My vacation is over

1-4-10

Good morning!

Ok, having not blogged in a week, I am venturing to guess that it will not only be a long entry, but all over the place. I am going to touch on highlights, I think. It will take some time.

Christmas Eve turned out to be long at work. I didn’t go home early I spent a good chunk of the day showing the boss how to do things in his email. Super lame. I got home and found two happy children, so this was all kinds of good.

Christmas was pretty standard. The boys got crap loads of presents and they loved their bikes. Ken and I also managed to take out fake pictures of putting the bike together. It took Ken like 2 minutes to assemble. We took them to my parents’ house, where they proceeded to open another million presents. They are set on toys for a while. They rode bikes, we had some yummy food and it was all around a great day.

We spent the next couple days doing random stuff. Kids played, we played, it was all good.

Monday was the day I was looking forward to. Date day! We ended up seeing Avatar in the morning. Ok, so I will say this first. Visually, it is positively stunning. I mean, holy crap it was beautiful. 3D, a total must, and the IMAX just added to it. The story, on the other hand, was a little weak. Not horrible, just lacking in the same cinematic punch that the special effects had. It was predictable, and not super moving. The one main girl’s character annoyed me a smidge. Sigourney Weaver was awesome, although at one point when she snips at someone that she is a scientist, all I could think the rest of the movie was “Back off man, I’m a scientist!”

I would highly recommend seeing it in the theatre if just for 3D. I am glad I went. We had considered Sherlock Holmes, which may have been more fun, but I figure I will see that when it comes out on DVD.

After the movie, it was too late to do much else before we retrieved children. So we got home to just hang out and rest. Over the weekend, we did really good in catching up on a lot of shows like House. I am now ready for new episodes!

Tuesday, I went to lunch with my mom. Ok, in reality, I went and hung out with my mom and ended up doing lunch with her and my dad, but the initial point was that my mom and I had some mother/daughter time. On Christmas, it had been mentioned in passing that I have a low self esteem. I knew this bothered my mother, so when she suggested we do lunch so we could chat without the distraction of kids, I figured she needed to know what the deal was. Sure enough, I was right. LOL!

We chatted over hot chocolate and it was very nice. We talked for like 3 hours, and could have talked longer. I think my mom learned quite a bit about me, and I learned some things about my mom, including things like why she seemed so absent during my wedding planning and why she seemed slightly distant when I first got pregnant. It was a very good talk. She also told me how if I were to have another kid, she would be quite thrilled. My dad, not so much, mostly out of worry for me financially. I was surprised she would be so excited, since I also thought she shared the same “concerns” for me when it comes to money. In reality, she is the one who actually tries very hard to keep my dad in check since he is the one who likes to meddle.

We also talked a lot about my brother and my concerns over his violent outbursts. On the Sunday before our lunch, he picked fights with Dax, and ended up throwing a stuffed animal at him. My dad pulled his shirt to tell him to stop, and Matt flipped out. This include him charging my dad at one point where I was sure he was going to punch my dad. He also chucked a bowling ball over hand down the lane. Yeah, it was bad. I was looking forward to my dad having to kick the shit out of him, except that my game plan was to have scooped up the boys to shield them from having to watch Poppy beat up Uncle Matt. The discussion was good, and my mom shared a lot of my concerns. This is good, since I had been worried it was going overlooked. But in fact, they were now going to step in a bit more.

My dad got back from bowling and we went to lunch at El Indio (YUM!!). Afterwards, we went and picked up the boys. We went back to the house and the boys played for a while, which was all kinds of good. It gave Ken a break, and my mom a fix.

On Wednesday, we took the boys to daycare again, this time, it allowed Ken and I to go to Costco and even a nice lunch together. The boys were sad the two days we took them to daycare, but I managed to get them through Maria’s door without any tears, and I got tackled both days I picked them up.

New Years Eve we went to the zoo. It was nice! We saw the Snow Leopard cubs and even the elephant! A super nice outing. We made a turkey along with stuffing and mashed potatoes for dinner. I also got my new toy. An iTouch! YAY!

We watched Extract and 500 Days of Summer. The first was hit and miss, the second was quite cute and I enjoyed it a great deal. By the time the movies were over, it was just about New Years. Good timing!

Over the course of the vacation, we also got my car fixed up, including the belt replaced, oil changed, and two new tires. She rocks now! Note to self, though. When deciding to let the boys ride their bikes for a distance more than one block, be prepared to run. We took the bikes, boys and dogs to the tire place, which is up the street from our house. We thought that we could let the boys ride home. Good idea, bad execution. I was in jeans and sandals. I couldn’t run very well in those. Luna and I tried to keep up, but the kids are fast on those damn things. Ken was able to keep up a little better with Lycos. The boys and dogs enjoyed, but Ken and I were pooped!

On Saturday, my parents watched the boys while Ken and I attended a funeral. My coworker, MaryAnn’s mother passed away on Christmas. She had been diagnosed with cancer a couple months ago, but this still seemed a bit sudden since she had not been suffering the symptoms that the doctors had predicted. In fact, it is actually quite good, only because the doctors were afraid her last few weeks with this cancer would be painful and awful. In reality, she went quite peacefully. It was within an hour. She also got to spend time with a lot of family the day before. There were pictures of her from the day before on display at the service, and it was nice to see her smiling.

I got the call about it while I was at lunch with Ken on Wednesday. Actually, I got cryptic Facebook posts, which annoyed me since I didn’t want to call to work if there was nothing important. But my curiosity got the best of me, and I called in. The girl posting to me just didn’t want to be the one to break the bad news to me.

The service was scheduled for when we would have been going to lunch for my mom’s birthday. Luckily, she was happy to delay the lunch for a couple hours so we could go.

We got to the church and I was pleased there were quite a few people, including several current and former co workers. It was a Catholic service, which Stephanie was good enough to explain to me a bit before hand. She and I chatted about it on FB and were having way too much fun including suggestions of me getting a Jesus cracker to go and her suggesting I bring my own in the form of Ritz. I love religious folk that have a great sense of humor!

It wasn’t nearly as long as I had expected. In fact, the whole thing was fascinating. I was a little bummed there wasn’t more said about Mary (MaryAnn’s mom). Actually, for a bit, I thought they were talking about the Virgin Mary when they mentioned her name, so really, they did talk about Mary more than I thought at first.

MaryAnn was genuinely pleased that I was there. When we got there, she was greeting some people, and when she saw me, she gave me a giant hug and cried a bit, saying how sad she was that she didn’t tell me herself about her mom and how happy she was I was there for her. I was super glad I was there.

I cried at one point. Yes, my weepyness took over when her granddaughter in law read a poem about moms. Holy crap, I was a mess. I wish I had brought tissue.

I did have to endure Amazing Grace, which everyone knows bugs the crap out of me for some reason. But I was fine since it was a funeral after all.

I did not get a Jesus cracker. I loved that the priest had on running shoes. I love that there are kneeling bars in the pews.

After the service, we got a candle from the head nun lady and lit it for Stephanie’s son under the Virgin Mary. Ken said it is appropriate to say a little something, and I asked him to watch over Stephanie and Sabrina and Dave.

There was food in the next room over. Ken ate some, but I mostly wanted to talk with MaryAnn to make sure she was ok. She told me she would be leaning on me a lot, and that I would be her rock at work, which I was totally ok with. The boss was there, and told her to take off as much time as she needed, which was very cool. She then asked me what I thought in terms of when she should come back. I was quite flattered that my opinion mattered. She is actually here today, mostly because as I pointed out to her, she is a people person, and sitting around the house moping would kill her. She seems happy to be around her work family.

We didn’t stay long. We needed to meet up with my parents and the boys. But I think that it was good that we went at all.

We celebrated my mom’s birthday at Bob’s Big Boy, and afterwards went back to their house for cake. My mom got a Cookie Monster cake, which was freaking adorable. My mom pointed out that since really the boys pick their own cakes, or Ken and I do, they can’t get these cute cakes for the boys. But they can pick them for themselves and the boys can then enjoy the cakes on my mom’s birthday.

So as a point, blue frosting on said Cookie Monster cake will in fact stain just about anything it comes in contact with. It left spots on of course the boys’ tongues, but also their fingers, shirts, the table cloth, the carpet, the sink. Hell, if the blue was in the same room as something, assume there would be blue markings on everything. Oh, and if you consume the blue frosting, be prepared for the colorful leavings in your kid’s night time underwear in the morning.

I also came to the realization over the holidays that I have become almost too used to having the kids with me. When Ken and I went to Costco with no kids, he had to go in and get a new card since he lost his. I stood outside with the cart, which mind you was empty. He then texted me to tell me to come in. When asked what I was doing, I realized I was not in fact out waiting with the boys. That is pretty sad.

On Sunday, it was the first day we could go back to Disneyland with our passes. Since it was also the last day of vacation it seemed like a perfect day to go. We got there around 9, and it was pretty busy. A cast member said it was more busy then they expected, but in reality, it wasn’t horrid.

Our first ride was the Jungle Cruise. The line was long, but mostly it was long because the cast members had not opened up the internal line correctly. The line was actually spilling out into the walkways of the park. So Ken made the decision to go ahead and change the ropes. This allowed most, if not all, of the people outside to be out of the way now. I loved that they added things to the ride, and it was gobs of fun.

We then headed to Pirates. There was a creepy guy behind us who decided that Ken was his new best friend. He was alone, and decided we were his new family. He reminded me of Matt. I was relived when they put him in a different boat since we were waiting for the front. The kids loved that one.

We then headed to Winnie the Pooh. I didn’t want to take them on Splash Mountain. I am still worried about them falling out. Perhaps in a couple months. We did do Big Thunder, which produced giggles from both kids. They are roller coaster junkies.

We went into the Invoentions place, which was cool but boring at the same time. After that, we did a Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear run. This was followed by the Monorail. We sat in the front car on that, which was great! They loved it.

I discovered that a gift card to Landry’s covered Rainforest Café. So this is where we opted for lunch. It was quite nice. With the club discount and the $25 gifts card, the meal was only $30, so not too bad. We took the monorail back, also in the front with the same driver. He was super nice and even let the boys honk the horn.

We were going to hit up Space Mountain, but the boys were tired enough that the wait time would have killed them. So instead, we took the train out as our traditional leave ride. Dax loves the dinosaurs.

Over my vacation, I managed to sleep in every morning. Ok, I know that 6:45 isn’t late, but to me, it is like 2 hours more than I normally get. The boys even gave me a Christmas present by staying asleep until 7:30 on that morning. It was super cute, too, since Bobby came into our room and says, “Daddy! Santa did come! There are bikes out there for us!!”

I got to spend some time with Ken. I got some housework done. We went on a couple of fun outings. All in all, a good break. I don’t get another break until February, which is when we are now heading up to the compound. I think that there is a plan now for the January weekend we were going to go, which is perhaps building our back deck!

I am quite pleased that I found a great use for Bitty. Kindle has software you can download to read books right on your PC. Well, Bitty is a little PC, which means it is now my new E-Book! I will need to load it up. Less clutter of books, and I can read a crap load.
My new tech toys have gotten me to thinking I need a new kind of purse. One that can accommodate Bitty, Itty (my new iTouch), my camera, and just my standard things I think would be good to carry with me places. I have considered a nice computer bag, but maybe even a backpack would work, as long as it was padded correct. I have needed a new purse for some time now, but with this new mission, I have a whole new set of bags to look at.

I did some online shopping over the holidays, too. I got a new dress, a couple new shirts, a wonderful sweatshirt, and tons of shoes and accessories. The shoes and accessories have not arrived yet, but I am hoping today. I am not going to buy too much in terms of clothing only because my goal is to lose some weight first. In fact, I start the Wii today. I am going to do Yoga first this afternoon. That will eventually be moved to the morning hours, and then I will do more intense things in the afternoon. I have already weaned a bit off the FB games so that those don’t take up so much time. I will work on food changes after I get this going. I am doing it slow, and careful so as not to fail.

I have been doing work in between writing. I have less than I expected, but I still have a lot of crap to do. Tomorrow is report day, which is good if only because I will get to be busy all morning, which means hopefully this week will go by quickly.

Apparently my radio here at work will not charge my iTouch. Lame. I just hope that it will not only run it on battery as I would like to listen to the songs on there. We updated our iTunes and now there are more songs on Itty then on Ichipod. I am loving that I also have photos. I don’t have the service in terms of being able to get online everywhere, but I have managed to be online in some places. We are considering signing up for this one service, though. I am impressed that I have only downloaded a couple of apps so far.

Of course, the boss has decided to give us all this annoying project due 10 am tomorrow. Wonderful. I am not behind, but it puts a cramp in some of the other things I do need to work on. Especially when he should be doing this list. Oh well, such is life here. Thankfully it is just about noon which means I can skate the rest of the day. Woo!