My two youngest sisters Breezy and Steph tagged along.
I ended up working an early shift Thursday, so we drove out to CA Thursday night.
When we stopped for dinner, Breezy commented, “This is
refreshing weather.” To which Joseph replied, “You’re refreshing weather.”
Breezy’s comeback was, “Well, I am Breezy.”
J forgot his glasses, so he wore his prescription sunglasses...at night.
We got to the hotel around 11 at night. I didn’t realize
Breezy had a rolling bag, and my view was obstructed by the stuff I carried in
my arms. I was trying to run in front of a car, tripped over Breezy’s bag, and
almost face planted. Then I laughed so hard I almost peed.
Friday we all went to Knott’s Berry Farm.
There was a twisty, circling ride that looked pretty tame.
It was one of those where the bigger person needed to sit on the outside
because you ended up squishing over to the outside (you can see it in the above picture, and we're sitting in the ride in the two lower pictures). It didn’t look too bad, so
I said we should try that ride. I sat next to Steph, so Breezy and Joseph were
across from us. It ended up being scarier than I thought, and Breezy and Joseph
couldn’t breath because they were laughing at my face. Stephanie kept yelling
that my hair was in her face but I couldn’t move it because my hands were
clutching the safety bar. I may have been crying a little. There is no
photographic evidence so one really can’t be too sure.
It was a ton of fun. I’m actually pretty scared of roller
coasters but I suck it up and go anyway. And then change my mind at the very
beginning, when we’re getting ready to plunge down the first crest. But it’s
too late.
That night we ordered pizza. I informed J, “I’m going
to need something to drink.” I heard him say, “What?” So I repeated myself,
“I’m going to need something to drink.” I heard him say, “I’m sorry, I still
didn’t hear you.” Breezy almost yelled, “She’s going to need something – “ but
then turned around and realized J was on the phone ordering the pizza and
wasn’t talking to me. Which caused us to laugh, which did not help J hear the
pizza person at all. He apologized, explaining that there were “crazy people in
the room.”
Saturday J had his conference. Breezy went with me to drop
him off in the morning. His brakes made very disturbing squeaking noises. We
had recently had the brakes replaced, and he has his car maintenanced
frequently, so we didn’t think the brakes were having a problem, but why were
they making noise? I came back to the hotel, we got ready
for the day, and us three girls went to the San Diego Zoo…driving with squeaky
brakes.
Pointing picture for HP.
This one is just in case the first one wasn't point-y enough. Because, you know, the elephant shrub is kind of easy to miss.
Did you know that hippos kill more people than lions, elephants, leopards, buffalos, and rhinos combined? Have a little respect.
Our tickets came with free bus rides, and we also got to ride that sky ride you can see in this picture.
This was taken from the bus. That kangaroo is just hanging out..."Well hello there."
I asked Keeley if she'd be able to make the trip with me, but alas, NC is too far. So here is a cameo.
From the sky ride. It was awesome.
This is an aviary place where they kept birds. Breezy and I did not like going in there, because the probability of being pooped on was pretty good. Plus Steph kept humming the Jurassic Park song and then it got stuck in my head (you know, the second or third one with the pterodactyls).
What is this rather phallic looking picture you ask? On the way out we stopped at a large gift shop. I’ve been
wanting a large giraffe statue every since J’s brother’s wife had one that looked
fabulous at her house. I did find a different leather giraffe that I got for a
good deal at the thrift store, but I still went over to the wooden giraffes
just to look. They were different prices depending on size; one was $40,
another was $50. Then I spotted a price tag that said, $5.95.” I got closer and
examined the tag more closely. I did not read it incorrectly, it was a $6 giraffe. I was about to walk away, thinking it was mis-priced, when I thought,
eh, what the heck. I picked up the giraffe and took it to the counter. I was
upfront and said it was only priced for $6 and could I buy it for that much?
The cashier said sure. Woot!! She bubble wrapped it for a safe journey home. I
was very excited. Then started thinking, what if it wasn’t mispriced – what if
it was damaged and discounted? It was now bubbled wrapped and I couldn’t
examine it. Crap. Well, I’ll wait until I go home.
We went back to the hotel and relaxed after walking all over
the place. I went out to the car to pick up J when he texted me. And the car
wouldn’t start. What. The. Heck.
Hate that stupid car.
J found out that it’s the theft protection device that
needed a new battery. We had to go to Target and get a small screwdriver and
new battery. When J took it apart, he asked me, “Did you get this wet?” My
response was, “What? No. Wait. Ohhhhhh.”
A water bottle had spilled all over in my purse and a lot of
stuff got wet. Oops.
Sunday we were late waking up and caught breakfast at the
tail end, but there wasn’t much left over. J had his last day of conference, so
I told the girls a donut sounded nice. On the walk over there, a man said,
“Looking nice today ladies.” It was slightly nice and slightly creepy. We got
our food, came back to the hotel, then headed to the beach.
The beach was lovely. I just love the sound of the waves,
the feel of the sand. The back of my legs got horribly burned. It hurts to
walk. After wandering around, walking the beach and checking out the shops, we
came back to the hotel. Breezy and Steph were on their own for dinner; we went
out to dinner with Cody (the guy who gives J a lot of his jobs), Cody's wife Raquelle, and another nerd man and his wife from the
conference. It was actually uncanny how similar the other guy (his name was
Mike) was to Joseph. I wasn’t going to say anything, but Cody brought it up.
Then later we found out J had been in MI about the same time Mike had, and
their birthdays were days apart, so the jokes about twins separated at birth
continued. After dinner we went to Ghirardelli’s on the GasLamp district, and
that was fun. I made Breezy text me the whole time where they were going and when
they got back to the hotel. When we got back to the hotel, I found out that Steph and Breezy had an interesting conversation. It started when Steph noticed the smoke detector was missing and brought this to Breezy's attention. Breezy said, "Oh well, we can sue them if we die or get seriously injured." That kid cracks me up, you never know what's going to come out of her mouth.
We were supposed to go home Monday morning. J scored some free tickets to Sea World, but they don't expire for awhile and everyone was exhausted/sunburned, so we decided to stick to the original plan. I had a lot of fun but I was ready to go home. So we left Monday morning and got home about 2:30. I took a nap and then cleaned my bathrooms in preparation for my bathroom remodel that would start the next day.
I also unpacked and found that my $6 giraffe is perfectly healthy.
I should have taken an extra day off work to recover. My sunburn still hurts and I'm trying to get through a mountain of laundry, and I'm tired after working a full day. But my bathrooms are partially torn apart and I had a wonderful vacation. I couldn't stop smiling today.
