two days in one

5- 3-10

I hate being this tired. I am barely functional. We got to bed around 11:30 last night after our flight was about an hour late. Plus, it took forever for the shuttle to get to the car lot. It was a long evening.

It probably doesn’t help that it was an eventful weekend and therefore, there was just not enough sleep.

We got into Sac around 9:30. The flight was pretty basic. Dax watched Toy Story on my iPod. The only problem was that the ear popping hit Dax hard. He suddenly started screaming and banging on his head. It wasn’t good. I felt so bad for him since I didn’t know how to help him. I tried to get him to yawn. He just couldn’t. I even tried to have him growl like a lion, hoping opening his mouth like that, but he was too pissed. I tried to have him blow his nose. Nothing helped. Luckily, the minute his ears popped, it was all better and he was bright eyed and bushy tailed again.

Ken’s parents picked us up, but they had separate cars. I went with my MIL and Ken and the boys went with Papa Brenan. In my car ride, I learned of all the activities planned for the weekend.

The present they got for their son was a night out. They got us tickets for a show in town and wanted us to go to dinner on them. Seemed pretty cool to me! In turn, they were going to take the boys to see a movie. Awesome!

On Friday we did some grocery shopping for the weekend, and then I finally got a call back from my birthday present for Ken. He went to his sensory deprivation appt while the boys napped.

Based on the web site, you would have never guessed that the place was going to be so, well, rustic. In fact, Ken was convinced that the reason why I wasn’t getting a call back was that this place was actually a manufacturer of these tanks and the only appt they would have was one to purchase these things in bulk. Luckily, I spoke to the woman and she told me Ken could come down right then.

It was on the outside of Grass Valley and Ken’s pictures probably don’t do it justice. It was in a little shack with a creepy new age broad. The tank smelled a bit of mildew and the whole place looked like a cult compound.

On the plus side, although Ken didn’t have some cool visions or anything, he enjoyed the experience. He is even up to doing it again, in more modern facilities next time. There are several local, including one in Redondo, so that will hopefully happen at some point in the near future.

Grandma Brenan took the boys on a couple of exploring adventures, when Dax came in complaining about his butt. Turned out he has a rash. It wasn’t horrid, but a bath seemed to be the only thing to fix it. He was grouchy about his ass much of the trip.

We went to dinner at a place in town called Friar Tuk’s. It was right next door to the place where the play was. We gave ourselves about an hour and 15 minutes to eat. Thank goodness we gave ourselves that much! It took forever!! I polished off a bottle of wine and thankfully there were yummy appetizers consisting of fried calamari and garlic bread.

Out food showed up about 5 minutes before we needed to be at the play. We ended up taking much of that to go. We walked (ok, I staggered a bit) up to the theatre. Turned out we had some more time but I am glad we didn’t take that chance.

It was a tiny theater. It was really like a little restaurant that had a stage up front. When we got there, there was a guy on stage playing a guitar, singing songs from the 50’s. He was quite good. Not enough folks were enjoying it as far as I was concerned. He asked for requests, and I shouted (ok, I didn’t need to shout since he was only a few feet from me) out some songs from Buddy Holly and Bobby Vee. He was quite surprised that I knew who they were. I was the youngest person there aside from a couple of high school kids.

The production was 5 women and a guy, all reopening a 50’s diner and they sing and dance to all the old 50’s songs. I enjoyed myself since I liked most of the songs and knew them well. Ken just laughed at me. LOL! It was fun, cheesy and just a nice place to drink even more wine and have a fabulous desert. I even won a slinky! Yes, they had some audience participation, including at one point wanting us to complete the lyrics to the slinky jingle. I was not only the first, but probably one of the only ones despite it being a room full of people who probably saw the original commercial on tv when it first aired.

Saturday was more adventures. We went out to the animal shelter where there was an adoption fair. There had been some talk of a new puppy for the compound. There were several adorable kitties and dogs. It is probably good we were flying home. LOL! The most remarkable, and kind of cool thing was that there were empty cages! Yes, they were not over crowded. Plus, they are no kill, so this means they have a lot of success in adoptions, which made us quite happy.

After there, we went to the local arcade/mini golf place. We played video games for a couple hours, and the boys had a blast. I managed to win them a couple of frogs in the challenger machine, the same machine I had won Bobby a Blue doll years before. The frogs were a one shot grab, too. I would have had 3 in that, but one bounced the wrong way. I was pretty pleased with myself.

Ken found another game and got gobs of tickets which won the boys each a small gorilla doll. We had some pizza and then headed home, with two very tired kiddos.

We had one of Ken’s favorite dinners; Tater Tot Casserole. Then after wolfing down food, we rushed out to get to the singing event Ken’s mom was participating in. We figured out that her group would not perform until the second act, so Ken and I took the boys out around the high school campus it was at. It was a nice adventure. We looked at all the cool bird nests on the walls. We went down to the track. Bobby ran the 400 meters without stopping, which was awesome. Dax tried, but was exhausted by about half way. We tired these boys out!!

We went back and watched the performance, which was maybe 5 songs? Not too long. They lasted through that ok, but clearly they were restless. We made it through 2 songs on the next group, and luckily they got a standing O so we snuck out.

The boys ran around some more and the show was really only another 30 minutes, which was fine. Considering the boys were up way past their bedtime, they did great.

Sunday morning was birthday brunch for Ken. The day was pretty mellow. We had everyone watch Dr Horrible, and I was a little bummed they did not enjoy it. Oh well. The last hour was the most hectic of course since everything that they remembered they wanted Ken and I to do all of the sudden was remembered. Sigh. That being said, that was the only time all weekend in which I was a smidge stressed and annoyed. That is a pretty good record!

I drove to the airport with Scotty, which was nice since he had been helping me all weekend with ways to work with the boys for kindergarten prep. We bonded and it is always fun to chat with him. Andy drove Ken and the boys.

Our flight was an hour late. Actually, the plane was there, the crew had not arrived as their plane was running late. Not a huge deal. We managed. I was pretty spent, though, just from sheer exhaustion. All weekend I didn’t get to bed until midnight and still got up around 6. We got home Sunday night late and once again, I wasn’t asleep until midnight.

So this brings us to Monday. That is actually when I started writing this. LOL! It is now Tuesday. I went home yesterday. I was so tired I could hardly stand. Plus, I felt stomach icky. I tend to feel yucky after the trips up there. I think it is altitude and just tired. But the plane ride I think added to the icky. There was the slightest bit of turbulence along with poor Dax having ear issues again. Even my ears hurt. So I think that because of this, I was just out of it. Maryann told me to go home. She could see how icky I looked. So I did. I crawled into bed and slept till I think around 10. So this was like 4 hours worth of extra sleep? Good stuff.

After I woke up, I sat in front of the computer the rest of the morning/afternoon working on the photos from the trip. It allowed me to relax since when they were uploading, I watched 90210 and just hung out. It was so needed. I picked up the boys and we played outside until their own exhaustion was clear. It was an early night for all of us.

So today, I am bright eyed and bushy tailed. I have some work to catch up on. I haven’t even checked my voice mail yet. Yie. I am scared. I also have a lot of accounts I will need to work on this morning. I also have some things to write about, but think I will wait until tomorrow. One-I am going to break down how annoyed I am with Ken’s best friend. Another thing I may tackle is the Arizona stuff, which I have been meaning to do. So stay tuned!!