Sail away, sail away, sail away...

This bloggy episode is brought to you from a dark hotel room in Los Angeles.

The kids have finally fallen asleep despite being terribly excited about our vacation and equally determined to drive each other crazy in their shared bed by hogging blankets and "touching me with his foot."

Earlier they were jumping on the bed in their underwear.
Hotels do strange things to my kids. 

Tomorrow we board our ship and the relaxing shall begin!
 And the eating, of course.
This morning I weighed in one final time, we will call it Weight Zero.
That way I don't actually have to tell you how much I weigh. But I will tell you how much I gained when we get home.

 Unless its embarrassing, and then I'll pretend that I forgot I was going to tell you.

We'll be unplugged for the week, but I'm sure I'll have tons of pictures to share when we get home. Well, provided we can find time in the 11 days between arriving home and leaving Monterey for good.

I certainly can't complain that life is dull!

Adios!

I don't have a stinkin' title

We made it on-time to Josh's graduation this morning. No thanks to the downpour that made my perilous high-heeled walk even more ridiculous. We were all soaked by the time we arrived, but luckily the ceremony was short and we moved on to better things...like muffins and fruit.

Here is a picture of us after the graduation. We were rather wilted-looking after the rain, but at least everyone is looking at the camera.

I'm still waiting for the mushroom cut of 2012 to get a little longer so it can be adequately fixed. My hair grows slooooooooooowly.

 Look! Two pictures of me in the same post! Crazy.
Want to know why I look manically excited in this picture?

 I was on my way to the movies.
 With a couple of other middle-aged women who weren't ashamed to be watching a vampire love story.

I'm glad I didn't get into the whole Twilight thing until the series was almost completed-- it was like instant gratification. No waiting for the next book to come out, and practically no waiting for the final movie.

Also, I had a huge bag of Sour Patch Kids hidden in my vest. You can see the bulge on my left side.

Honey Badger don't care.

I liked the movie. I like them all. And I like the books.
There. I said it. Now leave me alone already.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I'm sure most of you knew that already.
In the craziness of last week and the imminent departure of our family for warmer climates, I kind of put it on the back burner.
But I did buy some turkey cutlets, a box of StoveTop stuffing, 2 cans of green beans, a can of gravy, and some potatoes.
I will attempt to mash them.
This will be our Thanksgiving meal, and after tonights dinner of Random Things from the Pantry, it will be a step up.
It's that time again, of course. Time to clear out all the foodstuffs. Tonight we had sandwiches, freezer french fries, canned peaches, scrambled eggs, and carrots.
Jealous?

Hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving, and may your dinner be less canned than ours.

Last Week is Over

We are still alive.
Here is pictorial proof:

 Rainbow Bright doesn't care if it's not cool to wear a vest over short sleeves.

And Derek doesn't care if his tie is too short.
He knows he's a handsome devil anyway.

(Oh, and the weird spot on Alex's arm is a tattoo.
We decided to let her express herself.)


So last week.

It was a week. The kind you just hope to survive and don't expect to derive any pleasure from.
It pretty much fulfilled expectations.

My cold was still alive and kicking. I'm not sure I've ever had one last as long. I think my nose is now shaped differently from all of the loss of skin from the blowing and the wiping.

The car was in the shop all week, so I was taxiing folks here, there, and everywhere. We got it back on Friday, didn't drive anywhere over the weekend, and then took it to another shop on Monday. Because we like to make our lives harder than they have to be.
And because we thought she should get a tune-up before shipping her off to Spain.

The kids had half-days all week. Of course. The one week I really needed time to get things done. We had parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday. Everything seems to be good, so that's our cue to take them out of school and send them to one in a different language. 

Alex has her new retainer on her top teeth, and other than a final check-up before we leave town, she's finished with "Phase 1" of orthodontics. She's got a wider palate and less teeth, and we've got a lighter pocketbook. So that's that.

She also has great vision. And I'm not mad about that per se, I'm only mad that she didn't use her great vision when we were at the regular doctor's office the week before last.
Nope, there she said "it's too small" and received a borderline 20/40 result which necessitated a trip the eye doctor during our busiest week ever.
Aaaaaaaaand at the eye doctor's she rattled off the 20/20 line like it ain't no thang.
The difference? We told her she actually had to try this time.

Oooh, oooh! I had a dentist appointment and no cavities!
I did bribe the dentist a little, but I think I would have had no cavities anyway. I told him that I'd refer some new patients if he didn't find any sticky spots to poke with his cavity stick.

Josh passed his Spanish tests! Yea! The last portion was on Tuesday and Wednesday, so as of Wednesday afternoon, he stopped treating me like a leper and even returned to our bed.

(But he still hasn't kissed me. I think it's the lingering cough.)

He graduates tomorrow, and like the dutiful wife that I am, I will shepherd the children to the base theater for the ceremony.
Only the ceremony is at 8 am. And I have to be all dressed up.
For realz.
And there's no parking nearby, so I have to walk a ways in my high heels.
I will probably break an ankle.

But that's okay. Because do you know where I'll be in 5 days?
I will be here:

And the kids will be having fun in the kids club. And Josh and I will be at the adult pool. In the hottub.
Don't judge me, I'm sure we'll let them out of the club for a couple of hours minutes a day.

Did you know that they'll even feed them meals in the club?
Not that we wont be eating as a family of course.
But maybe once or twice or ten times...

I kid, I jest.
Kind of. 

some stuff

It's been two weeks since I've posted, but I have a plethora of good excuses.
A plethora.

But I don't have a plethora of time, so we'll go list-style.

- Halloween fell on an Awana night for us, and we had "International Costume Night."  Costumes are the bane of my existence. Remember? And this was even worse because all 4 of us needed to figure out what to wear.
We found an Asian-inspired dress that Josh had gotten Alex in Guam, Derek was from Jamaica and wore an outfit Boppa had given him from Key West.

Josh and I had nothing.
So I got creative.
We taped a line of duct tape on Josh and labeled him the International Date Line.
I cut out and colored some cardboard waves and labeled me International Waters.

Costume night, check.

- Josh spent the next several days preparing for the first part of his testing. These tests are the culmination of the Spanish course, and no one really knows what happens if you don't pass them.

We'd rather not find out. 

He took his oral exam last week. He wont get his results until he takes the written exam this week, but he's fairly confident that he passed.

- In the midst of his studying, Derek caught a bug going around his classroom. It was less than lovely.
I spent one sleepless night with him playing catch-the-vomit.
I was one for two.
But the one I missed had several waves. 

He slowly recovered, hanging out at home with me last Monday before he was ready to return to school.

- We had another week with ortho appointments, more mover surveys, school physicals, etc.

- Then I got sick. I spent the weekend with a head cold from Hades. My husband is terrified to come close to me, because as I mentioned he has a big-deal test this week.
So I've been quarantined to certain areas of the house. We sleep in separate bedrooms. He's been making his own meals for fear of me contaminating his foods.

I could actually get used to that.

- That brings us to now. Today we dropped off the Corolla at the body shop to help it get all sporty again. So we have one car this week. And 2 dentist appointments, 1 eye doctor appointment, 2 days of big-deal testing, 2 Parent-Teacher conferences, half-days of school all week, and a partridge in a pear tree.

- Oh, and Josh sold his motorcycle today. He decided to sell it yesterday, so that was fairly efficient.
It's been moving across the country with us, and not being utilized for many a moon. And now we don't have to move it anymore.

- I'm not going to lie, it did make him more attractive to me in college. We had fun riding it around.

- But it's not as attractive as the hours he spends playing board games with his babies. Because he's not smeared on a highway somewhere.

- Two weeks from now we'll be on a cruise!

- The kids have 12 days of school left in Monterey.

- I'm off to my quarantined bedroom.