A solo trip to California

The whole family was supposed to go to California over President's Day weekend.   My friend Jeannette was visiting her parents in Palm Springs and my friend Megan lives right next to Palm Springs, so we were going to do a whole "thing" together.  Then Spencer came home from school with his eczema flaring on Thursday, and Elliott had a runny nose on Friday and Michael, who had been sick for two weeks, still wasn't feeling better, so we decided they would all stay home and just I would go. 

I drove over on Saturday morning/afternoon.  On the way there I got a call from the police because they had received a 911 call from inside our house.  The whole thing turned out to be fake and we were the victims of swatting.  

This was my face while talking to them as we figured the whole thing out. It's been way too long since it happened for me to blog all the details, but it's a shocking story so call me if you want to know. 

I went and picked up Jeannette as her parent's house when I got into town.  Then we met up with Megan at the hotel we got for the night.  First things first, we got the matching nightgowns ready.  Megan also brought a Care Bear that may or may not have belonged to me as a kid.  

Getting ready to go out

Megan's daughter Hadley colored pictures for me and for Jeannette, which is awesome because she's never met Jeannette.

Ready for shenanigans

At dinner

I asked a lady to take our picture after dinner.  This is what we got. 

Better, but still really glowy and back lit. 

There was a pig sculpture.  We had to take our picture with that!

Back at the hotel we had the clerk open our bottle of wine because we had forgotten our cork screw.  He used his own personal cork screw that he brought to work with him.  That is service!

In the room shenanigans

Dessert

The next day, Sunday, we went to brunch and went shopping (at Target, nothing fancy) and then Jeannette left.  Megan and I had a busy day of which I took no pictures, including the fabulous dinner we went to. 

Back at Megan's house we had a girls night with her girls including face masks that made us look frightening. 

On Monday Megan and I went out to brunch again.  We had to wait a while so we browsed around in Pottery Barn.  If you can't read it, this is called the Elliot chair. 

We got a free pop tart for having to wait. 

Megan's beautiful tea latte.

My beautiful benedicts.

And my glorious side of bacon. 

After brunch I packed up and made my way back to AZ.  I met Spencer at the ER where we wasted $200 having the doctor tell us he was no having an asthma attack when it was totally an asthma attack. 

Boo for the ER

Yay for not being admitted, although he totally should have been admitted. 

I'm baaaaaaack!

Family, friends, loved ones, blog stalkers.......I am back! 

I never, ever, ever intended on taking an entire month off from blogging, but it has been just one computer shit show after another.  First we had to return our brand new computer and get a new one, then we had problems with the external hard drive, then the software I used for photo storage wasn't compatible with our new computer (which I didn't find out until I had spent DAYS transferring pictures) and then I have had an incredibly hard time finding a new system that works the way I want it to.   But, I think I have something worked out.  It's not perfect, and I'm not thrilled with it, but it's enough to get me back up and running. 

I wrote out a schedule for myself and if I blog every day until next Friday I will be caught up.  I promise I will try. 

So, we're heading all the way back to Monday February 12th.  

Ginger had her 3 month check-up a the vet to get her new Valley Fever test and Valley Fever medicine.  She still has positives on the test but she's doing quite well. 

On Tuesday the 13th we got the Valentines ready for kids to take to school the next day. 

Smarties for Spencer's friends. 

Chocolate bow and arrow treats for Elliott's friends.

Face masks for teachers

We woke up on Valentine's Day to find that Winston had visited over night.  He brought treats for the kids.

And hung out in the perfect location to make sure the kids got them. 

I worked that day.  I was particularly proud of my themed outfit.

I bought this Gap shirt at a consignment store last summer.  I knew it would be perfect for February 14th. 

Family picture when I got home.  I have no idea what we did that night. 

Ginger somehow got filthy though! If I'm remembering correctly it was cold and rainy that day and she must have rubbed up against something wet outside. 

It was very foggy on my way to work on the 15th. 

I volunteered in Spencer's class doing Art Masterpiece on the 16th.  It was a "found items" collaborative lesson. 

I took a picture of each group's project.  Eventually each box will be spray painted gold and then all of the boxes will be glued together.

I stopped at Target after I left his school and bought a new nightgown for the weekend (which will be detailed in the next post).  I also bought a few bottles of wine and the cashier make a "joke" about her mom being born the same year as me.  Yeah, not funny. 

That evening I took pictures of the Valentine's Day decorations and then took them all down and packed them away.  I never decorated for Valentine's Day last year so it was fun to see all the stuff that I hadn't seen in two years.  

We took Elliott's 6 year 2 month pictures in Spencer's room that night.

Official

And that's it!  Not too terrible, but definitely not worth that wait. 

I'm still alive

Just popping in from my work computer to tell you that I am still alive.  We bought a new computer in January.  It took us a few weeks to get around to setting it up.  We transferred everything from our old computer to an external hard drive, then set up the new computer, then transferred everything from the external hard drive to the new computer and then....................the new computer was apparently made out of straight garbage because we could never get it to work.  We spent hours with Costco Concierge services and Dell trying to get it to work.  We couldn't ever get it to connect to the internet without blocking every single site.

  So, after two weeks with nobody being able to figure it out we finally gave up and we returned the piece of trash yesterday.  We were also unable to wipe it (because, remember, the internal components of this $1,000 "computer" are made out of garbage) so our files and pictures will most likely be re-sold to someone else and they'll steal our identity.

I have a laptop at home, but I have no pictures stored on it.  I can use my work computer, but I have no pictures.  And what is a blog post without 4,500 pictures?

We're buying a new computer today and hopefully things will work better.  It'll take me a few days to get everything transferred over.  I'm also taking a 13 hour neurosciences class this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  But I promise I will not let the blog die!  I will be back.  With stories of trips to California and the ER.

.......to be continued.......