Rainy Friday and Last Week's Vacation

Another week has gone by. I really do feel like I trot along at a brisk pace each day just to keep my family going going going. 

Lately I've been daydreaming about having one floor of the Coast House completely finished and livable. That'll be a lovely change, in part because it means we can consider having a cleaner come a couple times a month to do deep cleaning. How amazing would it be to have some of our weekend chores done for us so our weekends can be more 'family play time' instead of 'getting ready for the upcoming week time'? With all the dusty construction and us using rooms on both floors it doesn't make sense to clean some of the rooms, let alone pay someone else to do it. 

Last week was a nice change of pace because Eddie was out of school for President's Week--something I never got as a student. All of us had President's Day off on Monday and Eddie went to daycare on Tuesday while I worked. That day we tried carpooling for the first time with a first grader named Tali. Her grandma dropped her off in the morning and I drove the kids to daycare. Eddie loved having a friend to ride with! Tali's grandma did the drive home and Eddie seemed to get a kick out of driving in a different car and in a big-kid booster seat. We still haven't moved him to a seat belted booster yet because the five-point harness seats are safer, but we keep thinking about it since it's hard for him to unbuckle himself. 

Wednesday morning Eddie and I packed up the van with bikes and clothes, dropped some things off at the office, and headed to Auntie and Uncle's in Mountain View for a vacation. We had a grand time of seeing friends and a movie, biking, playing tennis and hockey, eating at Google, watching the Olympics, sleeping late, and eating at a brewery with some of Edward and Jennifer’s friends. Less fun (but not traumatic) was doing all the ‘town’ shopping—Costco, Home Depot, Trader Joe’s, the international market, Michael’s and Jo-Ann Fabric, a Craigslist purchase…I think that’s it.

I let Eddie pick out a Redbox movie in Petaluma for the drive down 101, which we return in Mountain View when we arrive. This time he got a Barbie Christmas movie. On the way back home he picked out a Barbie twin princess movie. Our headrest DVD player broke so I just fold the middle van seat down and bungee cord my laptop to it, using a USB player. The only issue with this cheap set up is that I can’t reach back to turn the volume off when he falls asleep so I often have to listen to the annoying dialog or songs. Or I just crank up the volume on my podcasts.

On Wednesday night Edward and Jennifer put on a "cowboy dinner" for Batiste as a late birthday present. He loves all things horse and cowboy so it was perfect. We listened to authentic country music (according to Edward who actually researched it), wore cowboy garb, and ate pork/beans/cornbread. It was really fun.

Eddie was upset that he doesn't own cowboy boots so I offered to let him be a sheriff instead--and since sheriffs sometimes have to run after the 'bad guys' that his regular shoes would be best because who can run fast in cowboy boots?  (No one.) Then he was upset that he'd broken his sheriff badge...so I gathered up all the brooches from my mom's 1960s jewelry box and let him pick one to wear as an alternative. You can see in the picture that he chose the sparkling rhinestone one. We ended up bringing all of them so everyone could wear one. It was so sweet that all of us humored him by donning a fancy brooch. The options included: a few long stem roses, a turtle, a donkey from Jerusalem, and an engraved name plate.

On Friday we played tennis with Jeremy and Janine and then ate at Google for dinner as Jeremy's guests. It was yummy and fun! Edward always says he'd work at Google just for the free, delicious food...now I know why. We got dessert after filling our dinner plates because it always runs out. All these geeky Google guys were in line to get some mascarpone berry pie, taking a long time to balance their dinner plates while trying to cut/serve a piece of pie. I noticed a single piece left in a pan next to the long line and everyone just ignored it. So I slide out of line, took the whole pie pan, and scooted another whole pie to the front of the counter. That prompted the line to split into two so folks could serve from two pies instead of just one. Aren't these Google people supposed to be good problem solvers?

Auntie, Eddie, and I biked to the movie theater to see the LEGO movie. Uncle had some major scrapes on his leg and hands so he had to drive to the movies and we met him there. That was SUCH a fun movie. I can't wait to see it again when it comes to our local theater.

  

To get to the theater we had to go up and over 101 on a path. Every other time we've done this, Eddie's had to walk his bike part way up the overpass because it was too steep for him.  Not this time!  We were so proud of him for biking up up up all by himself. 

We watched the USA men's hockey game against Canada so Eddie wanted to play some hockey before we left. 

Blurry Ninja Turtle family photo before we left for home.

I made sure to get us back to Gualala on Saturday night so we would have Sunday to get ready for the week. It was nice to spend time with Dave on Sunday, having not seen him since Wednesday morning. He'd taken PTO on Thursday and Friday to work on insulating/sheetrocking the garage for his workshop. It's coming along nicely!

Sunday afternoon we moved horse manure from the neighbor's dumping spot to our composting spot at the airport. I drove the big rig up there, something that is fun but difficult because the seat doesn't move close enough for me to use the pedals so I have to perch on the end of the chair. 

Dave was veeeeeeeery patient with me while I slowly and clumsily maneuvered the backhoe to load the dump truck. He took over the mixing and stacking after it was dumped. The way he operates that thing makes it look like an extension of his own body. Is there anything sexier than watching your husband expertly stack manure for you to make compost? For me it ranks only second to watching him hold a baby.

When we were in Mountain View we went to a thrift store where I scored a(nother) Donvier ice cream maker. So of course we had to make some ice cream that night.

This is rocky road, made using our leftover rainbow marshmallows. It is super yummy.

 The end of this week brought a storm from the south. We enjoy watching the weather change outside the window each morning while we get ready for the day.

I love seeing layers of clouds, each a different color.

We watched a dense rain squall move toward the house yesterday. Sadly, it went north of us...I was looking forward to a brief pounding of rain.

There is currently a gale force wind advisory in effect up here--lasting 1.5 days. So far we've experienced one power outage blip here in the office and my FIL had a water customer at his door early this morning because a branch fell on her water line and caused a major leak.

If the wind isn't too crazy tonight and there's power in Point Arena, we're planning on having a pizza and salad dinner at the pier after work. Eddie should really enjoy that. On my list for today is finding references for two statements in my second chapter/second draft, making all the verb tenses the same, sending it off for review, and doing data crunching for my third chapter.