Saturday morning, Billy and Matt left on a road trip to L.A. They stayed overnight at a motel in Redding, and got back on the road about 5:30 or so Sunday morning. They called us at 7:30 AM, saying that his car broke down, and they were on the side of I-5, just outside of Williams. We called for a tow truck ($145 for three miles), and arranged for a mechanic to look at the car ($120 to say “Yup, it won’t start, and we can’t do any more until Monday.”) The tow driver took the boys to a motel and they checked in until we could figure out what to do.
At church a few hours later, we mentioned the situation to a few people, including one of the youth pastors (who sings in the band the boys play in), who mentioned that he grew up in Williams, and whose parents still lived there. Within ten minutes, they had arranged to pick up the boys, and got them a full refund for their unused motel room. He also happens to be a mechanic, and confirmed that the engine was, in fact, destroyed (a broken connecting rod punched through the engine block, which, as I understand it, is AVery Bad Thing.) They fed the boys and put them up over night.
The boys were still anxious to get to L.A. to see their grandpa who had a stroke back in February, so the family they were staying with helped them book airline tickets for a one-way flight on United from Sacramento to LAX, leaving at 9:30 AM on the 18th. When they got to the airport this morning, they discovered that they had accidentally booked the tickets for July 18th instead of June 18th, and were non-refundable, non-transferable and couldn’t be changed. It was at this point that Kathy officially freaked, and I arranged to leave work to straighten this all up from home today. By the time I got home, Billy had booked two new one-way tickets for tomorrow morning on United, and were on the stand by list for every other flight. Kathy was going to have none of this, so she called and raised hell, and had these new tickets refunded (which is going to take 30-60 days, even though they were able to charge Billy’s debit card within 30-60 seconds.) She then arranged for one-way tickets on JetBlue to Long Beach Airport. When the boys went to retrieve their luggage from United, they found that it was already on its way to LAX. They took a cab from Long Beach to their grandma’s house in Carson. When they went to LAX to get their bags about an hour ago, the United luggage office had no idea where their bags were, and didn’t know anything about their situation. The boys finally found their bags on one of the United carousels, still going around in circles like they had been for the last seven hours.
The little repair shop in Williams that had the car quoted $3500 for a rebuilt engine to be installed. The lowest figure I could find, calling in several favors from people here in town, would have been about $800 labor and about $400 for a replacement engine, but I would have to get the car here from Williams, about a nine hour drive each way. The car is worth about $1800. Because the car is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, there aren’t a lot of options for salvaging it, and it seemed like we were actually going to have to pay someone to take the remains of the car off our hands.
The family in Williams once again came through for us, and had the car towed from the repair shop to their house, and arranged for a company to come and pick up the car for free. Our friend from church is driving down there this Friday to visit, and is going to take the DMV title to them for us, and will bring back the rest of the boys stuff that was left at their house.
Now we have a full month to arrange to get the boys home.
Yay! Non-blogging brother Josh is here! He and his kids drove up from Orange County, and they arrived this afternoon. My dad and step-mom are flying in tomorrow night. It’s gonna be a great week end!
I know I haven’t posted anything yet about my diet routine. Sorry, still been kinda busy. I can report that I’ve lost 9 pounds so far since the first of August. Yay me!
One of the things that kept me busy recently was a family reunion organized by my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Don. Every family member in the state was there, and aunts and uncles from Texas and Nevada even made it. Everyone had a great time. Photos are in the photo gallery:
Big apologies for not posting regularly for quite a while. Things have been quite hectic at work.
My department used to have about 15 people in it, then a reorganization moved some people to other departments, cutting us down to about 12. Another reorg resulted in several layoffs, cutting our numbers to 8. Then, economic factors outside the organization’s control resulted in management making the decision to layoff 10% of the workforce. Because of federal, state and local laws governing our financial structure (we are a large public agency), the 80+ positions would be removed from departments that made up about 50%-60% of the organization. My department was hit the hardest, with half being laid off, including my infamous manager Ted. You can read more about Ted here (and here, here, here, here, here and here.) We were all not so surprised that Ted somehow managed to be the only laid off employee interviewed on the air by KOIN 6 news on the day the layoffs were announced (yup, it was that big a deal when that many people were laid off here, it was one of the top news storys on that day back in September 2004.)
So aaanywaaaay, at that point there were four of us, in effect doing what 15 people used to do, doing all the end-user IT support for an organization with close to 1000 users. Just recently, after our industry’s economy started picking up again, it was announced that we would be hiring another Technical Analyst like the four of us, as well as a supervisor, bringing our number up to six. We all applied for the supervisor position as well as many people from outside the organization, and one of my co-workers got the position. I’m not at all upset at the decision (you know I would have no problem venting my frustration here otherwise), and I’m really glad that management and HR decided to promote from within.
However, in addition to all that is happening at work, I have even bigger news: we bought a house. It is a three bedroom, 2.5 bath common-wall (one half of a duplex) here in Beaverton, with 1480 square feet. It sits right next to a greenspace that will never be developed, so the kids have literally acres of fields right outside the back door to run and play. It was built in 1995, and is in great shape.
Several things were found when the home inspector walked through the place. Most are pretty minor, like the garage door opener not working, but a few were pretty serious, like failing LP siding. So far, the seller has agreed to all of our requests for repairs. If nothing goes wrong, we will be signing all the paperwork in a few weeks, and we will pick up the keys on May 18th.
I’ll post some pictures of the place here as soon as I can, so keep checking back!
Well, we are back and I for one am glad to be. I have to rant a bit about the chaos that we encountered.
It was very chaotic and stressful for us this year. All the plans that were set in stone before the trip were either changed or cancelled at the last minute. The time at my parents home was total chaos with all seven grandchildren gathered in front of the Christmas tree in a 900 sq ft trailer. I cleaned and cooked all the meals up to Christmas Dinner. After that dinner, I limited the amount of time and energy that I spent on helping out.
My family painted a very grim picture of my sick mother, but in reality she spent more time driving or at the store than visiting with us. She is oblivious to how sick she is and continues to smoke like a chimney. If inclined to do so, pray that she will see the light before it is too late. She states that the doctors told her that her lungs were clear. But, in reality, the emphysema does not go away. So, she is still in total denial.
The last three days of the trip were awesome. My brother-in-law Josh and sister-in-law Shawna were such a blessing to us. They made us feel very welcome after the previous weeks ordeal. We had a great time with them and we were all very saddened that we couldn’t spend more time with them.
To top the trip off. Our trip home started about 2pm. Leaving Josh and Shawna’s home and driving about 1 hr to the airport. The flight was 30 minutes late, then arriving in Vegas for about 1 hr layover we found out our plane was in deed cancelled due to mechanical problems. The next flight out was over 2 hrs later, so needless to say, I gambled a little on the 5 cent slots and lost but it was fun. The flight out from Vegas ended up being 30+ minutes late so we didn’t end up getting in until 2:15 am. Our pastor from our church had to come and rescued us from the airport which ended up being a blessing in of itself.
So, overall, I think I can speak for everyone, “There is no place like home”. This trip sure has taught us who and what you can depend on. I wish to personally thank my friend Teri for being willing to house sit for our animals. You are sure a blessing to our family. With all the pain you have suffered in the past 2 yrs with the loss of your son, you helped us without wanting anything in return. Hopefully someday I can repay the favor.
Yesterday, we drove by the house in Redondo Beach where I lived when I met Kathy. At one point (on November 13, 1985 to be exact), a section of the sidewalk in front was replaced, and we carved our initials in the wet cement. Take a look (click to open up a larger 450K picture):
In case you can’t make it out, it says:
BH {heart} KS
JH 11/13/85
GH
BH is me. KS is Kathy. JH and GH are brothers Josh and Gabe.
We also stopped for lunch at In -N- Out burger. For anyone who has never been to Southern California, and who doesn’t know about In -N- Out, I can only describe it as the best hamburger in the world, ever. The picture below is so typical of Los Angeles (click to open up a larger 450K picture):
We fly to LAX today, then it’s two weeks in warm sunny Los Angeles. We fly back late on new year’s eve, with a one hour layover in Las Vegas. Maybe the plane will have mechanical problems, and we’ll be forced to stay the night…
Word: “Sexy” Usage: Spoken by our friend’s two-year-old grand-daughter, who was trying to say “Lexi”. Example: “Hey, Sexy, let’s go play with all the fun toys in your bedroom.”
Note: I realize it is pretty creepy to hear someone call my (at the time 5-year-old) daughter “Sexy”. It’s still pretty hilarious, though.
Thank you for all the well wishes and prayers sent our way. Mom was discharged yesterday. They received some of the results of the numerous tests and found that her carotid artery on the right side of her neck is 100% blocked and the left side is not that bad. Surgery is not an option since the right side artery attaches to the brain. On top of all that, she has an abdominal hernia and emphysema. She was told not to smoke, to lose weight and to exercise.
Well, I called last night and found out that 3 hrs after discharge, she lit up. But, she said “it made her sick”. Needless to say, our family’s conversation to her were not very friendly. I think that it may have sunk in because she has not touched it since last night. I told her “we have gone through enough this week and I don’t want to have to visit everyone for your funeral”. This morning while I was on the phone with her, my Dad said, “she sealed her cigarettes in a box and wrote “THESE WILL KILL YOU “. For me, that is an accomplishment.
My Dad wanted us all to be there for the holidays. He purchased all of us airline tickets to California. Mom doesn’t know what is going on. So, it will be a surprise to her.
We still need all your prayers for a safe journey. Also, pray that if she decided to not be very responible for her own life and try to smoke again, the cigarettes will taste horrible to her.
We got a call a few hours ago from Kathy’s dad, to let us know that Kathy’s mom is in the hospital. She collapsed this afternoon while they were shopping, and she is currently in the ER at Torrance Memorial Hospital. As of now, the doctors think she may have had a stroke, so they are giving her all sorts of blood thinners and other medications that are supposed to reverse some of the effects of a stroke. We are supposed to get an update tonight from Kathy’s dad when more info is available. I’ll post any updates here.
She will be 59 in February, and has smoked two to three packs a day for more than 40 years. They (plus our nephew Jonathon) were planning to come up here for a week and a half on the 18th of this month, but it looks like we might be making an emergency trip down to L.A. instead.
Know this: Even if Kathy and I have to tie her up ourselves and poke her with sharp sticks, I swear on my cat’s tail she is not smoking another cigarette again in her life.
Word: “U.P.S.” (As in United Parcel Service) Usage: Spoken as a word (like the plural of “the opposite of down”) instead of just initials. Example: (A conversation with my mother-in-law many years ago):
Her: “I read that deliveries have been delayed quite a bit since the ups drivers have been on strike.”
Me: “Umm, since the what drivers?”
Her: “You know, the ups drivers. The ups drivers are all on strike, so the ups managers and ups secretaries are all trying to make the ups deliveries.”
Me: “Huh?”
As promised way back in early September, here are a few games that we’ve found make road trips a bit more enjoyable, especially with kids cooped up in the car.
1. License plate game, Hayes style.
I took the standard license plate game, and kicked it up a few notches. I created a page with a picture of every state’s license plate, as well as Washington DC’s plate. You can download it as an 840KB PDF format here (and yes, I’m aware that I have North Dakota twice, and that there is no South Dakota. Sue me. Or create your own.)
I printed five copies, one for each of us. When we would see a car from a certain state, we would put a line through that state’s plate. The first person to cross off all 51 plates, or the one who crosses off the most plates by the time we reach our destination, is the winner. We only count single-family passenger vehicles, like cars, pickups, SUVs, minivans, and even RVs. No busses or semi trucks. We only counted cars that we saw driving, not parked.
2. Alphabet game.
The standard alphabet game can be played on road trips of any length. The basic rules: Find words on signs that begin with each successive letter of the alphabet. It is a collaborative game, with everyone helping to find words in order; in other words, each person does not have his own alphabet to run through. You can’t use any word on any part of any car, including the make, model, or any ads or logos printed on the car. You can only use one word on any single sign, so if a sign has the words “Alpha” and “Beta”, you can use “Alpha” as the A-word, but you then must look for a B-word on a different sign.
On shorter trips, including trips that include driving through town, the game can be more fun when several rules are relaxed. It can take a loooong time to find an X-word for example. You can choose to either allow a word that has X anywhere in it to be the X-word, or you might purposely drive near a sign that has an X-word, like a copy place that has the word “Xerox” in the window, or by a hospital that has an “X-ray” sign. You can even choose to find the X-word out of order if you come across it before you’ve reached X in the alphabet.
Just before I left work today, Kathy called to tell me that Lexi had a concert at school tonight, and that I should rush home so I’d be able to make it. Apparently, the kids in music class at Lexi’s school have been working with the great Michael Allen Harrison for the last several weeks, writing songs based on the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go, and this was the first I’d heard of it. Actually, the other day, Lexi was singing a song I’d never heard before, and I asked her what the song was. She said “It’s a song I’ve been singing with Michael Allen Harrison.” I thought it was cute that she was singing along with the radio; little did I know that she had been actually truly singing it with him in person.
It was an amazing concert, and I have a new appreciation and respect for all that this amazing musician does. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery.
So Billy was doing something, I don’t remember what now, that was really getting on Kathy’s and my nerves. Lexi did her best to diffuse the situation by writing a note to help us remember that it’s not all that bad.
We were driving over the mountains, after leaving Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, heading to our motel in Idaho Falls, Idaho. It was near the end of our road trip, and we had already driven 4800 miles or so in 14 days. I had tried to plan all of our driving time each day to arrive at the motel at a decent hour. Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered the fact that on that night, we’d be driving very slowly in the dark over the passes and through the mountain roads. Needless to say, we got into Idaho Falls very late. In addition, we couldn’t see the motel when we got off the freeway exit that was given to me back when I reserved the room. We saw a cluster of other motels off to the left, so we turned left to see if our motel was tucked away in there somewhere. It wasn’t. Luckily, in a fury of planning foresight, I had printed copies of everything, including the motel’s phone number.
Using her cell phone, Kathy called the motel and talked to the woman at the front desk to find out just where the heck the place was. Kathy was given brief directions, and she hung up and directed me back across to the other side of the freeway and down a small gulley, where the motel was completely hidden from view of the freeway.
I went in to the office to check in, and I swear I am not lying when I repeat the woman’s comment: “So you were the ones that called for directions? I’m usually no good at giving directions over the phone, so I was a little worried that I would get you more lost. You did find the place, though?”
Moving from our rental house into an apartment last week-end was quite an experience. We’re finally now all unpacked, and just last night I got the boys’ beds put together. We’d been too busy at night after we got home from school and work to put them together, doing things like moving the last of the smaller stuff from the old place and getting it ready for the landlord. They’ve been sleeping on the mattresses on the floor, so it’s nice to finally have their room presentable now. We’ll see how long it lasts.
But anyway, back to my story. To help save money to buy a house in a year or so, we moved from a 1700sf house to an 1100sf apartment. The apartment comes with a refrigerator and washer/dryer, so we had to also rent a small space at a self-storage place to put our fridge, our upright freezer, our washer/dryer, as well as the lawnmower, and all the other things we won’t need while living here. The storage place has sturdy wooden carts to use for making it easier to get a stack of boxes from your car to your storage unit. When we were loading up one of those carts this week-end, I kept cracking up remembering something that happened to Kathy and I years ago, when we lived in the L.A. area, before we had kids.
We had rented a storage unit in a huge self-storage complex that sprawled over several acres, and was several stories tall. While I was at work, Kathy had made all the arrangements to rent the place, and the manager had taken her around the huge complex in a golf cart. The next week-end, Kathy, her sisters and I were going to start to move things there, and it was the first time I’d actually been there myself. We backed the car up to the door nearest our unit, and Kathy said she’d go get the cart to help unload things. The carts were kept chained up around the corner from the office, and she went inside to get the key.
A few minutes later, Kathy and her sisters come ripping around the corner almost full speed in the golf cart. With a puzzled look on my face, I asked if she was sure this was what they meant when they said we could use a “cart”. She was sure, and besides, the key that they gave her fit the golf cart’s ignition. It didn’t look like a regular key, though, it looked more like a padlock key. She put the key back in the ignition, but it wouldn’t turn this time. We couldn’t get the golf cart to move again.
I went to the office to explain the situation, to tell the guy that the key wouldn’t fit in the cart anymore, and so we couldn’t move it out of the roadway. The guy couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get the key to fit in the padlock, and why we couldn’t just move the push cart out of the way. When I was finally able to make him understand that I was talking about the golf cart, and not one of the push carts, he refused to believe me. “That key is to open the padlock on the chained up push carts. The golf cart uses a completely different kind of key. There is no way that you can make that padlock key fit in that golf cart’s ignition”, he said.
It’s moving day, and I’m just about to take the computer down. We’ll be in the new place today, but we won’t have Internet hooked up until sometime Monday. This is the last post I’ll be able to write until probably Tuesday when things start to begin to slowly seem to maybe consider think about getting back to normal.
Many of you close friends know that we are moving out of our rental house and into an apartment tomorrow. This is to help us save money for the downpayment and closing costs as we are in the process of buying a house next year in Wood Village. The apartments that we are moving into has a deal with Centex Homes that if you rent through Equity Residential they will set aside 20% of your rent towards closing costs.
Well, we have lived in the house for about 2 yrs now. The owner has been very nice to us. We have never been late on a payment and we have kept the place in decent shape. Also, we gave him 6 wks notice of our move. Since he has found out that we are moving it seems upset and very rude towards us. I don’t know what is with him. He already has the place rented and he received our partial payment for the rent this month. We even let him show the place to prospective tenants on three occasions.
On tuesday afternoon, I received a call from him and he wanted to know if he could bring someone over to look at the carpets because they needed to be cleaned. The owner would be here also. I said “sure”. When they arrived the guy had a clipboard and said they will clean everything. After about an hour I told the owner “I was feeling uncomfortable because I felt he didn’t think we would clean the place up when we left”. He said “no, he only wanted a quote for the carpet cleaning”. Then, I receive a call the next day from the owner saying that “he was pretty upset about the way the place looked”. I said “we just got back from vacation, so that is why the lawn was brown and needed to be mowed”. He then said “don’t do any additional repairs on the nail holes because they weren’t up to his standards and he is going to have to fix all the walls now”. If anyone has seen my house knows that there is shabby patchwork on the walls anyway with the drywall and nails showing through. What is up with him and is it legal, what he is doing to us? I feel like he is to the point of harassment. Can he do this legally? Having people coming into the house invading our privacy.
Let me know your suggestions or opinions. He was a nice landlord up until the point that we notified him we were moving.
I have almost all the vacation pictures ready in the photo gallery. For lack of a better system, I have them organized by day. As of now, it is complete through day 13. Actually uploading the photos is trivial, but I want to have a caption for each one, which is proving to be a bit more time consuming than I thought it would. Day 14, which I hope to have ready sometime tomorrow, will have all the pictures from our trip through Yellowstone National Park. I took over 180 pictures that day, and I’m going to upload 70 of them for your viewing pleasure, plus I have five photos from Day 15, the very last day of our vacation, including the aftermath of a very scary and potentially deadly highway incident (don’t worry, we’re all fine).
I’m also going to have a bunch of posts soon about more specific things on the trip, general observations, as well as things we learned about long car trips, kind of like a how-to guide for family vacations via automobile. What worked and what didn’t, ya know?
This was an epic journey for us (5450 miles in 15 days through nine states to visit several family members, three national parks, and a seemingly endless parade of tourist traps), and I don’t know when (or if) we’ll ever be able to do it again. It was a lot more expensive than I’d planned (we spent $687.50 just in gasoline), but I would gladly do it again if given the chance, and if I had it to do over, I would change very little.
We’re back home now. We got in about 10:00 last night. I have a bunch of stories to tell, and I still have all the photos to sort through and share. Vacation was wonderful, but it’s good to be home.
Everyone has a list, right? Some people’s list contains the things they want to do before they die, and they check each one off as they do it. Skydiving, bungee jumping, running with the bulls, whatever. I don’t have a list like that. I’ve always thought that if I did manage to do everything on my list, what else would I have to live for? So my list isn’t titled “Fun things I must do before I die”, but instead “Fun things I’ve done while alive.” That way, my list can grow and grow, and I never feel I have to stop adding to the list, and I won’t be disappointed if I leave this life before my list is complete.
So I added “floating” to my list yesterday. The rivers here in Missouri are very different from the rivers in Oregon, at least the rivers I’m familiar with. Oregon rivers are deep, fast, and they seem to claim the lives of about a swimmer a week during summer. Here, the rivers are shallow, slow, clear, and warm. Kathy’s cousin and his family took us to a place called Dawt Mill, where we rented two canoes and four tubes. We were then taken by converted school bus, with the canoes and tubes and our coolers on a trailer behind us, upriver about eight miles, and we got in the water about 12:30. We floated back downriver, and arrived back at Dawt Mill at about 6:30.
During those six hours, the water never got more than about four feet deep, and in some places the bottom of the canoes actually scraped along rocks and submerged logs. We stopped a few times along the way at little sandbars along the banks, to have lunch or to relax. It was a completely wonderful time.
Now for the bad news. If you’ve ever been in a canoe, like Kathy and I had not, you know that they can be really hard to keep balanced. Number of times we flipped? Two. Seconds after we got in the water that we first flipped? About 15. At some point along the way, Kathy switched with Matt, so he was in the canoe with me, and she was floating in the tube behind us. We went through a bit of a “rapids” section, and Matt and I got hung up on a submerged log. Kathy came barreling toward us, and flipped her tube. As she was trying to right herself, her glasses came off, and she dumped her beer. Tragedy. She had just opened that beer. We never did find her glasses or the beer.
So this morning, we’re all putting aloe on our sunburns, massaging the bruises we got from falling in the water and hitting the rocks on the bottom, and getting in touch with a local optometrist to get Kathy replacement glasses. We leave Missouri tomorrow morning for a long slow drive back home through several points of interest none of us have ever seen.
It is so humid here! Everyone here has air conditioning, so it’s fine being inside. Outside, though, it is sweltering hot, and I can’t be outside for more than a few minutes before I’m drenched, stinky and dehydrated. The TV was just interrupted by a severe weather warning a few minutes ago, apparently a big thunderstorm is coming soon. Then it will be hot, humid, and raining.
I know it sounds like I’m complaining, but I am actually having a good time visiting family. Nature is just doing her part in reminding me why I love living in Oregon.
So I took the kids (my three, plus nephew Andrew, who is also visiting here from his home in L.A.) to Branson, Mo.
What. A. Trippy. Place.
Bart was spot on when he said “It’s like Vegas — if it were run by Ned Flanders.” A lot of theme buildings, shaped like strange stuff, and a lot of eye-candy, interestingly right next door to motels obviously more than 50 years old but still kept in pristine condition, right next door to similar immaculate motels that are out of business.
And the shows! Oh my goodness! Baldknobbers’ Jamboree, The Brett Family Singers With Bob Nichols, Buck Trent Show, Circle B Chuckwagon Music Show, Clay Cooper’s Country Express, Dixie Stampede Dinner and Show, Kirby Van Burch & Brett Daniels, Mike Radford’s Remember When Show, Rodney Dillard & the Boys From Mayberry, and many more that I also had never heard of and that are undoubtedly so white-bread as to be blinding to the naked eye.
The kids and I went on a really cool go-cart ride. The track is actually four stories tall, and loops around over itself until you are all the way at the top, then it curves around through several tight turns and bumps and back down to the start. I got some pretty good pictures while piloting the car Lexi and I were in. I’ll put them in the photo gallery as soon as I can.
We also went to the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum and had a blast there.
OK, so I wasn’t able to post during our trip, due to circumstances I will explain another time. Now, we’re in metropolitan Cabool, Missouri (pop. 2100), and Kathy’s aunt and uncle even have high-speed internet access! Unfortunately, they don’t have wi-fi, and so far I haven’t been able to get the laptop to work with their cable modem. In addition, their computer (on which I am currently writing this) is an old AMD K6 with 60MB ram, running Win98 SE, and the one USB port isn’t working, so I don’t have an easy way to transfer any of the photos to the gallery on this site.
I hope to have another update soon, if I can find a place around here that has some sort of public wi-fi access.
We leave Saturday on our big road trip. We’ll be driving about 2100 miles in three days. Beaverton, Oregon to Cabool, Missouri. We’ll be visiting Kathy’s aunt and uncle, and staying with her cousin (their son). Then, another 2100 mile drive back home. It’s gonna be nuts.
I’m actually really looking forward to it. We drive to southern California all the time, generally about once a year. Until recently, all of our immediate family (with the exception of brother Gabe) lived somewhere in the L.A. area. My dad sold his house in Orange County a few years ago (for a very healthy profit) and moved to the Phoenix area. Last summer, we took a long road trip to see his new place there, then continued on to L.A., and finally back home.
Besides that, this is going to be the first long road trip we’ve ever taken, and the first one where we haven’t already seen the same scenery dozens of times before. We’re going to be just like the Griswolds, except I’ll never be nearly as cool as Clark is, and, you know, I’m real. Come to think of it, there are a few other scary parallels there:
Our minivan is green, like the family truckster (I don’t think the airbags are made from Hefty bags, though).
I’ve plotted our course on the computer just like Sparky did, except I used Google Earth’s satellite imaging, not some blocky early ’80s Apple II graphics. Plus, Billy didn’t use Pacman to eat the family car.
We’ll be staying at cheap motels each night, but I swear I won’t be ordering any drinks from the “pool waitress”.
We’ve got the portable DVD player and a bunch of movies, and I’ve got the DC to AC inverter ready to go, so the boys can power their Playstation 2. I never had this kind of entertainment for road trips when I was a kid.
I’m such a geek, I’ve even researched free wi-fi hot spots near each night’s motel, so I can hopefully upload photos and update this site every day.
I wrote this a couple years ago and found it while I was packing. Hope it is an inspiration to you too.
1. Inward beauty must shine outward.
2. I am God’s answer to my husband’s incompleteness.
3. We were created for a position of honor so we must act like it.
4. Regardless of the circumstances, I am a significant and an important part of my families lives.
5. Through it all, I am still the mother of my children.
6. The Lord is my strength and salvation.
7. I can always lean on Him.
8. He is all I need.
The next few weeks are going to be crazy. I have been packing for the last 2weeks for our official move on Sept. 10th. Then, the kids are starting the year out at the new schools. So, I had to go to each of the schools and register them. For the first four days I am going to have to drive them to and from school because we won’t physically be in the new place until the weekend.
I am also packing for our vacation. We will be leaving Saturday for Missouri. We are driving to go visit my family. It will be a long 3 day drive and roughly 2100 miles.
On top of all that, the house still has to stay presentable because the landlord is showing the house. He wants to make sure that it is rented before we actually move.
Needless-to-say, if I haven’t been the happiest or friendliest person to be around now you know why. Where’s my xanex when I need it!
So as you can probably tell, I made a few changes to the site recently. I’ve set it up so Kathy can post things, I created an email address for her and put a link to it at the top left of the site, and I modified the style sheets so that our posts are different colors. I also reworded a few of the sidebar items to reflect the site’s new plurality (”we” and “we’re” replace “I” and “I’m”, “our” replaces “my”).
Next on the list is to import all of her posts from her old site, but I need to do some testing to make sure that I don’t inadvertantly wipe out all of the existing posts that are already here. I’m also going to make each of our names (under the title of each post) a link, so you can click on it to show only that person’s posts. I might do a few other minor cosmetic things too, like maybe round the corners of the boxes that surround each post.
Many of our close friends know that we are moving Sept. 10th to an apartment. We want to save money to purchase a home in the near future.
Well, last week I called all of our utilities and what not to have it all changed to the new address. Except, when I called a very well-known “satellite company” that we have been with for the last 8 yrs to cancel service they tried everything in the book to keep us as customers. We have been offered a great deal with a digital cable company that also does our internet for the new apartment. This lady that I spoke to was getting very rude because I stated to her “we are moving to an apartment and they can offer cable for cheaper”. She proceeded to say this and that about the cable service and why they offer it so cheap, and the bad reception that we will get with the new company. I didn’t want to tell her how unhappy we have been about our service like having to replace the receiver 4 times in the last 3 yrs because there is a hard-drive malfunction with their systems. I also didn’t tell her how many times in a week that the satellite receiver locks up and we have to shut the whole system down and restart that can take up to 5 minutes. Needless-to-say at the end of the call she stated to me they couldn’t help me because their calendars only go out for a month and I would have to call back (even though I called on day 28).
Well, I called back this morning and they had to transfer me to an account specialist. He tried to start by saying the same things. This time I wasn’t as nice about it. I stated why I was so unhappy with the service that I received the previous week and why I felt their service stunk. He then proceeded to tell me that if we ever decide to come back they would install a new dish for free. AS IF!!!!!! Why can’t they just take “NO” for an answer.
My non-blogging brother Josh shared this one with me. Apparently, there was a news story about a fire that was spreading and threatening some homes. The road leading to these houses was jammed with traffic, and the TV news reporter said something like “These residents are obviously leaving work early, rushing, fighting traffic, knowing that if they don’t get home soon, it’ll be too late for them to evacuate.”
We’re gonna get rid of a whole bunch of, well, junk and stuff, this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We’d love for everyone in the area to stop by, maybe to atone for not making it to the picnic, hmm? Just kidding, totally. Seriously, please stop by, even if you’re not in the market for our leftover crap fine used household items. We’ll have some snacks ready for any friends who stop by.
If you want our address, phone number, or directions, just email me (link is at the top left of this page). If I don’t email you back, it means we probably don’t want you showing up anyway!
The picnic was loads of fun! OK, so not a lot of people showed up. I know that Breanna and Rebecca Marie had health issues that prevented their appearance, but why no one else? Feel free to leave explanations as comments to this post. I mean, I wasn’t even able to give away all the wide-screen plasma TVs and Sony PSPs that I had as door prizes! OK, so there were no high-end door prizes. Actually, there were no prizes at all, even for the winners of the two games I had available for everyone to play. I’m not sure who won “Guess The Blogger” (thanks RM for the most amazing artwork), but I’m pretty sure I speak for all of us in attendance when I say that Stephanie was the winner of the “How Many Words Can You Create From The Letters In Blogger Picnic” game, based solely on being the first one to write down “boner”.
Even though we couldn’t setup a live webcam (no wi-fi within range in the area), Gabe and I were still able to geek out. Each of us used our Blackberry to leave a comment on the previous picnic update post while we were munching on chips and yelling at our kids to stop leaving the cooler open.
Is there a second Blogger Picnic in the future? I’m not sure. There was a lot of preparation that went into this, just for almost no one to show up. Summer’s winding down, anyway, so if I am going to try to plan another get-together, it will probably have to be something indoors. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted if anything comes to mind.
Still, even though there was a very low turn out, it’s always a party when the two Hayes families and Justin and Stephanie get together, so of course we had a blast. There’s a whole bunch of pictures in the Photo Gallery, just click on Blogger Picnic.
Years ago, before Billy and Matt were even in school, we lived in a tiny rental house in SE Portland. The house was really old and drafty, and we soon discovered we had a mouse problem. Before even getting in touch with the landlord, I figured I’d try to be mister responsible and take care of the problem myself, and I bought half a dozen or so mouse traps. These were the old fashioned, spring loaded, wood-base, Tom and Jerry cartoon style mouse traps.
We knew we had mice in the house because the boys’ pet hamster’s food was being eaten. (This was the replacement hamster, by the way, after the first one was found teats up in his cage early one morning for no apparent reason.) See, the hamster was a picky eater, and would only eat certain seeds from his bowl of expensive pet store brand hamster food, and he would shove the rest of the food (usually dried corn kernels) out of his cage, where it would gather on the top of the dresser until Kathy or I would clean it up. At some point we started noticing droppings outside the cage, and along the walls on the dresser and the floor, and so we knew that a mouse was coming in and eating the hamster’s rejects.
So I set the traps, and loaded them with, what else, swiss cheese. (Seriously, everything I knew about unwanted rodents, I learned from cartoons.) The cheese was never touched, and dried out and got moldy, but we knew the mice were still around, because we were still seeing droppings along the baseboards.
I next loaded up the spring traps with peanut butter. Same result, mouse ignores the peanut butter, still eats the hamsters rejected corn kernels. By the way, the irony of trying (unsuccessfully) to kill an apparently intelligent rodent with a strong sense of self-preservation that ate the unwanted rejected hamster food, while at the same time trying to keep alive another rodent that didn’t appreciate the food I worked so hard to put in his food bowl, and that was seemingly so fragile that a stiff overnight breeze would kill him, was lost on me.
Anyway, for round three, I tried embedding the corn kernels in the peanut butter. The next morning, the traps weren’t sprung, there were little kernel shaped holes in the blobs of peanut butter where the corn used to be, and more droppings along the walls. These were the same traps that took me like 15 minutes each to arm, and that would snap and spray me with peanut butter if I so much as looked at them the wrong way.
Finally, I gave up, and had the landlord bring over some kind of poison traps he set up around the perimeter of the house. Within a few days, there were no more visits from Jerry or his friends.
The best part of all this, however, was how jumpy Kathy was when she knew that there were rodents running around our house at will. She was taking a shower one day, and I sneaked into the bathroom, reached my hand into the tub under the shower curtain, and very gently tickled her toes while her face was lathered up and she couldn’t see anything. I think she might have actually left shampoo on the ceiling from how high she jumped. Oh, and I was very lonely for the next couple weeks, if you get my drift.
Today is our 17th wedding anniversary. Kathy and I have now been married longer than either of us had been alive when we first met. (Huh? Did that sentence even make sense? Here’s a translation: We were each 16 when we met, and we’ve now been married 17 years. Better?)
It’s kind of amazing, really. In so many ways, we have grown together, and are more alike now than when we met. I imagine this is true of any couple that has been together this long, especially a couple who grew together from such a young age.
But what is really interesting, to me at least, is how much we have grown apart in so many ways. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, like we don’t enjoy each other’s company, or anything like that. Quite the contrary. However, we have each developed our own hobbies, different tastes in some things, etc.
For example, I live and breath everything having to do with computers, but to her they are pretty much just a tool, like a coffee maker or dish washer.
When we first met, in 1985, we were both pretty much on the same page as far as music was concerned. Neither of us really liked the new wave stuff that was popular, like Flock of Seagulls or Duran Duran. We were both into more mainstream rock and roll. Now, our musical tastes have greatly diverged: She likes country, and I like much harder rock.
Differences like this haven’t acted as a wedge driven between us; on the contrary, they have allowed us to have our own separate interests, which I now understand is very important for any couple. It allows Kathy to have a wonderful night out with her best friend Lori attending the Kenny Chesney concert, without worrying about whether she should feel bad that I wasn’t there with her instead, ’cause she knows I wouldn’t enjoy the concert much anyway.
It also allows us to playfully rip on each other. She’ll theatrically swoon over Tom Cruise (she still hasn’t gotten over that underwear scene from Risky Business), and I’ll point out that he’s what, like 70 years old now? I’ll try to explain that country isn’t really “music”, and she’ll point out that she can’t understand the lyrics that David Draiman is shouting in the latest song from Disturbed.
The bottom line is, I love her more now than I ever have, and I don’t see how that love won’t keep growing forever.
We attended Lexi’s Mini Olympics gymastics event today. Of course, I had the camera with me, and took a bunch of shots. Unfortunately, it was a pretty big auditorium, so the flash wasn’t effective at all. Pictures taken with the flash on are way too dark, and very grainy after using Photoshop to lighten them up. When I turned the flash off, the camera’s exposure time is lengthened enough to let in plenty of light, but that made them blurry from the gymnasts’ motion. Oh well, take a look at the pictures anyway. They’re in the Photo Gallery.
1) You have unlimited funds to buy Kathy ONE gift. What do you buy her and how do you present it to her?
I’m going to veer off the reality highway and rush headlong into the realm of make-believe. I would go back in time and give Kathy a proper marriage proposal. Allow me to explain why: I proposed to Kathy over the phone. No engagement ring, no tearful soul-baring on bended knee, no man-to-man talk asking for her father’s permission; nothing but a “Hey, would ya marry me?” She deserves so much more than that.
In my defense, I was only 16 years old, and didn’t know any better. Yes, 16. Kathy and I have been going out since we were 16. We were married at 19, and our first child was born when we were 21. That’s how we can be about to celebrate our 17th anniversary, have a son who drives and will be a sophomore in high school, and still be just 36 years old.
But if I knew then what I know now, I would have made sure to do it right, and I’ve regretted it ever since I knew enough to know that I should be regretting it.
2) Tell us a secret….
I once ate an entire 1/2 gallon carton of Breyer’s Cookies and Cream ice cream (the original, not that newfangled stuff with Oreos) in one sitting.
3) You’ve just laid the deed to your house on the black jack table. You’ve been dealt a seven and a five; the dealer has a nine showing. Do you take a hit? Tell us your thought process.
Take a hit? I didn’t even inhale. Drugs are bad, mm’kay? Now pass the Doritos, I got the munchies reeeal bad.
Seriously, I’m not a gambler, I don’t know anything about playing the odds in blackjack. I guess I’d take another card and hope for the best, and whatever happens, happens. If I lost the house, I guess I’d be pretty ticked, but I’d do what I’ve done in the past: Start over. One thing I’ve learned over the years is no matter how bad the situation is, you can always start over, especially when it comes to something as insignificant as money. The things that are really important can’t be lost in a card game.
Quick example: When Billy and Matt were babies, I was working three jobs (yes, three) to support us, and Kathy had broken her ankle and so she couldn’t walk or even take care of the boys. I had to drive them down to L.A. to stay with her mom while she healed for several months (driving straight through and back in one week-end with no sleep, ’cause I couldn’t take any time off), and I wasn’t able to even talk to them for several weeks since our phone had been shutoff. I even missed seeing Matt take his first steps. At the time, I felt like a complete and total failure, and pretty much worthless. Now, 13 or so years wiser, I realize that a person’s worth isn’t measured by how much money they make, or where they live, or how many letters are after their name on their business card (or if it says “trainee” on the nametag on their uniform.)
4) It’s all up to you; does the United States re-instate the draft or instate a mandatory two-year military commitment from everyone over eighteen? You must choose one, and state why.
Whoa, tough one. My dad was in the Army when I was tiny (I was actually born in a military hospital on an Army base in what used to be West Germany.) His service was up and we moved back to the States when I was about two. I have no recollection of any of his service, so I’ve never considered myself the son of a military man. My brothers and I have never served either.
Billy and Matt have occasionally mentioned that they might like to join the military when they get out of high school, to help with education, serve their country, gain experience, etc. Not much serious talk of that recently, however.
As much as I may disagree with idea of forcibly inducting some people into the armed forces, I guess I am even more strongly against a mandatory stint in the military for all adults. That just seems more un-American.
5) Why do you get so mad?
Stupidity makes me mad.
People can be ignorant, and people can be stupid. Ignorance is not bad. All of us are ignorant of most things. If something goes wrong with my car, for example, I can’t fix it for the life of me. I’m ignorant of the knowledge needed to make it start working. That’s OK, because I don’t really have a desire to learn it, it’s not worth my time, and I’m fine with paying someone else to fix it who does have that knowledge.
However, if I keep driving when I notice the “check engine” light come on instead of taking it to a mechanic, and my engine explodes, I’m not being ignorant, I’m being stupid.
OK, so I’m supposed to extend the invitation to be interviewed by me to the first five people who request it. However, seeing that it took almost three days just to post my answers to RM’s questions, I probably won’t get around to coming up with five interesting questions for five different people within our lifetime. So… I’m going to extend this invitation to just two people. I know, I’m probably going to suffer a terrible accident for “breaking the chain” or something, but I’m willing to risk it. Any takers?
As you read in my previous post, Kathy was hospitalized last Sunday the 12th with a severe asthma attack. It was also the last week of school for the kids. They go to three different schools, at three different times in the morning, and get home at three different times in the afternoon. Needless to say, I was busy feeding them and shuttling them around, plus taking care of the two cats and six dogs (oops, I mean five dogs… more on that in a moment.) Between all this, I made sure I was at Kathy’s side at the hospital as much as possible, and that the kids got to visit her at least once each day.
The first few nights, I sit with Lexi as she cries herself to sleep because she misses mommy, and she knows that mommy won’t be there to wake her up in the morning. I explain that I will be there in mommy’s place each morning this week. This does not make her stop crying, which makes me feel even worse. At least she likes the breakfast I make for her.
Some friends from church brought me and the kids dinner on Wednesday, which was a wonderful relief. I didn’t have to cook anything, and we didn’t have to go out for fast food. Again.
Then comes Thursday. I get the kids off to school, the adult dogs are brought in from the backyard, the two puppy’s kennel is cleaned, and I notice that the smaller of the two puppies (the apricot colored one) is barely able to stand on his own. I put him by himself so he can eat as much as he wants before his brother pigs out, but he barely touches any food, and doesn’t seem to want to drink any water either. His eyes are closed, and his hair is starting to fall out (poodles don’t have fur that sheds, they have hair that continues to grow, just like people.) I go to the hospital to have lunch with Kathy again, then rush to make it back home before I have to pick up Lexi at school, not knowing that her school let out an hour early on that last day. When I get home, she is already home and is having a snack; she had walked herself home. It is only 1/2 mile or so, but she is only seven, and has never walked it alone. She is mad at me for not being there waiting for her. I feel like a monster.
Billy has already arrived home, and is giving the apricot puppy a bath because he stinks. We think it is because he has been wetting himself, but we will soon find out otherwise. Billy, Lexi and I take the puppy to the vet. He is 11 weeks old, and weighs only 1 pound 1 ounce. His temperature is ten degrees below normal. He is skinny and dehydrated, and he still stinks. Since the other two dogs from the litter are fine (one was sold a few weeks ago, and the other is active, and weighs almost twice as much), the doctor thinks this one has some sort of congenital liver and kidney problem that is not uncommon in small breeds. When the organs start failing, the body in effect starts secreting through the pores the toxins that are normally filtered through the kidneys. Basically, the puppy is sweating urine, and he is dying. I pay the doctor $25 for the office visit, $35 for euthenasia, and $1.12 for the cremation, based on the weight. Lexi is hysterical, wants me and the doctor to make the puppy healthy, and is mad at me because we can’t just take the puppy back home. She cries again for hours.
Kathy slowly got better towards the end of the week, and she came home yesterday morning. She was in the same tiny room for the entire seven days, leaving only to be wheeled to the X-ray lab a few times, and to walk around the nurses station the last couple days when she started getting better. She was going crazy being cooped up. Most of the nurses were great, but one of them was straight out of school, literally (this was her first nursing job, and she had been employed at the hospital for just two weeks.) Kathy had to actually tell her how to administer one of the medications into her I.V. (”NO! WAIT! You have to flush the line first! FLUSH THE LINE! Then you can inject it!”) She is now on twelve different prescriptions, at a grand total of $185 out of pocket. I shudder to think how much all of this would have cost if I didn’t have good health insurance.
I missed work every day last week, but everyone at the office was really great about everything. I have a bunch of forms I have to turn in to HR, some of which I had the doctor fill out, and I can charge the 40 hours against my sick leave. I went back to work today. Duirng the week I was out, I guess I kinda forgot how completely swamped my department is. By the time I left today at 4:00, I actually had more things outstanding than when I first got there at 7:00.
Still, just about anything’s going to better than last week.
Update: Click here for the latest on the Blogger picnic!
Well, it looks like we are going to have to reschedule. Most people who I wanted to attend have other things going on that day, plus the weather looks like it is not going to cooperate on Saturday, anyway.
The biggest reason I need to postpone it, however, is personal. Kathy has been in the hospital since Sunday afternoon. She has had asthma all her life, and she is in the middle of the worst asthma attack she has ever had. So far, she is not getting better, and even with oxygen tubes in her nose, she is not getting enough oxygen in her blood. We’re not sure at this point when she is coming home. Even if she got well enough to be off the oxygen and was discharged today, none of us are in a very picnic-y mood right now.
I’ll try to post some updates as soon as we know more. In the mean time, we sure could use everyone’s thoughts and prayers right about now. Feel free to leave comments here, and I’ll pass them along to Kathy.
We did it. The kids and I finally convinced Kathy to try sushi, so we all went out for dinner tonight. She liked it OK, but mostly stayed with the mainstream stuff: California rolls, shrimp, fried bean curd rolls (like little won tons). I got even more adventurous than last time, and I tried octopus, raw salmon, and eel (Unagi). I actually left the restaurant full, and people who really know me know that it’s not easy to fill me up.
Want a sneak peak at your American Idol for the year 2015? Check out Lexi singing solo in front of her entire school, including students, teachers, faculty, and even parents! She played the part of the straw peddler, selling a bundle of straw to the first little piggy. She was amazing! Pictures are in the Photo Gallery.
So things are starting to get back to normal. Kathy’s been in Alabama attending a huge reunion, meeting a bunch of her biological family that she didn’t even know existed until a few years ago when she and I worked some Internet magic and found them.
I took vacation days away from work so I could perform her regular duties while she was away. Even without going to the classes she normally attends full-time, I was exhausted just doing the other things: Taxiing kids to and from three different schools at three different times of the day, plus taking them to guitar lessons and gymnastics class, attending parent/teacher conferences, fixing meals for home and school, chaperoning Billy’s birthday dinner with friends at a sushi place (my fist time trying sushi, btw, and I kinda liked it), and many, many other things that I was too exhausted to make note of.
I’ll have more to post, and I hope to be back on some sort of regular schedule, very soon.
My son Billy turns 15 today. Should we start calling him Bill now? He’ll have to be the one to decide when we drop the “y” from his name; not that his choice will matter much, some of my family still call me Billy, and I’m well past 36!
I think everyone would agree that the spoken “I love you”s are essential in a relationship. However, there are times when you want to say it but you just can’t, or you shouldn’t, or it it isn’t appropriate. Kathy and I have come up with a language all our own for these occasions.
It all started years ago when I worked in front of the public, and when Kathy and I would talk on the phone, it just seemed inappropriate for me to be all lovey-dovey in front of customers. Kathy knew it put me in an awkward position if she insisted I say “I love you!” while Mr. Grumpypants is standing a few feet away from me scowling. So, we came up with our own “language of love”. When either one of us in such a position, we are totally permitted to simply say “you too!” and it is (for that moment) the equivalent of “I love you!” The recipient of the “you too” is basically acknowledging that the sender of woo can’t come right out and say “I Love You”, but still does want that sentiment to be expressed.
Even though “you too”, in normal conversation, is used as a response to something the other person said, in our language of love either one of us can just blurt it right out:
ME (as customer walks up to me): It was good talking to you, but I have to get going now.
HER: OK, you too!
ME: You too!
So my company participated in the Bring Your Child to Work Day last Thursday. Matt came with me, and we were treated to a tour of the Airport Fire Department at PDX. We watched as two giant fire engines shot water at each other with their huge water nozzles (the firefighters described it as a huge water gun fight). We also saw a presentation on wildlife that lives on the airport grounds. It was amazing.
I’ve implemented a new Photo Gallery on this site, and I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos of that day. Click here to see them.
Brother Gabe’s recent tale of injured child woe got me to thinking of all the times my kids have been hurt. So, I thought I’d compile a list for all the readers who may not have anything better to do than to read depressing things like this. Ready? Here we go:
Billy: * Stitches in his lower lip, both inside his mouth and outside. He was just learning to walk, and expressing his new found independence by refusing to hold our hand as we walked up the stairs to our second-floor apartment. He slipped, hit his mouth on the concrete step, and pierced his lip with his only two bottom teeth. The worst part was when the ER doc numbed his mouth in preperation for the stitches, and Billy, freaking out strapped down to a back board, started biting through his lip and causing even more damage.
* Stitches in the forehead. Billy decided to do a Superman off the arm of the couch onto the edge of the coffee table. The lesson we learned? Coffee tables with sharp edges and pointy corners don’t go well with hyperactive two year-olds.
* Broke his big toe. This happened in his yoga class this school year at Beaverton High. In his YOGA class.
* Broke his collarbone. He fell out of a tire swing when he was around two years old. He wasn’t talking yet, and so couldn’t explain his pain to us. It was only after we insisted on an x-ray at our second visit to the hospital that Kaiser finally agreed, and discovered the fracture. We have not had Kaiser since then.
* Broke the pinky toe on his right foot. He stubbed it on the table as he was running in the living room back in November. Here are some gross pictures:
* Stitches in his forehead. Billy pushed him down, but luckily the knob to the dresser drawer broke his fall by making solid contact with his head.
Lexi:
* Broke her pinky finger. Billy shut his bedroom door not realizing that her finger was in the hinge side of the door. Later he mentioned that he wondered why the door didn’t shut easily and why he had to use so much force to shut it, and why Lexi was screaming the whole time.
… a woman who’s not afraid to follow through on a long-time desire, even if it is scary and painful. Case in point: Kathy got a tattoo! She totally rocks.
Brother Gabe and I were driving down Pacific Coast Highway years ago when we both lived south of L.A., and were stopped at a traffic signal. A woman in the car next to us made the universal “roll down your window” circular hand gesture with one hand while covering her eye with the other hand. We rolled down the window, and she asked if we knew how to get to a certain doctor’s office.
We had no idea what she was looking for based on just the doctor’s name, and she said something like “Darn, I just accidentally pierced my eyeball with my inkpen, and my doctor said I should have it checked out, but I don’t know how to get to his office.”
We told her that she should probably go straight to the hospital emergency room (which was about three blocks away behind us), but she said “No, I’ll just keep driving until I find it.”
Brother Gabe is 27 years old today. We had a great week-end with all the family in town for his surprise party. Now, it’s back to the same old thing: Wake up, go to work, come home, yell at kids, eat, sleep, repeat.
Well, we pulled it off. The surprise party for Gabe was a success. My mom and step-dad drove up from California Thursday afternoon, my brother Josh and his son Thomas flew in Friday morning, and my dad and step-mom flew in Friday afternoon. Friday night, we were all at my brother Gabe’s place and surprised him as he walked in the door after work. It was awesome. It was the first time in at least 8 1/2 years that all three brothers and our mom and dad were all together.
We’d been planning this for months, and as the day got closer, I was sure one of us was going to blow it and inadvertently let Gabe know what was going on. I’d been ignoring him for more than a week, because I was so sure that if I talked to him I would somehow spill it.
So Kathy and I unexpectedly had a few days to ourselves last week-end. Lexi’s friend Ariel asked if Lexi could stay at her house Friday night for a sleepover, and about 10 minutes later, Billy and Matt’s friend Tony called to ask if they could stay over at his house. We found ourselves suddenly sans children until 9:00 the next morning. We haven’t been out together by ourselves in a long time, so we made the most of it by going out on a “dinner and a movie” date. We had already eaten dinner, though, so we settled for a movie and beer.
We went to the Bagdad Theater and ate nachos and shared a pitcher of ale while watching Ocean’s 12. The last time we were at the Bagdad, Batman Forever was playing. I love this theater, and I think the McMenamin brothers are geniuses.
We are so far removed from our pre-children party animal ways that we were back home and asleep by 11:00.
Whew. Almost a dozen first-graders were running around our house today during Lexi’s birthday party. Where do they get all that energy? And why can’t they hear how frickin’ loud they’re being?
Of all the presents Lexi got, I think this is the one I most want for myself. Not just a Barbie doll, but a Fairytopia Sparkle Fairy Barbie. Just being in the same room when this gift was opened made me feel pretty.
(And, yes, that is a green ribbon on my daughter’s head, thanks for asking.)
Lexi turns seven years old tomorrow. In March, Matt will be a teen-ager. Billy is half way through his first year of high school. It’s kind of strange knowing my kids are this old. I guess I never thought I’d live this long.
