The flight from Chicago to Los Angeles was uneventful. So much so that I have difficulty remembering it. Which tells me Augie is maturing because, due to the stress and mania that is involved in flying with Augie, I can remember a whole lot of most of the flights we have taken with him.
I do know Augie slept a bit because I have this photo!
So it was that things didn't get interesting until we were standing at the Fox Rent-a-Car counter in Los Angeles doing the paperwork for our rental car. That's when poor little Augie had another massive vomit. This one was much in the same spirit of the LaGuardia Airport one in that it was humongous, chunky and required a full wardrobe change for two people. This time, I wasn't so lucky since I was holding him in my arms when he did it. Vomit was all over me, all over Augie, dripping down the front of the rental car counter and all over their throw rug. The man behind the counter had children so, fortunately, was very understanding. We stopped mid-contract and went off to the bathroom for a complete change. Fox mobilised a clean-up crew. We think Augie might have gotten a little motion-sick again, this time on the rental car bus between the airport and the rental car place.
We ended up getting a mini-van because Mick had purchased a mountain bike online and was having it sent to a bike shop in Encinitas, the small seaside city where we had rented our house. The trip down from LA to Encinitas was pretty easy. Augie crashed out about halfway and had a nice sleep.
We rented a 3-br beachhouse in Encinitas, which is about 25 minutes north of San Diego. It was only a block from Moonlight Beach and the little playground right at the edge of the beach. This was a great location for us.
Our bitchin' white Dodge minivan parked under the sundeck of 'Augie's Beach House', as it came to be known :)
When we first got to 'Augie's Beach House' all he wanted to do was lie on the couch. He'd never done this in his entire life so we knew he still wasn't feeling great.
This is such a rarity I had to take several photos.
Sunset view from the deck of 'Augie's Beach House'.
Augie seemed to be back to tip-top the next day. Here we are enjoying some brekky on the deck.
We went to the Carlsbad Outlet Mall to buy a new, lightweight suitcase. Augie insisted on helping push it to the car.
The outlet mall had a little train, which Mick and I both took Augie on, unbeknownst to one another. Of course, Augie kept mum on the fact that he'd already had a ride with the other parent!
The standout highlight of our trip to the Outlet Mall was the Bob the Builder Ride. Augie discovered Bob the Builder on the Brisbane to Los Angeles plane ride and, during our US trip, Bob the Builder's popularity soared into the stratosphere (largely due to the fact that we had episodes on our iPad and one DVD and whenever we wanted/needed quiet, that's what he got put in front of!). In the above photo, Augie is giving Scoop (Bob the Builder's backhoe for those uninitiated folks) a big cuddle.
After the big cuddle, he decided that climbing on top of Scoop was the way to go.
We went to La Jolla one afternoon and, although there were sea lions and loads of seabirds there to look at, Augie seemed mostly interested in tightrope-walking along the railing.
See what I mean?
A La Jolla lifeguard phone box.
Climbing the Torrey Pine trees in La Jolla Cove park.
It's a shame this photo is so dark. After knocking around in La Jolla Cove for a while, we went to the nearby Brockton Villa Restaurant for dinner. We were joined by our lovely Canadian friends, Mel and Jeff, who had come all the way down from Victoria, British Columbia to stay with us and visit for a few days (photos of them below) and my friend Rob, a La Jolla local, from my San Diego days. Augie was being extremely well behaved in this restaurant and then, completely of his own accord, decided that putting the drinks menu on his head like a hat was the way to go. So funny!
Big, cheesy smile in our beach house. We got him the Captain America shirt while in California and he loved it. He'd say "CAP-tain AH-MER-I-CAAAAA!' every time we put it on.
Enjoying some alfresco watermelon.
Mick and Augie at watermelon o'clock on our sundeck.
Grandpa Doug and his partner Urszula (referred to as Mimi by Augie and his cousins) got him this toy. It's a Dreamlites Pillow Pet, which casts different coloured stars on the ceiling when it's dark in the room. He loved it and named it 'Augie's doggie'. A few days after this photo was taken, it was the cause of a major meltdown in the LAX airport (more on that later...). 'Augie's doggie' later became known as Rumble-Rumble.
We were in San Diego for Halloween and our dear friends Mike and Shannon invited us to their Halloween Party. Another very dear friend, Kelly, was there also so it was a fabulous evening. Left to right in the above photo are: me (holding Augie), Kelly (8-months pregnant with her son Ethan) and Shannon (with baby Emma).
Kelly's son Sammy, who is 2 months older than Augie and just as crazy-active, and Augie had a great time together (excepting a few typical toddler-squabble turf-wars over toys...whatever one had the other wanted and vice versa). In the photo above, you can see that Augie's 'photo-pose' is still with us. Sammy (right of the photo) is just happy that Augie is temporarily occupied with posing and is thus not trying to reef that van off of him!
Kel and me
All smiles on Halloween.
x
An early (6am-ish) dance-a-thon to 'Gaga Lady', who was then and is still Augie's favourite music. Poker Face is his favourite song.
The great thing about staying one block from the beach is being able to wander down whenever you feel like building a sandcastle. The place we rented came complete with sandcastle-building gear so this made it even easier. Augie insisted upon carrying his own building materials ;)
Off with his shovels.
We tried to get him to play frisbee but he was all about his sandcastles!
skeptical
happy!
joy!
mischievous! This is the look he gets before he does something he knows will get him in trouble...
Kicking sand into the ocean.
One day, during Mel's and Jeff's stay with us, we all piled into the mini-van and headed on down to the San Diego Botanic Garden.
There were fountains to play in...
There were treehouses to climb...
There were streams with toy boats...
There were shoulder rides from Dad...
Oh, yes, and there were even some plants to look at...
There was angst at the kids' playground (I am still not sure why!)...
Here's a video of Augie powering through some frustration on the kids' playground. I have no idea what bee was in his bonnet here but it wasn't stopping his sand movements!
Jeff, Mel and Augie.
Jeff and Mel. So great to see these guys. We are very thankful they made the huge trip to come and see us!
One afternoon, we caught up with some good friends at the Pepper Tree Playground in Balboa Park. Left to Right in this photo are: Karen (Kelly's Mom), Kelly (holding Sammy), Mick, Nik, Lee and me (holding Augie).
We had a fabulous time in Encinitas but the day inevitably arrived when we had to say farewell to 'Augie's Beach House'.
We had to check out of the beach house by 10am but our flight wasn't until 11.50pm that night. This is a very long stretch of limbo-time with a toddler in tow. Especially since that toddler usually naps from 12-2 or 3. He would nap in the car but wouldn't take as long of a nap and we wanted him as rested as possible for the late-night departure and huge 13.5-hr trans-Pacific flight. Luckily Kelly came to the rescue and let us hang out at her house for a few hours, giving Augie lunch and putting him down for his nap there. In the photo above, Mick has discovered some spare Hulk-hands lying around and is providing some lunch-time entertainment for Augie.
Mick with our re-donk-u-lous volume of luggage (the huge flat box on top is his bike), outside of LAX. Even though this volume of luggage is still embarrassing, we've made progress from last year's luggage, which was just obscene.
Shortly after the above photo was taken, we found ourselves at the Qantas check-in counter in the midst of the most asinine customer service I have ever encountered from an airline. Maybe anywhere. I had called Qantas' customer service line from Kelly's earlier in the day to verify the baggage limits for our fares. The person on the phone advised me that the checked baggage requirements were as follows: 1 bag for Mick weighing 23kg (total weight cannot exceed 32kg), 2 bags for Holly weighing 23kg each (total weight of each bag cannot exceed 32 kg), 1 bag for Augie weighing 10kg. Effectively, we were allowed 79kg of weight (23+23+23+10) which could be distributed any way amongst the bags so long as no bag exceeded 32kg in weight. I double-clarified this with the person on the customer service hotline, who confirmed it. So, imagine our surprise, when we arrived at the baggage check counter in LAX only to be advised that Qantas' policy - only for flights travelling out of North America - is that no bag can exceed 23 kg in weight. Full stop, period, end of story. Qantas' scales said one of our bags weighed 24.5 kg. Folks, this is 1.5kg over what they say their limit is out of North America. One would think a blind eye could be turned to this weight, especially to people at 9.30pm with a cranky toddler. But, no. Qantas' solution was to hand us a plastic calico zip-top bag and ask us to re-pack some of our luggage into that. Yes, dear readers, that's right. Meaning that now Qantas has to handle yet another bag for us - and a really tiny easy-to-lose, easy-to-damage one at that. Not a wonder why this airline is losing money hand over fist internationally. Really, how incredibly stupid. So in the re-packing effort, which we did with great fanfare right there in front of the baggage check counter, Augie got a glimpse of Augie's Doggie. And he lost his sh*te...completely dropped his bundle. Mick and I both thought he was saying "Augie's Daddy" instead of Augie's Doggie so Mick is dragging a screaming toddler around the baggage check-in area thinking he's tired and just needs to be distracted and all he wanted was his doggie, which he could see the whole time he was screaming his head off. Augie is LOUD so this made quite a scene. After the great re-packing fiasco, we took our luggage to the TSA screener, which was behind a wall and out of the line of sight of the dragon-lady Qantas baggage check clerk so I merrily re-packed the 1.5kg of crap I'd just removed from our bags and then sent them on their way. What an exercise in stupidity. As it turns out, this wasn't the only disservice the Qantas Dragon-Lady was to bestow upon us. Very long story short, she assured us of a blocked-out seat between us so we gave up our bulkhead (kiddie-friendly) seats. At the point when a very large man came and sat in the seat between us, the same one we'd been assured was blocked out, we honestly weren't suprised. We later found out, from the same very large seatmate, who was quite lovely and whose wife works for Qantas, that Qantas' Los Angeles service is staffed by contractors who care not much at all about Qantas' customers and who have a reputation within the company as being the lowest of the low with regard to customer service. In the end, our blocked-off seat was made right by one very hard-working flight attendant who found the very large man another seat beside his wife who was seated elsewhere in the plane. And we got a spare seat in the middle of us, which is the difference between sanity and insanity with a toddler on a long-haul flight.
`
Somehow, Augie managed to stay awake until our plane departed, even though it was about an hour delayed so 1am. This is about 5 hours past his bedtime. I thought we were really in for it with his behaviour but he was amazing. He was quiet and calm all the way until we got on the plane. I still have no idea how that happened. In the photo above, he's passing time with our iPad waiting for the boarding call. He looks like such a seasoned traveller. Which, by now, I suppose he almost is since, at the time of this photo, he had done 3 trans-Pacific flights, 8 trans-American flights and 7 trans-Australian flights.
We boarded the plane with little fanfare, had a meal and then he fell asleep.
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