I went to Vegas last week. Have you heard? It was awesome! And exhausting, expensive, excessive, and tons of fun! It took me awhile to get out there because I was flying standby and didn’t make it on the first two flights. I stayed a night in Boston with Lauren’s brother, then back to the airport bright and early to miss a few more flights. Ugh. I ended up just buying a regular ticket and that got me to Vegas pretty quickly. It was great catching up with my college roomies. We spent the days by the pool (not as tough as I thought it might be!) and the nights getting dressed up, dancing, and paying $14 for drinks! Eek! :) Luckily my standby flights on the way home went much more smoothly. Alan and the kids picked me up at the airport and we spent about an hour hanging out there, having dinner, watching planes, exploring the parking garage, ec.

Here are a few pictures.

A night view from our hotel. We were on the 25th floor of an awesome new hotel! The whole place was digitally controlled and very fancy.

The pool area

Where we spent our days.

Palm trees

At the pool, with the Monte Carlo in the back

Aria - the hotel we stayed at.

Kim, me, Lauren and Amy

Daytime view from the hotel

Lauren, Kim, Amy and me at the club drinking $14 drinks. Yum!

This was about the extent of my gambling, loosing $2 on a black jack computer at the bar.

Do you see where we are sitting? Lauren was so smart and brought the boas along to the pool to make it easy for us all to gather.

Out to dinner our last night

Our elavator had a mirror wall, so we took a lot of mirror pictures :)

Freemont Street. Old school Las Vegas. Check out the roof of this street. Yep, the roof. Every hour or so they darken the street and do a light show on the ceiling. It's pretty cool.

All dolled up on Freemont Street

The light show

I have about 15 minutes before Lex will be up and about a hundred things to do, but I wanted to take a few minutes for the blog. Priorities, ya know!

We have been very busy these past few days. Actually, probably just busy, but I am very sick so everything I do feels like it takes three times the effort. Ugh! All week we’ve been gathering and pricing for our yard sale. Five families at my house, my neighbor at her house, and then two more families around the corner. A big event! Lots of advertising, sign making, and coordinating. It was hot and sunny all week, beautiful. We decided to have a lemonade stand and sell cookies to keep the kids busy. I was going to use their little picnic table, but Lex said “That’s not a lemonade stand! We need to find a box…” and went from there. I followed his instructions and we came up with this:

Lex wrote the cookie sign

Eve wrote the lemonade sign (with some spelling help from me)

Lemonade stand! I could not get them to pose with it, but you get the idea.

Friday night everyone came and loaded up my garage and we all hemmed and hawed about the rain predictions for the weekend. It was late though, and everyone was tired, so we just crammed it in there and called it a night. I really wanted to go back out after the kids were in bed and do some rearranging for the morning, just in case, but I felt miserable and barely got the kids in bed before passing out myself.

Saturday morning came (not so) bright and early, with heavy rain coming down. Ugh! We ate a quick breakfast and then went out to rearrange the garage as best we could. People showed up way too early, of course, and dug through boxes and looked around. The very first thing that sold (at like 7am) was an old heater grate that’s been in our garage since before we moved in :) The guy paid a dollar for it and it’s probably some awesome antique. The next few hours were spent wet and busily rearranging and better displaying things as best we could as things sold. I was surprised at how many people came out in the rain.

I didn't get a chance to take a picture until towards the end of the first day. The women in the back were both part of the sale, not shoppers. It was nice to have other people there so I could take care of the kids and whatever.

The day went ok, we had a fair number of shoppers, and when we closed the doors at 2pm we were feeling ok. Among this chaos Alan and I also managed to get the Subaru to the shop where we learned it needs a new axel or something expensive, ugh! Alan had to take off in a hurry Saturday afternoon so they didn’t get a chance to fix the car, but they said it’s safe to drive. I hope! There’s just one more thing on list of things to-do.

Sunday came and it was rain free. Hallelujah!! The kids and I went outside for breakfast. I opened the garage doors, but we didn’t get shoppers quite as early. I guess the die-hards are only out early the first day. We got a lot of traffic Sunday though and overall it went well.

We went out bright and early on Sunday. Had breakfast at the picnic table, read the comics on the lawn. It was peaceful, as Lex so sweetly pointed out.

Eve took it upon her self to sample as much as possible. Many small toys got rides in this wagon, she enjoyed a princess scooter for awhile, loved that tiny hat she's wearing. The funny thing is they were all baby toys, since everyone there was getting rid of baby stuff. Eve didn't seem to mind.

On Sunday we got out the lemonade stand! They were so excited... for about a minute, then realized that neither of them actually wanted to approach people and talk to them. Oh well. The kids all enjoyed cookies and lemonade :)

As the day progressed, we slowly moved things further and further out of the garage.

Towards the end it was beautiful and sunny and all the people participating in the yard sale and all the kids were just hanging out on the lawn, chatting and drinking (spilling, playing in, wearing) lemonade. It was like a big playdate :) Lex made a new friend. A four year old girl, who has an almost three year old sister. We’ll probably do some playdates with them later in the summer.

Lex and his new friend

This took way longer to write than I expected, but Lex is happily testing all of my pens on a piece of paper next to me, so I’m going to keep going for another minute and do some complaining :) Just kidding. Sort of. I went to the doctor today. Eve had a fever on Thursday and took a long nap (5 hours!) and woke up feeling good, but then Lex and I woke up Friday with fevers. He took a nap (for the first time in awhile) and woke up feeling great, but Eve didn’t nap and I didn’t nap, so while they both felt great Friday evening I started feeling worse and worse. Sore throat, headache (since last Monday actually!), fevers, sweats, chills, etc. I didn’t know what to do so I just popped Tylenol like candy and powered through the weekend. This morning my headache was less and the fever was gone, but my ears were hurting so I called the doctor. I CAN NOT be sick on Wednesday! I am a busy person with places to be, no time to be sick! So we went in, did the whole checkup, etc., and got a diagnosis of strep, mono, or viral. The quick strep test came back negative, but the doctor said it looks EXACTLY like strep. Feels like it too. He sent for a longer strep test and a mono test as well. I should hear back on those in a few days. He also sent me home with penicillin. We had a nice long chat about Vegas and he said it’s ok to go and hopefully the penicillin will help me feel better by then. If it turns out to just be a viral thing then it will clear up on it’s own and I’ll stop taking the meds. Ugh! I want to be well!! Right now I should be packing and planning and preparing my family for five days without me (think they’ll survive?!?), but I can barely think straight.

Alan and I are going out tonight for a date and some shopping. He said we could cancel if I wasn’t feeling up for it, but I said, “Hmm… dinner at a restaurant or home bathing and putting my kids to bed…?” Easy choice.

I’ll try to post again before I leave, but I’m not taking my laptop to Vegas, so if you don’t hear from me, that’s why!

Guess what? I did not yell at my kids today. Not once! Yay me! :) Sorry for the rant yesterday. Today was much better. Still hot, but it seems the monster has left the house.

We spent the morning with some friends at a state park we’ve never been to before. They had a great playground and a nice nature trail. I mentioned the nature trail to Lex on the way there and he was super excited. I said I didn’t know he liked hiking on trails and he said “I think I like it. I don’t know. I think I’ll try!” I wish he’d do that with food too! Turns out he loved the hiking. We also saw some guys working with some heavy machinery. They were pulling a new log jam across the lake near the dam. It was cool. They gave the kids long pieces of rope, which the kids loved and dragged through the woods with them :)

Walking along the nature trail. Eve got pretty tired, but they all had a great time.

Snack time! Can't hike without snacks, right?

Then we headed up to the dam itself to take a look. I did my best to explain it and the park ranger came out to answer questions for us. It was a lot of fun. And it wore them right out!!

A view from the dam.

Walking on the bridge to the control tower.

The kids always wash their hands when we get home. Today Eve decided to wash her feet too.

We spent the afternoon gathering items for the yard sale. The kids “helped” and argued over which toys to sell. Lex wants to sell everything (well, lots of stuff anyway!) and Eve doesn’t want to sell anything. She even argued over the grown-up DVDs that she won’t be watching for many years! Silly girl. Then, to top off my day, I went to the salon to get a hair cut (all of them really!) and then did some shopping while Alan put the kids to bed. Yay Alan! :)

Try this and see if it works…

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Today sucked. Really, truly sucked. I don’t even want a do-over, just erase today (and yesterday and possibly even tomorrow!) from the history books. I don’t say that often. Seriously. Argh! I don’t feel well. It was in the high 90’s yesterday and today (and for the next week or so!), breaking 100 on some people’s thermometers. I’m fat and hot and sweaty. The kids drove me crazy with their constant arguing and bickering with each other and with me. I must have heard “NO!” a million times. Probably uttered it almost as many times. Actually, I’m embarrassed to admit, I yelled at Eve to “just shut up”… umm… more times that I care to think about. She cried. A lot. For no good reason. I think we were all hot. So many times I thought “wow, I didn’t handle that well.” but then five minutes later I found myself yelling again. Anger, like overeating, is a cycle that’s hard to break. Even as you know you’re in it and know you shouldn’t be there, you keep repeating the bad behavior. Ugh.

I’d like to go out for a run now, now that I finally got the kids in bed, but Alan came home after work and saw the storm brewing in our house and decided to exercise and go out for a run himself. Ugh. It’s still 90 degrees though (yep, at 8pm!) so maybe I’ll just sit here and bitch instead. Maybe eat some pie. Sigh.

Oh, and to top it off, I entertained the kids in a tiny mechanic’s waiting room for 40 minutes (fortunately those were 40 minutes of good behavior!), spent $100 and drove away… only to discover they didn’t actually fix the problem! Ugh!

We had a playdate this morning with a friend who told me that she takes a week vacation to Martha’s Vineyard every year with an old friend. No hubbies, no kids. She said it’s the best thing ever. Says she barely misses the kids (is that a good thing or a bad thing?) and thinks she is a much better parent when she returns. I’m counting the days until Vegas. I’ve decided to have a great time there, fat and all, and deal with the repercussions when I return. Worrying now won’t help. United Airlines, take me away!

To end this post on a less bitchy note (I warned you it was a bitch post, right? No? Oh well!) here is a picture of the kids at the playground. It was so hot! I started to worry they were burning through the sunscreen, but they both looked ok in the bath tonight. They are cute, aren’t they? In pictures.

We celebrated Independence Day in an truly cranky mood. I kept reminding myself (over and over and over again!) that the first day back is rough for everyone. I have stuff to do, the kids have to entertain themselves with no doting relatives around, and Alan has to adjust to a houseful of noise again! It was also well over 90 degrees. Trust me, we were cranky! However, we made it out to a local 4th of July celebration where the kids discovered the dunk tank. Lex and Eve both did an awesome job throwing the balls in front of a cheering crowd of people and Eve got angry because I wouldn’t let her sit on the dunk tank platform! Lex was fascinated though and we spent a lot of time watching. Then we had dinner, Eve got her face painted, Lex played some kiddie games and won a cheap plastic gun (that somehow found it’s way to the garbage already!) and we made our way to the fireworks field. The kids ran around and made friends, playing frisbee and racing with other kids. It was fun. Then the fireworks finally started and the kids were THRILLED!! Eve yelled (seriously yelled!) “Look at that one mom! Mom, look at that one!!” It was funny, and fun. The day ended on a much higher note than it began, thankfully!

Lex racing with a kid who told us his name and then said everyone called him Avatar :) Eve insisted he was a she. It was funny.

We returned home to find fully ripe black raspberries in the backyard. The kids jumped out of the car and headed straight for the berries.

And what do we do with fresh berries (besides eating them by the handful!)… make pie, of course! Alan and Lex’s idea actually. Very delicious!

Pie and cookies made from the leftover pie crust.

We made an attempt at using the timer feature on my camera, with hilarious results. Hilarious to those of us who were there anyway. Here is the best one. Should I post all 20 of them?

Alan was home and Lex was protesting... under the bed I believe... but the rest of us made it! :)

We had a rockin’ trip to the country this week. Lots of family, cake, birds, butterflies, and zoo animals! I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

We went to a cool butterfly observatory where birds and butterflies were free to roam.

Eve tried hard to get a butterfly to land on her, but no luck.

Pretty butterfly

Lots of time spent jumping on Joyce (and whomever else would sit still long enough)

At the playground

She's so cool!

Eve, trying on the 3D glasses in prepartion for Toy Story 3.

Big hugs with Uncle Barney

At the movie.

Still not quite big enough for theater chairs. :)

Rosy, showing off the cake 'she' made! She did the beginning (idea) and end (candles) at least!

Happy Birthday Mema!!!! (Lex endured the birthday song for maybe the third time in his life!)

Eve ate cake and politely asked Lex to share his ice cream as well. He's such a sweet boy.

The birthday girl in her new hat. Happy Birthday!

Eve in the hat.

At the zoo

Close up at the zoo

The kids liked this bench!

Mix it up a bit and put Eve in the middle

Quick snack break with Uncle Barney

Penguins

Tired Eve is lucky to have such a great grandpa!

Funny girls

The Roses

Before we got in the car for the long drive home, we took a walk up the road to check out a hay baler. We were hoping to see it in action, but it was lunch time.

Eve, about five minutes after we got in the car. Two minutes later she was out.

Golden raspberry fingers…

He was so excited!

Eve was a little more hesitant.

All gone! (except the rest on the plate!)

… and black raspberries!

Not quite ripe yet, but so promising. The kids actually eat them as they ripen, so there will never be a photo of them all ripe :)

They make me smile.