It Was Such A Vacation Coming Home... Part 2 - Delta Connection

Airplane rides nowadays are pretty much well, Hell. Period.

And even though a quarter of a can of your choice of beverage and a bag of 14 peanuts can lend to make it a tad more tolerable... it's really still a moot point when you're not even able to put your tray table down to accomodate this fine faire. So thank you so much God for giving somebody the presence of mind to invent Goldfishies!... Because sometimes, just a little baggie of them can really, really save your arse.

Proof in point..

Thank goodness it was only an hour and a half flight. But I felt so bad for Aaron and his long legs. Trust me, I know about long legs... and mine are relatively short compared to his.

But what fun... because at least we got a few fun stares. I mean twins will always equal a few of those right? So nobody once had even an ounce of a rotten heart to toss us off the plane.

Touchdown... Orange County. Whew!

Jade was so excited! (as well as being really cute!)

Some have asked how it was that we managed all the luggage...

Well, putting mathmatics to work... plus just a little elbow grease, here's how.

Me = My doubled up roller plus Jade's.

Whitney = Stoller plus big roller bag.

Aaron = Backpack and 2 large roller bags + dealing with all the car stuff.

All of us = "Jade... honey, stay close by please! Please?"

Onto the Condo...

We rented a great big car! Sorry we didn't have the presence of mind to take pictures of it. Getting in and out of that vehicle with all our "content" was work enough.

I would recommend this place to anyone wanting to travel to the Disney/Anaheim area, unless creaky floors bother you. The owners were pretty amazing with their timely responses on any issues and the place was stocked with all sorts of goodies, most of which had to be immediately placed on very high shelves...

Here are a few pictures.

There was a big TV which proved to be wonderful in the evenings... like for watching American Idol on that night I stayed at home on baby watch... And there was an awesome porch outside that we didn't spend too much time on after that intial fall when Everest fell backwards off the chair and crashed his head onto the patio slider... But catastrophe averted!

I can still picture the two little hook-on feeding chairs and the cereal mess beneath them...

The kitchen had everything you could possibly need including a state of the art blender for making margaritas! Not wanting to rock the boat I stuck to root beer floats... haha

Kids room, complete with PlayStation. We put Calder on the lower bunk in a baby tent and Everest in a Pack-n-Play. Jade spent the first half night on the top bunk but quickly moved into her parents room upon hearing a "scary noise." I'm hoping that the scary noise wasn't the snoring coming from the adjoining room...

Mine and the kids bathroom. So cute. *heart*

The most comfortable bed I've ever slept in!

Master Bedroom...

The Playground! Just a hop, step and jump away...

<

A little mom break...

Next Stop...Magic Kingdom! The Most Magical Place on Earth!!!

Spring Vacation 2012 or "It Was Such A Vacation Coming Home"... Part 1 - Utah

I had such a wonderful time!  Really.  But there must be a reason why our child bearing years end right at about the same time our inability to chase after them does...

First of all, and for the first time ever I think, all six legs of my flights went exactly as scheduled.  No delays, no lost luggage, no unplanned sleepovers in some strange hotel.  Leg room for my two legs however has still not improved...

First stop Draper, Utah where I spent the night with my sister Alison who was kind enough to pick me up at SLC.  It's such a pleasure visiting with my sis, she always has the best stories and can always make such a mean salad!  This time she used pickled herring...  Charlie her husband thought it made the house smell, but I didn't notice.

"Against my wishes, she cooked fishes," he said.  Lol!

We went over all the details of this amazing new "business opportunity" she's recently gotten into called Zeek Rewards and she spent a couple of hours helping me get started...  But more about that later...

On Friday morning Daryn, Jon and Rachel picked me up on their way down from Boise and after a quick stop at Subway headed to Grandma's condo to join Whitney, Aaron and kids.  Very strange being at the house without Grandma and Grandpa!  But I think we were able to leave it "better than we found it" after our three day stay... : )

The first order of business was to trek up the hill to Aspen Ridge, the rehab facility where mom is recovering from her upper femur fracture.  You can see it up ahead. (The facility, not the femur fracture)...

This place seems to be becoming her home away from home.  But if you have to go somewhere, I guess this is the place to be.  A true 5-Star Hotel!  In fact, they made her sign a disclaimer when she checked in saying she understood that she couldn't stay there forever.  haha

On to Nane's room.

Kids everywhere...

Nane's Room

Daryn with her Grandma

We had the adventure of lifting mom into the car with wheelchair in tow and taking her out to Provo's finest Sizzler to celebrate hers and Whitney's birthdays. It was so much fun to see all my sisters, brother and their families. Carol, Lori and Whit did an amazing job of pulling it all together! But a buffet with a 5-kazillion kids (or so it seemed) was interesting to say the least...

Everyone got together and bought mom a Wii Sports package. Afterall, she IS the current Aspen Ridge Wii Bowling Champion!

Saturday was a busy day with us all going every which way at different times. But only after having lunch with grandma in the rehab's dining room. The breaded shrimp faire was cruise worthy!

Shopping, running errands, picking up after the kids, squeegying the showers:), the guys date and the gals date kept us juggling...

Finally a breather... Titanic 3D... It was fantastic!

Continued memories being made...

Sunday was a relaxing day with Whit and I joining mom for church at the center. It lasted 45 minutes. My kind of church!

I was so sad to hug Daryn and her little family goodbye. I don't get to see them nearly enough! But they were able to visit some other members of their family on their way back to Boise to continue the fun :)

I just love these pictures!

*sigh*

We brought grandma over to the house for the afternoon. First time she'd been back in six weeks! Lunch took a little more time to prepare than we had planned so I had to call rehab to ask if she could be allowed out for a little more than her allotted 4 hours. I looked for an ankle device, but didn't see one. haha

Anyway, they said that would be fine and it was nice to be able to spend some more time with her.

Lunch on the patio

The weekend provided such a great opportunity for the kids to get together. Cousins forever!!!

And now it is 12 hours and counting until lift off... and the condo is a complete mess! Sorry mom :( And so with miles to go before we sleep, aren't they just so adorable still?

Fishes and Dishes...

Next up... Orange County

Ship Of Dreams

It's hard to believe that it's been one hundred years ago tonight...

As I type this... at this moment... people were dining and dancing and others were just preparing for bed. How could they have known or even anticipated what would occur in the few short hours to come? One hundred years was not that long ago. It could have happened to any one of us. Just like 9/11 could have happened to any one of us. And did.



I have always been so intrigued by this story... even as a child.

Even LONG before meeting Jack Dawson and Rose Dewitt Bukater...

And then... my kids came along. Which is another story altogether about how all the emotions of it somehow fit in.

But tonight I just want to pay tribute in some way to those 1,517 human beings who losts their lives that night as well as to the countless others who were forever impacted by this tragedy.

Don't get me wrong... I love cruising and the gentle rocking to sleep that a ship provides. And I love the water. But just not THAT much water... and especially not all at once. And the thought of drowning or freezing to death absolutely freaks me out a bit, especially if it were to happen in the middle of a dark ocean... at 2 am.

So for those who had to endure it... that was for you. <3

I hope nobody ever asks me to write a memorial for anyone... Even though I was seriously trying my hardest to be serious and write a thoughtful blog here. : )

So Hard to Choose!...

I honestly don't know how Daryn ever learned how to do this. I mean, I know she comes from a talented family (ahem)... but this is just way far beyond any talent I could ever imagine having...

But anyway...

I'm having a hard time figuring out which of these two to post on YouTube. (I have Daryn's permission to post... something.. : ) haha

So which one do you like the best? Which do you think works best with the song?

This one...

Or this one...

And after giving your input... please don't forget to click on the link and go out to Daryn's FaceBook page to support her... comment... "like"... and download the song! Thanks!

Ker-Plunk...

Ok, blame it on Pinterest, but I've finally made an executive decision to clean my house. And I've gotten quite a bit done this weekend actually! All of my one-of-a-kind (meaning the only one of their kind in my cupboard) glasses and dishes have finally and mercifully been tossed out. Along with the bay leaves circa 1989...

Kitchen shelves have all been re-lined with (omg) contact paper but it seriously looks a lot better and cleaner than the particle board. I had planned to re-paint all the cabinets as well, however once the first one was painted I realized that I need to go back to the hardware store and dull up my pure white paint a bit. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that my next project would have to be completely replacing my dingy kitchen floor...

Anyway, today it's the pantry cupboard which seriously needs repainting but I'm at a total standstill. Because I just don't know how I'm ever going to cover up THIS...



Moving on...

As some of you know I've been collecting piles of stuff in my basement for years for that eventual garage sale. I've held a couple of those in the past and to be quite honest the thought of having another one completely makes me shudder. All those people tromping through my yard and handling all my um, wonderful stuff. So as I was dumping my bag full of one-of-a-kind treasures into the basement corner yesterday I made yet another executive decision.

No more garage sales for me!

Tomorrow I will sort through the storage closet at work for boxes which I will then label "Trash", "Goodwill" and "Kindling/Firewood." The dumpster stuff will have to remain in the garage for the time being...


Just one of my corners...

My only dilemmas are first,... what to do with all the Beanie Babies:



And next, the waterbeds:


Daryn's old bed looks a ton nicer with the lush down comforter, but it just seems to work better, with only the cats around, when I cover it with this ugly, I mean cute old thing.


I always loved Whitney's green/pink room. But I should probably wash the cat barf off of the bedspread before I try to sell it...

Unfortunately my camera batteries seem to have suddenly gone well, Ker-Plunk...

But fortunately PhotoShop has a way of forgiving a multitude of sins...


There... All clean!


And Voila! Switch-a-roo!!!...

Down comforter courtesy of decorlinen.com with a little help from PS...



lol!

Craig's List... here I come!

Who Ever Knew It Could Be This Easy? (PhotoShop Tutorials...)

I can seriously remember trying to follow along with some of them back in the day and not even having a clue when they'd say something like "Ok, now change the layer blend to screen or multiply..." etc.

But its amazing just how much an ungodly number of "having absolutely no idea what you're doing" hours can eventually teach you... Because today this one went pretty smoothly.

Transparent, suspended letters...

I just chose a string of random ones for this exercise...



And now I've got exactly 2,427 more tutorials saved to my bucket list...

A Snow Day For Grownups Revisited...

Exactly one year ago today my work shut down completely for the first time ever since I'd started working there 18 years ago!

And for no apparent reason...

*kidding*

But no seriously, we all woke up to two feet of snow that morning... and that's a lot of snow even if you're tall! But still, let's rephrase that. Some of us were "awakened" (at 6:30 am) to two feet of snow that morning, because you see, at least one of us already had a scheduled vacation day off that day but that still didn't stop the phone from ringing... What's that song? "Isn't It Ironic?"

But anyway, we just have this simply marvelous Business Continuity Management Team at my place of business and they were simply doing their job...

And so why I was just sleeping like a log and then and majorly annoyed when abruptly awakened?..

Fast forward to one year later...

Today is Groundhog's Day 2012 and the temperature is about 45 degrees (which has nothing to do with anything about this blog really.) But tomorrow I'm entering this video I made about this day last year into our campus's "SuperBowl Commercial Contest" wherein each department has a chance to compete in the fun by submitting a commercial depicting "the things we do." And so, since Business Continuity Management is essentially my department afterall, I thought I'd take one for the team and do something for once...



I know... too cute!