Trip to California

These pictures are from a family trip we took back at Memorial Day weekend to celebrate SchmoopyBoy's birthday and my sister's birthday. Better late than never?

Why is Daddy hiding behind the baby?

Fun and silliness with Auntie

loving the swing (but where did he get those goofy sunglasses?)

Teething much? (Grandma's toys are nommy)

3 things I learned in California this week

1. When going to the beach with pasty white skin, it is critically important to be mindful about putting sunscreen EVERYWHERE. Otherwise one could end up with lobster red feet and ankles… as well as an assortment of random burned stripes… ehem.

2. After acquiring said sunburn, there are not many options for bathing oneself comfortably. Water too hot, scream-inducing pain on the burnt areas. Water too cold, scream-inducing when the cold water hits your back. Cleaning oneself becomes a scream-inducing, no-win situation.

3. The home remedy I had never heard of for soothing sunburn – applying a wet black tea bag – works! Apparently it’s the tannin in the tea that takes the edge off the burn. Yay for my mom who told me about this home remedy!

Sheesh, you'd think I never went to the beach before. Eight years away from the coast and it's like I never lived anywhere near sunlight!

Picture Thursday

OK, not quite wordless wednesday, but its close cousin. ;)

Here are some pictures from our Labor Day weekend California getaway. Of course, it included a trip to beach. Unfortunately it also included SchmoopyBoy coming down with a cold.

Cousins - Hey SchmoopyBoy, what's with the face?!


With Mommy - what the heck am I doing exposing my pasty skin to the beach world?


While Auntie Shu-Shie is trying to take a picture


Busy with sand


Our last day, a sick SchmoopyBoy with Grandma, Mom, and Auntie LaLa

Update

Well, I’m feeling better this week. My oldest and dearest friend came out to visit for my birthday last weekend. It was great to see her and get some girl time. Plus no one has said anything to my face to trigger my fury this week so far, so I haven’t felt the need to go off on any foul-mouthed rages in real life or online :)

We’re taking a road trip to California this weekend for the holiday. Ever since I told SchmoopyBoy about our upcoming trip, he’s been requesting to go to the beach. Fortunately, a beach day has been in the plan all along. The last several trips we’ve made out there the weather has been horrible, so hopefully we’ll finally get lucky with some mild weather so we can go to the beach and have some fun. My sister-in-law is taking her kids Laguna Beach this weekend too, so we’ll meet up with them while we’re there.

I was hoping to post another recipe this week, but the one I thought would be good ended up not turning out quite as interesting as I had hoped. So you’ll have to wait until I tweak the flavoring and get it right for that one. In the meantime eat well, sleep well, and have a great Labor Day weekend!

Quick Monday Update

We just got back from a weekend trip to California to visit my dad. He was in the hospital for about a week and a half because of congestive heart failure and the inability to control his diabetes. He is due to go back into the hospital sometime within the next week or two to get a pacemaker.

There is a lot of concern about this surgery and his health in general. Quite frankly, every time he goes into the hospital, the doctors are surprised when he walks out. It seems he is constantly hovering – 3 steps from the grave, 3 steps from recovery. So far, he has always chosen recovery (to the extent a man with cancer, diabetes, irregular heart beat, and eternal fluid in his lungs can recover).

SchmoopyBaby was in rare form all weekend. Perhaps he was still feeling out of sorts from the two shots he got two days before we left. Perhaps those darn molars are driving him up a wall. Perhaps he was restless and bored from being stuck indoors all day on Saturday while rain came pouring down. Perhaps it was a combination of all of the above. He is entitled to have ‘bad’ days. He is a person and all persons are entitled to have bad days. It is unfortunate that his bad days happened to correspond with what might be the last time he sees his grandfather alive. Of course, every time I visit my father I can’t help think that that might be the last time I see him alive, so maybe I’m being a little overly melodramatic.

It makes me sad that my father takes SchmoopyBaby’s bad days personally, as though they are a reflection of his feelings for his grandfather. They are not. Although certainly SchmoopyBaby has preferences for certain people, for what reason I do not know. My mother, for example, is pretty much SchmoopyBaby’s favorite person in the whole world. Mommy-who? Daddy-who? There’s Grandma!!! It is hard for my father to feel adequately loved and appreciated when he sees SchmoopyBaby’s enthusiasm for his grandmother. Heck, it is hard for me sometimes to feel adequately loved and appreciated when I see my son’s enthusiasm for his grandmother.

Anyway, my quick update is turning, once again, into a long-winded rambling session. I’ll post pictures from the weekend when I get a chance.

Home for the holidays

Last Wednesday I was starting to compose some comments on my last post when all of the sudden John comes limping into the room hyperventilating. It turns out he went outside to get the mail at 9pm and noticed that our neighbor had his sprinklers running. This might be a "yeah, so?" moment, but considering (1) it was 9pm at night, (2) it was about 30-something degrees outside and dropping, and (3) it was Wednesday and with the current water restrictions our neighborhood can only water lawns on Mondays, John was looking at the neighbor's yard all like "WTF?!" instead of looking where he was going and he stepped off the sidewalk in just the right position to feel a loud SNAP in his foot and end up on his hands and knees in the street.

So once we got him warmed up, and got his foot wrapped in ice and elevated, we agreed that I would take the morning off work to help get him crutches and whatever else he was going to need in the morning. Come Thursday morning, with John unable to bear any weight on his foot, it became apparent that he was not going to be able to take care of SchmoopyBaby unassisted, so I took the rest of the day off.

Now, we had been planning for a few weeks to visit my family in California for the holidays this weekend, and I had already arranged to take Friday and Monday off already. So, given that I was taking Thursday off as well, and as much as I hate to "waste" a vacation day, we decided to leave a day early.

It was kind of a stressful morning running around. I had to go to 4 places before I could find a set of crutches the right size, SchmoopyBaby was cranky about having his morning routine thrown for a loop and being forced in and out of the carseat a bunch of times, and John wasn't much help (understandably so) with packing for our trip.

We finally got to my parent's house on Thursday evening, later than we would have liked, but not too bad considering we weren't even planning on leaving for another day. Between the stress of taking care of 2 "babies" and the dog as well as the whole "home for the holidays" business with a family of average dysfunction, I was a little on edge the first couple of days and couldn't help but fall back into my old pattern of snippiness. John and I had a conference the second night and that seemed to help.

In all it was a decent trip. SchmoopyBaby had an absolute BLAST playing with his Grandma and riding on his Auntie's shoulders and I ate more than my fill of potato latkes. Here are a couple of pics of the merriment.


Don't look now, there's a monkey on your back, Auntie! (Please ignore the diapers drying on the fireplace in the background)

Auntie's head is a drum, hehehe

Not the best pic I've ever taken, but sadly it's the only one I got of SchmoopyBaby playing with Grandma and Grandpa. Watch out for your glasses, Grandma!