It's not really a hunt, but they still have fun.



The girls had these cute matching shirts that they got from their Grandma Betty, and they had their names on them.  I don't think I got a good picture of the whole shirt, but they were super cute.

After that, we just came home, and took it easy the rest of the day.

Sunday, the girls wore dresses and barrettes that I made them (for more on that, you can check out my sewing blog here), and we headed off to church.  For some reason, they were not doing very well that morning.  They were grumpy and tired and whiney and moody.  Not fun.  I was so happy that the plans we made were for dinner, not lunch, so they could come back and take a good nap.  And they did. 

Around 4, we headed over to my friend Michelle's parents house.  We went there for Thanksgiving, too.  When you don't have your own family to celebrate with, it's so nice to still celebrate with people you love!  Michelle has two boys the same ages as the girls, and for the most part, they love each other.  We started out with an egg hunt for the kids. 

It's hard getting four kids to look at the camera at the same time!  Two out of four ain't bad, I guess.

Here's one of just the sisters...

Then it was time to eat!

We had a fantastic menu that we all contributed to, thanks to Michelle's suggestions.  Seriously, everything was so delicious.  I should've gotten pictures of the food.

It was such a great weekend!