Grandma Penny and Grandpa Jim were ready to get Matthew and Jared to school and all activities while Ethan and I were traveling. It turned out they didn’t have to stay longer than one day when Glen was reprieved by Marketo early while he waits to start his new gig at Adchemy, so he had the whole week off!

What a way to see California!

We started at San Juan Bautista and worked our way south seeing 15 missions over 4 days (prudently skipping Carmel due to what was sure to be horrific traffic. We can hit it on a nice family overnight some other time.)

The missions are spaced at what was meant to be about a day’s ride apart along what was then Juan Bautista de Anza’s El Camino road and is now (mostly) 101. (Look for the bells marking it up and down California including in San Mateo. Amazingly he made his expedition in 1775-76 – the same year the east coast was trying to sign a Declaration of Independence!) Today that’s about a 50 minute drive on average between missions. What beautiful scenery – farmland, mountains, ocean, lakes, creeks, deer, quail, bunnies, hummingbirds, swallows.

Some missions are state parks, some are active parishes. Some are in pristine condition, re-built or preserved. Nuestra Senora de Soledad is mostly ruins surrounded by farmland. Capistrano is both a ruin, calling the remains from the church that collapsed in the 1812 earthquake the “Acropolis of America,” and the most beautifully preserved mission – truly the “Jewel of the Missions.” (Its chapel is the only church left standing that was graced by the presence of Blessed J Serra.)

The missions’ heyday lasted only about 50 years. The first mission, San Diego de Alcala, was founded in 1771 but they weren’t really up and functioning as the communes that the Franciscans envisioned until about 1780 (I think it was San Luis Rey de Francia that had 50,000 combined sheep and cattle!). The Spanish stopped funding them in the 1830′s and then secularized the land. Or maybe Mexico secularized the land after their revolution? It’s still unclear to me!

Why, you may ask, do we study the missions if they were such a short part of California’s history, when the American Indians displaced by them were here for thousands of years living in harmony with the land? Surprisingly, the missions are a fantastic jumping off place to study most of California’s history pre-gold rush 1849. Yes, the California Indians were here for thousands of years, but they weren’t exactly keeping a written history that we can read today. Every single mission, to their credit, had information about the Indians who lived on the mission land before the Franciscans and Spaniards came. Photographs, murals, artifacts including the hand-woven baskets (the best in the world – they could hold water and were used for everything including cooking), arrowheads, mortar and pestles and lots of information about way of life pre-mission like diet details.

Santa Barbara’s mission had an interesting essay entitled, “Free or Slave” about the legal status of the people who did all the work. The essay asserts that American Indians were granted the equivalent of the legal status of children in Spain at the time, and were therefore neither. Ethan thought that was hogwash since they never had the option of “growing up” under this system. Most of the information was not as patriarchal as the legacy of the missions. (i.e. the missions renamed the Indians based on the name of the saint the mission was named for, instead of calling tribes the names they’d given themselves. And most offensive to me were the statues of Junipero Serra with young Indian boys in truly questionable poses).

One of the missions, was it San Fernando Rey de Espana?, had a room dedicated to “14 Flags of California” which is a great story/curriculum about the legal status of California from the 1500′s to the date of statehood in 1850.

We weren’t the only ones with this great idea to tour missions. We ran into a dad and his son ETHAN, age 9 and in 4th grade, at San Buenaventura on Monday a.m. and then again at our next stop San Fernando Rey. They were doing the same thing! The Ethans enjoyed each other’s company and so did Vincent and I as we hit the rest of the missions. Too bad they postponed their Disneyland trip from Wednesday, although we wish them better weather than we had.

Anyway, this is a great way for families with kids age 7 and older to tour California. If you take your time and limit yourself to 2 or 3 per day you can also take time to enjoy so much of the magic California has to offer: hiking, beach excursions, Solvang’s Little Denmark and wine coutry, San Luis Obispo’s college community, Legoland, Disneyland, L.A….. the list is too long.

Ethan and I had a great time! And we learned a lot too!

Pictures coming soon!

At some point in the spring I realized that Ethan had been sniffling and sneezing non-stop for a year.

Allergies. Guess the breast milk didn’t work after all. *sigh*

On top of that, ever since he threw up on a plane on the way to Jessica’s bar mitzvah in May(?) 2008, he’s had trouble with his ear plugging up when we go around corners or up and down hills in the car. Middle ear fluid? His pediatrician showed no interest in this. But it was driving Ethan CRAZY. I gave him benadryl for it when we would go on long car trips or get on an air plane which helped. But anyway, the middle ear fluid can also be caused by allergies.

So finally I find an allergist. After a couple visits to the wonderful Dr. Machtinger, (really I just like to say his name with a german accent) we discover that Ethan is strongly allergic to dust mites and slightly allergic to cats.

Well, maybe the breast milk did work. Glen’s allergic to cats and pollen and grass.

So we got Ethan a new ionic air purifier thingie, vacuumed, vacuumed, vacuumed, (which actually doesn’t help that much apparently so I’m not sure why I’m doing it) dusted, washed all linens, swapped out his pillow for one that can be washed better and will be getting rid of the carpet in there. Of course, we haven’t yet invested in the special mattress, linens, pillows, powder to kill dust mites….. Ugh. I can see the circles under his eyes and he wakes up sniffling every morning.

On top of that, there’s the root canal.

18 months ago Ethan 2 front teeth broke off halfway down when a baseball took a bad hop smack into his face. Dr Terrence Lau of San Mateo (AMAZING pediatric dentist, can not say enough good about him. The children have never experienced a moment of pain in his chair and considering what Ethan’s been through that’s saying a lot. Thanks Dympna for introducing me to him!) met us at his office after hours and, without assistance, painstakingly glued the pieces of Ethan’s teeth that his team mates had found back on. I think we were there close to 3 hours.

Then in January of this year Ethan’s mouth hit some playground equipment and the pieces broke off again. Luckily he was able to remain calm and find them in the sand before some preschooler came over and buried them. This time it was during the day so at least there was an assistant to help!

But unfortunately we discovered a few weeks ago that the nerve in one of his 2 front teeth died the 2nd time. Root canal. Not only that, but it means multiple visits to the endodontist because the tooth hasn’t finished growing yet so they’re putting some special substance into the tooth to help it grow which has to be replenished every 2 months before they seal it up once and for all. Dr Lau thinks Ethan should be able to keep his 2 front teeth for a few decades if not more, and who knows what dental cosmetic surgery will be doing then. Advancements are made every year.

Hassle. Yes. Expensive. Yes. BUT thank goodness this is the worst of the health problems in our family (knocking on wood) and that dentistry is so advanced that this can be treated fairly easily.