Obviously we survived the flight home from San Jose. It was pretty uneventful, except for the stupid satellite lot where we parked our car, which promised to have vans every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day. And we waited 45 minutes for a van. With the baby. Who had been good all day, and was starting to get very cranky. I was enraged.

To be fair, it wasn’t entirely the parking lot people’s fault. There had been one van that came by earlier, but the other people who were waiting saw us with all our baby gear and bolted for it, so by the time we got to the van, there was no room left and we had to wait for the next one. Jerks. I hope they all got speeding tickets on their way home.

The trip did, however, accomplish one goal, as far as deciding whether or not we could move to the Bay area someday. The conclusion that Dave and I came to? Probably not. The minute we got back to Seattle, we were both like, “Ah, trees! And clouds! We’re home!”

It’s not the weather, which was honestly fine the whole time we were there. The lack of trees was sort of unnerving (no shade! anywhere!), although I could deal with that if I had to. Really, it’s just the idea of dropping over a million dollars on some teeny-tiny house that doesn’t seem very realistic. Our financial stability is already iffy with me not working. I know that people somehow do manage the cost of living down there, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how they do it.

Also, a lot of the people seem kind of tense. You’d think there would be sort of a laid-back, west coast, surfer dude vibe happening, but there isn’t. Especially not on the freeways. I complain about Seattle drivers, but man, they’ve got nothing on the Bay area. I could see myself developing a major case of road rage if I had to battle that traffic on a daily basis.

That’s not to say we won’t relocate someday. Dave and I are kicking around some ideas on that topic, although I don’t know if they’ll turn into anything. I do love the Pacific Northwest, so no matter where we go, I’d be sad to leave. But we’ll do what’s best for our family, and in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, we’ll make it work.

Anyway, now we’re in trip recovery mode: tons of laundry needs to be done, the fridge needs to be restocked (you’d be surprised how much stuff can go bad in a week), and the litter boxes… man, y’all don’t even want to know about them. We paid the teenager across the street to feed the cats while we were gone, but I didn’t ask her to tend to the litter boxes, and hoo boy, they are scary now. So there’s tons o’ fun to be had for me!