Road trip to San Francisco!

This past weekend Mike, Zoe and I joined Lolo, Lala, Isabelle and Ingha on a road trip to the bay area to celebrate Lala and Aunty Ting's birthday (as a twin myself, I totally get why the twins wanted to be together on their special day).  Prior to SF, the only other road trip Zoe has ever been on is to Las Vegas to visit Grandpa Ted (the hour-long road trips every weekend to LA don't count).  She did pretty good on the Vegas trip (with just a minor meltdown when we hit traffic on the way home) so I was hoping she'd do just as good -- if not better -- this time around.  Luckily, the Salcedo Family has mastered the art of roadtripping to SF.  They have this cool short cut through Gilroy (I think the highway is 152 or something) and it cuts the 7-8 hour trip to about 5 hours.  We left late Friday night (around the time of Zoe's usual bedtime) so she  was asleep for 95% for the way (phew!) ... she fell asleep at the grapevine and woke up around Stanford.  I was happy she did so well (I was prepared with all kinds of toys and snacks on hand just in case) ... even though it was kind of cramped sitting with her in the third row of the Yukon, I was just happy that she was able to manage the long car ride (I even got to nap for an hour or so ... ).

Once we got to Aunty Ting's house, Zoe looked a little confused as she was assessing her new environment. It's like she was wondering if she's ever been to this place before ... what made things even more confusing was seeing Lala's twin sister -- I don't think she realized they were two different people =).
We woke up early the next morning to have breakfast with Mike's former co-worker (and still good friend) Neha.  We haven't seen Neha in a while (she moved to SF last year) and she's been dying to meet Zoe, so it was the perfect time to hang out.  We ate at a cute diner called Christie's in Burlingame and had a delicious meal (Frank and Amelia also joined us).  Zoe enjoyed chocolate chip pancakes, hashed browns, eggs benedict and a waffle for good measure (I LOVE that she's such a foodie!).  After breakfast, we said goodbye to Neha and met up with the rest of the family at an all-you-can-eat Asian seafood buffet to celebrate the twins' birthday.  Of course, Zoe had lots of food (this girl loves her some bufffet!) ... she was being fed by both Lolo and me so she was getting a double dose of goodness =).  Lunch was followed by birthday cake and coffee at Uncle Nestor and Aunty Ira's house in Hayward where Zoe had absolutely no problem showing all her new "fans" her antics.  She was totally hamming it up for her new audience (I love that she's so confident and friendly!!) and they all really enjoyed her company. The rest of the evening was spent just hanging out at Aunty Ting's house with the Hadi sisters. The next morning, we went to the 7 am mass followed by breakfast at Crepevine.  We hit the road early (9am-ish) so that we could be back in LA in time for our 5 pm CCC meeting. Once we hit the road, Zoe immediately fell asleep and stayed sleeping for almost two hours.  The next three hours were spent with me feeding her puto, apple sauce and milk and playing/singing with her =).  I'm just glad that Zoe didn't cry or have a meltdown during those three hours -- instead, she got a mad case of the munchies =).  She ended up falling asleep again the rest of the way home (hooray!!!).  I was so proud of my little girl and how well she did on her SF road trip (seriously -- this girl is such a good girl I feel like I'm getting pretty spoiled ... take notes, Baby #2!!! Lol).

Mike has such a big family up north and it's always nice to be able to spend time with them.  Now that we know she can handle it, hopefully we can take more trips to SF so that Zoe will be able to get to know all her cousins, aunts, uncles, lolos, lolas, etc. etc.  All in all, it was a great trip -- I'm glad we had the opportunity to spend quality time with Mike's side of the family and am looking forward to many more fun times ahead with them =)

Breakfast with Neha!

Zoe helping the twins blow out their candles =)

Uncle Frank teaching Zoe how to play the piano

Enjoying the nice weather in Hayward

Buffet celebration with the family

Cousins! (the other 50+ couldn't make it)

Breakfast at Crepevine

Exploring Aunty Ting's house

Zoe and Aunty Ingha

Zoe was fascinated with Uncle Frank's juggling skillz

Zoe with one of the birthday girls

 What do you do when you're sitting in the third row of an SUV with a baby?  Take video, of course!!!  Here's a snippet of Zoe's snacking fest (what else is there to do on a road trip but snack, right?)