Thursday, August 07, 2008

I feel like I did on Monday after we got back from California. I’m just whipped.

So I’m heading home soon for a long nap.

I do realize that I haven’t finished chronicling our trip - that will come, I promise, including more pictures.

[5:00pm]: I feel better for the 3 hour nap. We’ll see about tomorrow after a full night’s sleep, too.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Phone rings.

Me: US Marshals Service

He: Ah! Thank God I got a person. It’s so hard to get to a person in your district.

Me: *on alert that this dude doesn’t really want to talk to me, but anybody* How can I help you?

He: *identifies district from which he is calling* I’m calling about a warrant out of our district ... yadda, yadda, yadda *he proceeds with information that I can’t do anything about because he needs to really be talking to the warrants section*

Me: You need to talk to our warrants clerk. She works later hours, but should be in soon. You can leave her a voice mail and she’ll take care of it.

He: *heavy, annoyed sigh* Is that *name withheld*?

Me: Yes, she works later hours now.

He: *another heavy, annoyed sigh* I’ll email her. Thanks. *click*

Why didn’t he email her in the first place? Gah!

For those commiserating with me about the loss of the job promotion, take heart. Good things are afoot.

There’s a new project underway.

The unofficial word is that Amazing One got the promotion. My boss said that it was mine until her interview.

I’m disappointed, but she has a much longer tenure with the agency with a broad range of experience. There’s a reason I call her Amazing One - she deserves the job.

But I really wanted it.

Dang.

Here are a few random pictures from the trip:

Jesse in his tent.

Jesse sleeping in the car.

Jesse with MooMoo on his head, which seems to be his favorite thing since he does it a lot now, even in the crib.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Wednesday dawned foggy. Most days start foggy in that part of California. What’s funny is that it wasn’t until about Thursday that I realized that our hotel balcony included a pretty good view of Morro Rock.

Anyway, this was our day to head up to Monterey. You’ve seen a photo from PCH on our way up (and the gas receipt from Big Sur). There are more photos to share - I’ll add them here tonight when I get home.

[place holder for lovely scenic photos]

We got to the waterfront in Monterey and I didn’t recognize anything. I have a pretty good memory for places, but there was no way I could figure out where anything was because so much had changed in 25 years. The Cannery Row I knew resembled nothing that I remembered. It is much more built up and super touristy, including a Bubba Gump, which I rejected as a lunch option. We ended up eating at a local diner across the street from the Aquarium that provided pretty good fish and chips.

After lunch we toured the Aquarium, which was very crowded. Jesse enjoyed the fish tanks more than anything. I think we could have stood in front of them for hours and he would have been happy. We did manage to get to the sea otter feeding, but it was so crowded on the platform that I started to get claustrophobic, so we left. Sadly, once we got outside we both sighed in relief to be away from the crowds and agreed that we would try the Baltimore Aquarium some weekend when it won’t be as crowded in the fall or winter.

We got back to the car, after deciding to drive up to my old neighborhood to give Jesse some quiet/nap time before we met Ith for dinner downtown. Once in the car we realized the parking ticket was missing. I finally got so aggravated, that I got out of the car and instantly found the ticket on the ground. The wind must have blown it out of the car when we opened the doors. Beau laughed that it was a good thing I got so mad to get out of the car on that day.

Anyway, we drove up to Marina, the small town that we lived in back in the early 1980s while Dad was at the Naval Post-Graduate School. Marina is still the same, but built up more. The neighborhood is now surrounded by much newer houses. Our old neighborhood looks really run down and old.

So we managed to find the restaurant to meet Ith, who is lovely and charming in person. We enjoyed a delicious Japanese dinner and Jesse was cute to the waitress and Ith. Then Beau drove home so that Jesse and I could sleep.

It was a good day.

I was supposed to be interviewed starting at 11am. I’ve been waiting nearly 30 minutes now. Kind of aggravating since I have a lot to do, but didn’t want to start something new before the interview. So I’ve been sitting here twiddling my thumbs.

I’ll post when I’m done.

I’m the first one since they’re doing this alphabetically. And the other three dressed to the 9s today, so I’m looking like a slacker in my normal work clothes. Add my incredible fatigue and it’s a banner day to be interviewed for a job promotion.

*sigh*

[UPDATE 1pm]: Still no interview yet. I’m told that it will be in the next few minutes.

[UPDATE 1:30pm]: The interview was a total of 15 minutes long. I’ll be interested to see how long the others go. I tend to be concise when answering questions in interviews. Kind of like test taking - I was always one of the first ones done taking tests in school.

So now the wait for the results...thanks for praying!

Monday, August 04, 2008

Here are a few pictures. The ones from the Reagan Library have pink skies when downloaded. I’m not sure what’s causing that since they look fine on the camera. So I’ll try to download those again later.

This one of Jesse looking at Air Force One is still OK though.

Here are two of Jesse at the beach near Morro Bay.

On our drive north to Monterey, we needed to get gas in Big Sur. We were robbed.

Here’s Beau and Jesse on the trip up Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) to Monterey. We were stopped by a construction crew for about 10 minutes, so we got out of the car to see the view of the fog rolling in below.

I haven’t talked about our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium yet, but here’s a picture of Jesse on Beau’s shoulders. Behind him are the anchovies, swimming in a loop around the circular room we were in. It was completely dark in there, so the flash makes the fish look like sparkling lights.

Jesse looks sweet kissing Daddy’s head, right? So why doesn’t Beau look happier? Because seconds before Jesse leaned down to give the kiss, he had been pulling hair out of Daddy’s head with both fists. Somehow I managed to click the shutter at the right moment to catch the kiss.

More recaps of our trip tomorrow. I’m going to bed now.

We’re home, safe and sound and completely exhausted.

Note to self: Never book another red eye flight. Ever. Seriously.

We think they turned on the heat on the airplane. Maybe to help people get drowsy. I don’t know. What it did for me was swell up my hands and feet and make me sweat. There was no sleeping happening for me. Fortunately, Jesse slept for most of the flight.

More posts later - maybe today, maybe not.

Oh, and my boss was kind enough to call this morning to let me know to expect my interview for the promotion tomorrow. Joy.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Tuesday was our quiet day. We did nothing really. We went to Beau’s parents for some of the morning and then we headed to the local beach. Jesse did much better at this beach - it was more of a rocky beach than sandy. And we left his sneakers on, so his feet didn’t actually touch the sand. He was fascinated by the seagulls and enjoyed watching the waves crash on the rocks and roll into shore. As long as he was close to Mom or Dad, of course. We got some good photos of him on this day that I’ll post later.

The evening was the dessert for the folks from Beau’s parent’s church group. I met some great people who were so sweet to Jesse and welcoming to me. One man handmade a beautiful potty for Jesse that has a magazine rack on one side and an actual toilet roll on the other. It looks like a little throne! It’s fantastic and we’re happy to use it for Jesse’s potty training when we get home.

Tuesday was a nice day.

Next up: Monterey, Hearst Castle, meeting two more friends, and the family reunion to beat all family reunions. This will all get posted after we get home, most likely.

Day Three started early as well. We adults had adjusted pretty well to the time change. We weren’t sure how much longer it would take Jesse, although he had a great day on Monday.

We spent the morning touring Santa Barbara with Uncle W. He took us all around town and it is really pretty. He then took us to the beach where he likes to hang out every day, so Beau and I took Jesse down to the water. He hated it. Hated the loose sand. Hated the wet packed sand. Hated the water rushing on shore. Poor little guy. So we washed off his sandy feet and put him back in the car.

In the afternoon we headed north through Solvang, which is a lovely and quaint little Danish town. It was a quiet afternoon of just strolling through the streets, stopping to get soft pretzels, ice cream, and lemonade and window shopping. We did visit the Hans Christian Andersen museum, which is basically a room above a bookstore that featured information about HCA and his various works.

From there we continued north to Morro Bay, stopping in to visit with Beau’s parents after we checked into our motel. We only stayed for a little bit, Jesse was ready for bed.

Our second day was full. We all woke up early (by pacific time standards). I woke up at about 1:30am (PT) and pretty much stayed awake until I finally got up at about 6am. Jesse woke up, too, but we left him in the tent and he went back to sleep until about 8am.

We went to church with Uncle W, which was lovely. And then after a quick lunch we headed to Simi Valley to meet up with CalTechGirl and her DH at the Reagan Library. We had a great afternoon of looking at the stuff, with some intense boredom for Jesse that resulted in some screaming and fidgeting. For the most part he did pretty well at the museum. He was fascinated by the big airplane (Air Force One) - I got a great picture of him looking at it that I’ll post when we get home.

We then had dinner with CalTechGirl and her DH, which would have gone much better if Jesse hadn’t had a complete meltdown. He was D-O-N-E. They were very gracious about the whole thing. Thank again, ctg! We loved meeting you guys.

Jesse and I both slept pretty much the whole way back to Uncle W’s.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

We made it to California and are having a grand time. Here are highlights (and lowlights) from the first day (other days to be posted later):

Day 1 (Saturday): We got to the airport right on time and waited a short time to check our bags. Turns out I’m a heavy packer, because my bag was 56 lbs, which meant $50 to be paid. So the return trip will have some adjusted packing between the three suitcases.

We then made it through the security check easily - only a cursory check of the baby food and liquids was done. But because the carseat wouldn’t go through the scanner, they did the swab check. But that was no problem and it gave us a chance to get shoes back on and to redo the diaper bag that had been rifled through.

We got to our gate with about 90 minutes to wait until our flight. Jesse charmed all around the gate. And then I heard our names called at the counter. I went up to be told that we were being bumped from our seats because there was a disabled person on our flight, so we ended up moving from the first row to the last row. Poor Beau hauled the carseat and two bags while I carried Jesse and another bag all the way to the back of the plane. Oh, Jesse and I did get stopped by the pilot to get a tour of the cockpit.

Our flight was uneventful for the most part. Jesse konked out as we taxied to take off, so he missed that. He slept for about 90 minutes and then stayed awake for the bulk of the flight. He had two meltdowns where he just wanted to run around and couldn’t. Then he finally fell asleep about 30 minutes before we landed, so he missed that, too.

Then it was the adventure to get our bags and then to the car rental place, but that went well and about an hour after landing we were on the road. A short detour to get In & Out burgers (which were delicious, but I contend that Five Guys are way better) and then a stop at Target to buy the things we needed for Jesse and we were on our way to Beau’s uncle’s.

It was a lovely drive north on Hwy 101 up to the Santa Barbara area. We got to his uncle’s at about 5:30pm and had a quiet couple of hours before we crashed for sleep. Jesse’s sleep tent is very cool, but he was not happy about it that first night at all. There was much screaming until he finally passed out in exhaustion.

Friday, July 25, 2008

I’m more impressed with JetBlue after a lengthy phone call with reservations.

Got the email notice today about online check-in. So I started the process and when I got to the seat confirmation page I nearly had a heart attack. Beau, Jesse, and I were in completely different rows. They had Jesse in the middle seat two rows in front of Beau, who was on the other side. I was about 10 rows behind them.

Dear Lord, help me.

So I explained that an 18 month old can’t travel by himself and the nice lady agreed. About 10 minutes on hold later, she came back with new seats for us on both flights.

Oh, yeah, she checked our return flight and those seats had been changed as well.

They have no idea how it happened since the system says that I made the changes. I made no changes after I booked the flights and we selected our seats at that time. That was back in March.

Oh, and our flights are FULL. This is going to be fun.

Progress made in the Cali-vacation planning and preparation:

1. We attached the car seat from my car to the stroller-conversion-thingy. It was super easy to do once I was able to figure out what the instructions really meant. Must make luggage tag to attach. Remember plastic ties to keep it folded.

2. I decided to borrow my parent’s umbrella stroller instead of us buying one in CA. It means one more thing to schlep in the airport, but it’ll save a few bucks that we really don’t need to be spending. Must pick that up tonight.

3. Mom will have the new pockets on my Mei Tai today so that I can pick that up tonight. I was going to carry that onto the plane, but it will be packed because with deeper thought I realized that I probably won’t wear Jesse at all tomorrow.

4. Rethought the idea of taking a PB sandwich on the plane for Jesse, remembering the whole peanut ban because of allergies thing. Punting to grilled cheese, which I’m hoping can be warmed in the microwave on the plane because who wants to eat cold grilled cheese?

5. Must do one small load of laundry to finish packing. The weekly temps in the central CA coast area are going to be in the 60-70s. The weekly temps in the Santa Barbara/Simi Valley area are going to be in the 90s. How do you pack as lightly as possible for those variances?

6. Beau is about to take Annie to the kennel for her vacation. I cannot tell you how much “we’re: looking forward to not having to wake up at 5:00 am to deal with the crate mess du jour.

7. Mp3 player status - 6 books, 200 songs, 2 sermons, 15 photos of The Cutest Boy Ever. Fully charged and ready to go.

8. Verified that package mailed to Uncle W arrived yesterday. Woo! Thank you, UPS.

9. Spare key delivered to cat checker-in-er yesterday.

10. Iron clothes that need ironing even though they will need re-ironing after being smushed in a suitcase for about 12 hours.

11. Prepare meal and go have dinner with CootieMom and CootieGirl at parents’ after they arrive this afternoon.