Castro Valley

Day 80, almost around the world in 80 days...turned out to be our longest day of traveling. March 12th started in Tokyo where we were awoken by an earthquake tremor at 4am from a 5.3 quake in a neighboring State (our first experience!). Later that day we departed at 3pm for a 5 hour flight to Manila, Philippines and then flew 12 hours to San Francisco where we landed at 9pm...still March 12th.

After a long flight we were exhausted and ready to get on our way, but all of our jokes of "if Trump let's us back in" turned out to be reality when I had to go to secondary questioning after raising some suspicion with our complicated to explain travels. I was taken into a back room where they asked all about our trip and were specifically interested in our visit to Egypt. About 15 minutes later they let us go, but they did take my email and phone number. It's good in a way that they are extra cautious now, but a bit sad to see how unstable our world has become that we're scrutinized for wanting to travel the world!

Needless to say were jet lagged but excited to see my brother and his family and their new addition Nora. After a stop at In-N-Out burger, we attempted to go to sleep and get back on schedule which didn't go too well.

The rest of the week we enjoyed playing with the boys and getting to see 5-week old Nora. We celebrated Casey's birthday and also had a wonderful dinner with Uncle Don, Aunt Barbara, and Aunt Fran. It was also fun yet intimidating to get a glimpse of life taking care of 3 children. Certainly challenging but also rewarding as we enjoyed going to their tee-ball practice, dropping Hudson off at Kindergarten, and watching the boys admire and talk to baby Nora.Read more