We're here! And we're tired.

Yesterday we roused the babes at 4:30am, trundled everyone into a taxi (after getting the house back to showing-worthy tidiness) and took off for the airport. We barely made it to the plane on time (the earliest they could pick us up was 5am for a 6:35 flight, and we needed to check two bags. We kinda forgot that everyone else was having spring break, too!) and then sat on the tarmac for 35 minutes while they swapped out a computer. And then we were off!

The six-and-a-half-hour flight passed pretty quickly. We had a ten-minute spot of the worst turbulence I've ever had -- the teenagers and adults were nervously smiling and giggling throughout, the kids were oblivious until Oscar looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said "It's really bumpy, what if the plane crashes and we never get to California?" I assured him it was just bumpy air and we'd be okay.

BIG FAMILY MILESTONE! this was our first flight where nobody cried.

Lucy opens up the window to see the mountains and gasps, "So BOOTIFUL!"

Oscar, art-directing his self-portrait.

We picked up our ginormous car and drove to the hotel and collapsed. At this point, it was a little before 11am local time!

Family portrait, taken by Oscar. Evan pokes away at his iPhone, I'm looking for the nearest playground online, the little guys are wrassling.

We didn't have any real plans for today. After an hour of unpacking and being crabby, we do what we always do: head for a park and a playground.

Lincoln Park is a beautifully manicured park with a covered play area for little ones with a sandbox floor and plenty of Cozy Coupes to ride around the grounds. The weather was beautiful and the people were friendly. They were even shooting some movie (a student film) in the park! How Hollywood can you get?

The park borders the Burbank Library, and since I am my mother's daughter, I went in and got plenty of community information, including -- SCORE! -- the Recreation Department's catalog, including summer camp info and preschool programs.

The library itself is beautiful. It's got a great program where you can take a plastic shopping basket, fill it up, and take the whole thing, including the basket, out for three weeks. We saw lots of families reading to their kids and enjoying the space. You can see pictures of the library, including the huge tree in the middle of the children's section, here.

Afterwards, we drove around a bit and visited a couple open houses.

This place was tiny (under 1100 sf), filthy, had revolting carpet (with hardwood underneath), a postage-stamp kitchen with old, crappy appliances, one bathroom, and three tiny bedrooms, one of which had the only access to the back yard. It needed a good scrubbing, fresh paint, and new landscaping. It faced out on a crazy busy street. And it was listed at $20,000 MORE than our lovely 5br Victorian. And that was a reduced price! DEPRESSING.

We were luckier driving into the residential streets of Magnolia Park. This place is about 100k out of our price range but would be perfect. The layout was a bit off -- the addition to the regular house is a little tacked-on, but adds an additional bath and beroom (bringing it up to 2 baths 3br) plus a gigantic family room in the back (look for the Brady Bunch siding!). The kitchen was big enough for a table, with lots of beautiful old wooden cabinets. The house has an amazing amount of built in storage. But the real selling point was the backyard. Gorgeous rose bushes, enough grass to play on, a covered patio, and room for a hot tub. We clicked with the Realtor at this place as well. He's originally from Morristown, NJ so he understands the move we are making. He gave us a little tutorial on Burbank houses that was great. Even better, he served in Iraq and Bosnia in the 90s and actually handed out many of the anti-land-mine comics I art-directed for the Army and DC! I think we will be in touch with him when we move out.

We finally saw a storybook little house with just needed one more bedroom and a half bath. It was really cute and in our price range.

At this point everyone was exhausted and hungry. It was about 3pm local time. We hit a Trader Joe's for cereal bars, juice boxes and cookies (not to mention beer and wine for later) and, fortified, went to downtown Burbank and discovered a great arts festival going on to support Burbank Arts for All, a nonprofit providing arts in the public schools. We saw a group of Indian girl dancers that Oscar and Lucy loved.

The clincher was the rock bank of middle schoolers (complete with middle aged dad roadies) that had met in an after-school arts program in elementary school. The tore up the joint with a rendition of Crazy Train. Oscar had stars in his eyes.

Here's a video that Oscar took.

We went out for Mexican, where many chips, Margaritas, and rice was consumed. Not much else. Came back to the hotel, the kids were in bed 6:15 local time, conked out by 7. I was out at 7:30 and Evan lasted all the way until 9am.