ammogirl

Oh my GOD you guys, I’m so mad.  I’ve been posting every single day and I just noticed that NONE OF THE POSTS have been showing up!  I swear! 

Okay, not really.  But IN MY DEFENSE, I warned you I would be missing a few days, so.  AND!  I uploaded the pictures!  I did!  In fact, I have just spent the last 3 hours sorting through the 700 plus photos we have taken so far and putting them on Flickr.  You guys, I am SO OVER the title and description thing.  They are seriously harder to write than posts!  I hate titles!  I hate descriptions!  Therefore, mine suck!  I don’t want to hear you complain though…THREE HOURS.

So.  Camping.  It was SO FUN!  We had the worst luck getting started, with dead batteries and hot hot hot weather and forest fires and closed boat ramps and reservations only but in the end we scored a perfect campsite on a gorgeous lake and had such a great time.  Our fancy two room tent and comfy sleeping bags were so cozy that I slept better out there than I have over the last nine months in Korea.  We fished, and had campfires, and made smores and ate lots of great food.  We played cards, and swam, and caught frogs and there was hardly any bugs and none of us wanted to pack up and go home.  I never thought I…as in ME, would have such a great time camping!  I mean, the amount of dirt we had caked on us was a little gross, and we DID have a run in with the biggest, most terrifying spider EVER (FOR REALS, even John was a little freaked out by the massive giganticness of that spider) but, surprisingly, I lived through it.  Just to give you an idea, the spider was so horrifying that taking a picture of it never crossed anybody’s mind – we just wanted it dead.  Who discovered it, you ask?  Oh, that would be me!  Because who else, right?  Right.  So: The spider was hanging out under the table, and I walked right up to it…like one inch away…before I noticed it.  I froze, then pretty much ran, and the only thing I could say was oh my god over and over and over until John killed that horrible HORRIBLE monster from beyond.  It was SO BIG.  Like, the body was the size of…a golf ball.  And it had legs.  So that made it bigger.  Basically it was the biggest spider I have seen outside of a picture.  AND!  It was eating.  Ohgod it makes me shudder even now.  BLEH.  Enough of that.

Friday we headed into Sacramento for the wedding rehearsal/dinner, which was a lot of fun, and included Pyramid Hefe on tap, and Indian Casinos, and a looonnnng drive back home at one in the morning.  That sucked, because on Saturday, we had to wake up early to pick up the girls from Grandma Carole and head BACK to Sacramento for the actual wedding.  Okay, so it was an outside wedding, and the temperatures hit a record high — it was freakin hot.  Like, the acrylic heels on my bridesmaid shoes were melting on the patio hot.  Like, the wedding started at 5 pm and we were back inside by 5:10 pm because the minister and Nick and Denay did a little speed vow thing that was pretty cool – in fact, I’m pretty sure the kiss at the end was the longest part of the whole wedding.  After pictures, we headed over to the reception, where we all proceeded to bust a move on the dance floor, with a little help from the FREE WINE placed on all the tables with dinner.  Oh, and perhaps the pitchers of Hefe.  Okay, and the DJ was playing some pretty great tunes, too – a lot of disco and hardly any crap, and remember when I said that I was born to be the Dancing Queen?  Yeah.  Anyway, it was such a good time, and Nick and Denay looked wonderful, and both of thier families are so much fun, and it was so great to see all my friends. 

When I woke up this morning at 8 it was already 86 degrees outside, so on went the bathing suits, and after the gift opening we jumped in the pool for a quick swim before we headed back here.  And as soon as I got in I started on those pictures which brings us back to the beginning of this post which means my weekly summary is now complete!  Yay!

Joe and Laurel are up from Santa Cruz for the week, so we’re going to be out on the lake a lot, and then my family will be here Thursday, and then?  I go back to Korea next week….sighh.  Well, I guess the good thing is I’ll go back to more frequent posts.  Anyway, go look at the pictures, and I’ll post again….soon!

Auf Wiedersehen!!!

Wellio!  Who would have thought that finding time to use the computer whilst on vacation would be so incredibly difficult?!  Did I really flippantly remark that I would post really long, fantastically hilarious posts with lots of pictures almost every day?

Hmm, I don’t remember if I actually did write that or not but I DO know that I thought and/or assumed it.  Seriously though, yesterday while driving back from Santa Cruz I said to John that we have never had such a busy, packed vacation, EVER.  As a matter of fact, the only reason I am posting just now is because I am stubborn at times and refuse to take my acid reflux medicine (like….since I left Korea) and…okay, does anyone else have GERD?  Or any type of acid reflux problem?  If you do, you will know what I mean when I say the entire inside of my torso from the bottom of my stomach to the back of my tongue is being currently being bathed in glass-spiked extra fire-y fire.  This is certainly not helped by laying down.  Actually, sitting up is not that much better and YES I took my medicine, and YES I will continue to take it from this point on.  Anyway, laying in the dark pretending to sleep while my insides are melting away in an acid bath is not too much fun, really, so I hauled out my trusty (and until now, sort of forgotten) laptop.  And, ugh. I am so far behind on reading other peoples blogs, and do not even ask about email…I logged in, saw I had 127 emails, and cancelled right the hell out of that.  If you have emailed me about something important in the past 3 or so days, I am sorry.  You would be better off calling John’s cell and…well, leaving a voicemail, since we haven’t really been answering the phone, either.  Huh.  Well, I guess…good luck!

Anyway, none of that has absolutely anything to do with what I have been doing since last Wednesday morning and also sounds suspiciously close to whining about doing lots of fun things on my vacation.  And that is sort of ridiculous, so:  on Wednesday, we ended up at the lake.  The girls jumped in the water like, instantaneously upon arrival, and did not come out until 5 hours had passed and they had absorbed three-tenths of the lake’s volume into their skin.  Over the course of the day we played Rescue Mom, where I swim out a fairly sizable distance and wait for the girls to come save me from certain drowning, and my new favorite, Guppy and Plankton, which the girls made up after I said I didn’t want to play Shark.  It’s sort of like tag, but instead of being It, I am the Guppy and the girls are Plankton.  The funny thing is, I didn’t want to play Shark because I am really a horrible swimmer and am not good at chasing people through water, but as a Guppy I am doing exactly that.  Hmmm.  However, the fun part is that after the ‘Guppy’ catches and eats so many ‘Plankton’, it turns into a ‘Pirahna’.  Which, I suppose, is much like a shark, with the teeth and all…oh, whatever.  It was fun, anyway, and Pirahnas are way cooler than Sharks.

On Thursday we did a bit of frantic searching for dresses the girls can wear to Nick and Denay’s wedding next weekend.  And I don’t mean fancy dresses FOR the wedding, I mean any sort of dress to wear TO the wedding.  Do you think we found ANY?  As in: none? Zero? A big fat blank?  Apparently pre-teen girls in the Chico area do not wear dresses OR skirts.  It was ridiculous, so instead we got Mrs. Fields, which was much tastier, to be sure.  However, cookies are NOT dresses, which leaves us a bit up the proverbial creek.  There is Sacramento, but no time to get there between now and Saturday; therefore, this means we will have to squeeze dress shopping in the DAY OF THE WEDDING, so I’m sure it will be great fun.  But!  Let us speak of the past, not the future!  Thursday evening we went to Carole’s house for dinner, and finished up with a rousing game of poker, which I of course won.  Of course, because I am secretly Greg "Fossilman" Raymer.  Not really. 

Friday we drove down to Santa Cruz to visit Joe and Laurel.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and after a great lunch (um…Mexican…heh…are you sensing a pattern in my food tastes?) we headed to the boardwalk, which is at least 5,729 times better than any other amusement park or fair I’ve been to.  John and Joe took the girls on all the rides, and if you are wondering why I did not go on the rides, um, HELLO, Laurel is 7 months pregnant with twins, and she couldn’t go the rides, and I couldn’t very well leave her with her mother who was also there  completely ALONE, could I?  However, I did actually go on the log ride, and joined John and the girls their second go round on the roller coaster.  I displayed a great amount of bravery on both. 

On Saturday morning we headed to the beach to let the girls and Sydney (Joe and Laurel’s dog) have a bit of fun.  The water was at least ice age glacier cold, and it was foggy, but within 10 minutes the girls were down to their swim suits and walking along the edge and all was just peachy until of course the VERY SECOND that we were getting ready to leave and a wave caught Taylor off guard and while SHE was fine (although shaken up) her glasses were…not.  As in, they were not anywhere in sight.  This caused much frantic searching and a lot of "Punkin, it’s NOT your fault" and in the end an earlier than planned departure to ensure we made it to the Lenscrafters in Chico on time.  Of course, Taylor has the worse eyes of the two girls, requiring a new pair of glasses about every six months or so; and since we took her to Lenscrafters here last October, her dad had to get her a new prescription.  However, at 6:15 pm on a Saturday in Chico, ten month old not quite perfect prescriptions are pretty much all you are going to get, not to mention way better than the alternative.  Almost two hundred dollars and 30 minutes later, poor Tay could finally see again, and we were finally on our way home. 

Which brings me to now, 2:49 am on Sunday morning, sitting downstairs trying to breath stomach acid and finally posting to let you guys know I am, in fact, alive.  And having a great time.  And that we will be on the lake all day today, and the great campfest of 2006 starts Monday morning and ends sometime Thursday and I am pretty sure that since that damn campsite we are going to doesn’t even have flushing toilets, that it does not have wireless internet.  Or any internet.  Or, anything to plug my computer in.  So, probably no posting.  I know, I know…hard, but, I am positive with some deep breathing and possibly cake you will survive.  Oh, and, ha ha, the pictures…tonight, I promise I will get the pictures up, and if I don’t I will offer up my soul to be punished in eternal flames.  Or…you can just mock me in the comments.  Either one is okay with me, really.

Auf Wiedersehen!!

You know what’s really fantastic?  Sitting on the porch watching the deer and woodpeckers and bluebirds and fox (hmmm…foxes? fix? fice?) walk through the yard.  And did you know that woodpeckers are not really blue, nor wear white fluffy collars?  Damn that Woody Woodpecker for leading me astray. 

And, oh man…I really need to figure out John’s way-too-technical-for-me camera.  Because if I knew how to work that thing, I could have taken a picture of the hummingbird that just flew down and hovered right over my laptop for about 15 seconds, trying to decide if I was, you know, a good source of sweetness or not.  As I am only halfway through my first cup of coffee, the answer to that is: no.  Still, that was cool, I’ve never had a hummingbird come so close before.

We made it up to Paradise around 11:30 Monday night.  Of course, I did none of the driving since I suffer from car-colepsy (ha ha!) but also because John really appreciates every opportunity to receive my outstanding and completely necessary direction.  Who else would tell him there is a car in front of him, or that he needs to be in another lane, or that his speed is a bit much for the current traffic conditions?  No one, I tell you!  He LOVES it when I speak up, ESPECIALLY when he doesn’t have to ask for it!  And there is just no way I would be able to provide him with such attentive assistance if I was the one doing the driving.  This way we both benefit!

Yesterday the girls tag teamed me into going to lunch at Hula’s Mongolian BBQ and ohhh I love that place so much.  So, one more restaurant crossed off my (very long) list.  After that we met up with John’s mom (Carole, with an ‘e’, and did you know MY mom’s name is Carole, with an ‘e’?) to watch Johnny Depp do his thing in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 2: In which nothing gets resolved so be sure you see Part 3′.  That’s not to say it wasn’t a great movie, because it was, and I just want to add that I think Johnny Depp is a fabulous actor and always has been and that I might or might not think Vanessa Paradis is an extremely lucky girl.  After the movie Christy brought Ty over, and he’s such a cute little guy, and he’s that baby that makes you say "I want a baby!" because he NEVER cries, just sits there and is cute with his little feet and adorable faces. 

We had planned on going fishing today but today is Wednesday and that means the lake is closed, which is weird to me…do the fish do their shopping on this day or what?  Prepare their wills?  Thank the fish god they made it through another week?  Anyhow, instead we are doing…well, I have no idea what we are doing today but I’m sure it will be fun!

There are lots of pictures, I swear, and I will have them up on flickr as soon as I can.  This, translated, means as soon as I am not too lazy to perform the arduous task of uploading photos.  I don’t want to hear it, it’s sooo harddddd and I’m on vacaaaation!

Auf Wiedersehen!!