POSTED BY CAROL:

During the first week of February, we traveled to CA to see family and friends and timed our visit to coincide with Chinese New Year's. Julia was super excited about the trip and jumped the gun for some of the things she was anticipating. As soon as the plane got into the air, she asked, "Where is Puo Puo (my mom)?" As soon we landed, she said, "We're going to see the parade with dragons."

We had a fun Superbowl with my high school girlfriends, their husbands and babies (the Giants are my new team! It's not just because they're winners, which they are, but most of you probably know that we live within 10 minutes of Giants Stadium). Who knew frozen microwavable Tysons buffalo chicken strips could be so tasty? I know, it certainly doesn't sound good. Julia is still talking about Sofie and Jack. I really wish we could see them more often.

We met up with them one other time in Huntington Beach for some yummy Wahoo's and a beautiful day at the beach, complete with cool "bubble guy."

Disneyland was lots of fun too - despite a 15 minute meltdown, complete with thrashing on the floor (by Julia, of course). Some passers-by were sympathetic, others smug. I overheard one mom explain to her husband, "They just get over tired sometimes." (Inside, I thanked her for her understanding) We collected ourselves at the Princess Stage, where we heard a story (probably cryptic for Julia and more cringe-inducing for me than I expected) told by Princess Aurora a/k/a Sleeping Beauty. We felt like the most horrible parents for taking her on the Snow White ride (forgot that it's called Snow White's Scary Adventures), but redeemed ourselves with Dumbo and the Teacups.

Unfortunately, we committed another major parenting no-no when we took Julia to the Chinese New Year Parade in L.A.'s Chinatown and decided to watch the fireworks up close. We realized it might be too loud, but we kinda forgot about the smoke and soot filled air. Julia was sitting on my shoulders while Wayne filmed the segment below. We don't know if Julia was screaming because we couldn't hear a thing - I thought about running away, but thought that might be more traumatic. So all we could do was huddle while Wayne covered her ears. Luckily, she's okay. We all later agreed that the firecrackers needed shush-ing and that they scared the dragons away.

We're lucky that the weather is so great in CA and that there's so many fun things to do there when our main purpose is just to visit family. I also feel lucky that Julia seems to really appreciate my parents, stepmom, brother and grandparents even though we don't see them often.