Pickle

OK, SO good to be back home! With my own internet! That actually works. hehe. But girls weekend away was FANTABULOUS! Just what I needed! Thanks, friends! I came back re-charged and ready for Thanskgiving vacation with my kiddos :)

So Saturday morning, I wake up bright and early at 7am. And I hop in the shower and get all ready. I'd bought a new snuggle blankie, so I gave my old (and non soft one (remember, it got seeds and pokies and junk in it)) to Jake. He was SO excited about it.
I got myself all packed up, and went to see if the kids were all packed up. Joe and Jim were ALL packed up, AND they had their room mostly cleaned. Nice. I told them that the room had to be mostly cleaned before they went to Cory's house. Good deal! Of course, in the 3 hours before I left for Girls Weekend, they proceeded to mess it up again, but it's baby steps, right?

I got all the kids ready for the weekend bit by bit. Eme and Tom were the first to leave. Eme headed on over to Rebecca's house at 8:30am. Rebecca is her coach for Basketball, and she was gonna drop her off at Crystal's house after the game. She's staying with Crystal for the weekend. My friends rock, you know!

And I loaded up Tom and Joe and Jim at 8:30am, and we headed to Logan Gym to drop off Tom for his game. Kim's hubby was gonna come and pick Tom up after his game. We dropped Tom off, and headed back to post.

I got my bags all packed, and made sure that Jim was dressed the right way. He had on a Jammie shirt for his regular shirt. Oops. Fixed that, checked his bags, and made sure that Jake was all set for Kari's Brian's house. Joe said that he had packed a picture of Jesus and his scriptures. Who can tell a kid no to that! hehe. That's not over packing, that's just freakin' adorable!!! :)

Around 9:45am, Jake and Joe and Jim and I walked over to Ms Kim's house with our stuff (minus Jake's stuff). Jake wanted to see us off. And he wanted to say hi to Scotty. Joe and Jim were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. Cory's house is kinda the most exciting place in the world to them. ROFL!

We walked on over, and Kim was in the process of loading the SUV. I added mine to the mix, and we got the little boys situated. Then we were off! First stop, Amanda's house to pick up her and Austin.

Then Maggie's house to pick up Maggie and Hannah and Jake. Then Kari's house to pick up Kari. And we were a full house!!! All 8 seats were filled up! And we were on the road, traveling 4 hours up the road to Albuquerque! Lets get this show on the road!!! hehe :)

About 30 minutes down the road, we were briefly stopped by boarder patrol at a check point to make sure we were all American Citizens. Yup, all legals here!

Have you tried these???? They're freakin' Awesome!!!

Hannah

Hi!

Wishing it were DDP, but diet coke is gonna have to do :) But now I have to PEE!

Wait~ Kim turned into Amanda!! hehe :)

After driving forever and forever and forever, we finally got to the outskirts of Albuquerque and to Amanda's parents house. They were gonna watch the Kids for us. We hung at her parents house for a bit, though. We got the tour, and even got to see the deer hanging in the garage!

And look! They had trees AND leaves!!! I call this photo, "Leaves in crotches..."

Me in a tree

Amanda helped her mom get ready for an evening function, and the girls and I ran to Walmart. We'd hired a babysitter to come for the evening, and then we were gonna head on up to the Hotel. And after her parents got done with their event, the babysitter was gonna go home and her parents were gonna take over with the babysitting responsibilities. Sometimes it WOuLD be nice to have family close, I think. hehe.

I love you, Barney...

I thought this hat would be PERFECT for the bus stop. And it's SO soft! Just like my blankie. I'll have to be careful not to pet myself too much, though...
We grabbed a few more things at Walmart, and headed back. Amanda's parents had left, the babysitter had things under control, so we picked up Amanda, and headed to the Hard Rock Hotel. We parked, grabbed our suit cases, and headed up to the hotel. It's SO cool there! We already had our room keys, so we headed on in. 4th floor! WE had 2 rooms next to each other, but not adjoining, unfortunately.

Amanda and Maggie were in one room, and Kari and I and Kim were in the other. And we had SUCH a great time! We got changed into dinner clothes, and went to check out the hotel. And had dinner downstairs in one of the restaurants. SUPER yummy!

This one was mine. Philly Cheesesteak. Oh yeah!

Don't you just LOVE my new red hat!??

I don't drink, never have, but I thought that their lamp thingy display was pretty impressive :)
We walked around for a bit more, then headed upstairs real quick. And goofed around for a while. And took some pictures. ROFL! We're such dorks! LOL!




Then back downstairs to check out the casino. The girls discovered that if you sign up for some Casino card, that you get $25 worth of free money. So they all signed up. Me? Um, yeah, gambling is not my thing. So I just watched. And took pictures. I was the photographer for the night. And there was free Diet Coke on tap, so I "drank". hehe. Designated Drinker? ROFL! Did I feel left out? Absolutely not. Did I feel like I was missing out on something? Nope. I didn't understand how the games worked anyway. Gambling has never appealed to me. You "waste" money. Nope. Not for me... hehe.

It was super smokey in there, and we came out smelling like an ashtray. That was kind nasty. Not my kind of place. But it was kinda fun hanging with the girls. Thanks for the fun evening, you guys!



Kim ended up playing some Monkey game, and won $40. And cashed out. She was happy to leave with some cash in hand. hehe.

I left with Coke in hand. Does that count? ha!

I think it was around midnight when we finally headed to the room. We'd gone to the club to see how the dance scene was, and yeah, not happening. Maybe we were too old. Who knows. Kim was feeling a bit sick, and I needed to blog. Yeah, I think we were the old ones. ROFL!

The other girls went back down for a bit for some more soda and to check something else out, and we ended up chatting while I worked on a few things and she took some meds. Which is when I found out that the internet was CRAPPY. No blogging for me. I was gonna be lucky to even host the wordart. Le Sigh...

When the girls came back, we messed around for a bit longer. I tried some more to get the internet faster, and Kim tried to go to sleep. And we weren't making it easy on her. LOL. Amanda and Maggie were messing around on the interent (which was moving a tad faster for them), and Kari was reading. I think it was 1am before we finally went to sleep.

I didn't sleep very good in the night. I am used to hearing the fan all night long. It drowns out all the little noises. I use it as a noise machine. And yeah, I didn't have it. So I heard all the little noises, and they kept me up. Someone rolling over. Someone snoring. Someone getting up. A door shutting. A door opening. Someone coughing. Someone upstairs flushing. Sigh. Not so good.

And then, I heard Kim get up and start rustling through bags. Hmmm, interesting. And it kept going on and going on. I couldn't figure out what she was doing. I was still kinda asleep. Then I thought maybe I heard her crying. But I wasn't sure. I finally woke up enough to go and check it out. Yup, crying.

I asked what was wrong, and she said she'd lost her meds. He was in obvious pain. Remember, she's the friend who'd broke her back in the army YEARS ago. Kari was awake by now too (it was 8:30am) and we turned on the light and helped her look though her bags until we found it. And got her some water and after about 2o minutes, she was feeling human again. Poor girl. We told her NEXT time, to come wake us up IMMEDIATELY. She wasn't allowed to look by herself. Which, of course, implies that there WILL be a next time. ha!

We distracted her for the 20 minutes by making her laugh, and we must have woken up Amanda and Maggie, because soon they were knocking on the door and joined us in our beds. And we were all snuggled in and having a good time! This is the BEST group of friends, I'm telling ya!

Around 9am, we started to get ready, and by 10am our room was ready and packed to go downstairs to eat. But Amanda's room wasn't... So Kari and Kim and I headed down to the clothes gift shop to look around while Maggie and Amanda finished showering/getting ready. I found a hoodie that I wanted and a fridge magnet.

And by the time that eveyone got ready and met up, the breakfast buffet was closed. We'd missed it by 10 minutes. Kim and I were devastated. hehe. We were SO looking forward to that buffet... BIG TEARS :( So we headed to a different restaurant inside the hotel.

Luckily they still served breakfast. But now I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat. After what seemed like hours, Kim and I came up with a plan. I'd order French toast, and she'd order pancakes, and we'd asked for them to be split in half and put on 2 plates. Then we'd get the eggs and sausage and potatoes 'o brien and get that split too, and share it! Then it would be like a buffet. And the waitress was super nice about it :)






After breakfast, we hurried back upstairs to grab our bags before check out, and headed back downstairs. We had a guy take our group picture. Aren't we cute?!!!

Me and Maggie and Kari with our heads out the sun roof! Ha!~

Maggie and Kim and Kari posing by a Guitar Statue

We loaded up, and headed back to Amanda's parents house. It's only about 20 minutes away. Not too bad. Maybe only 10. Can't remember now. We got there, and started loading up the kids' stuff, and getting the SUV packed up again. We played with the dogs for a bit too. Aren't these the BIGGEST German shephards you've EVER seen???
Before we headed back to El Paso, we swung by Walmart one more time. We wanted to see if we could find a quick souvenir for the kids at home. A tee shirt maybe? Something New Mexico-y. Ha! Check out the chili in the cart! Only in New Mexico, right???

Look, it's my man!!!

I ended up going with a Coffee cup for Crystal for watching Eme, and a postcard and a pack of gum for each kid. Yeah, I know. I'm a big spender. ROFL! Shut up. It works, (And yeah, they LOVED it :)

And then, off we went. Amanda slept most of the way home. And Hannah too. Maggie slept a little bit of the way. I got to drive for about an hour. Kim and I did a Chinese Fire Drill at one point at an exit, which was kinda exciting. Her car drives really smoothly, let me tell you. hehe.

We chatted, and sang, and drove, and sang, and chatted, and drove.... And made plans for the coming week. We're going to a park one day. And to the movies with the kids. And to the movies with the grown ups. And to the zoo. And having Thanksgiving dinner with each other! It's gonna be a blast! Love ya girls!!!

And I made a deal with Jake and Kari's son, Justin. That if they cleaned my house (so it would be ready-ish for Thanksgiving) that I would pay them $30 each. And they agreed. I texted them a detailed list of jobs for each of the rooms I wanted cleaned, and they said they'd start cleaning at 2:00pm. Silly boys.

One more potty break at Las Cruses, and we were almost back in El Paso. Then back on post, and we dropped off Maggie first. Then Kari. Then Amanda. Then we picked up my kids at Kim's house, and she dropped us off at home. And my house was cleaner, but not as clean as it should be.

And I got a text from Kari saying that Brian had cooked dinner, and did we wanna come and eat. SURE! So we walked on over. And had some dinner. SUPER nice! Thanks, Brian! WE owe you one!!!

And then headed back home with my kids AND Jake and Justin. I made them write out the text (they had been cleaning from memory), and the cleaning improved. Funny how that works. Cause they could have a visual of what they needed to do.

I made Joe and Jim go to their room so they couldn't mess anything up. And I made Tom go to his. Eme came back home from Crystals, and I got to give Crystal her mug. She REALLY seemed to like it :)

And after another hour or so of cleaning, the older boys were done! They definitely earned their money. Good job, boys! Here's some photos of the finished product!



And I was very proud of Jake. Not for the cleaning skills, but for the social skills during the process. He was laughing and telling jokes and interacting with Justin the whole time. And being social. And seeming to enjoy it. Not being "depressed". I didn't recognize that he seemed that way before. I think the meds are taking effect. Is it too early for that?

Jake asked if he could spend the night at Justin's house, and I said if it was ok with his parents, it was ok with me. And it was, so it was. So off he and Justin went after they got paid. Happy as clams :)

Jim and Joe took baths, and went to bed. And Eme and Tom were already upstairs getting ready for Bed. I told Tom to clean his room, and his favorite way to get out of that it to pretend to be tired. Nice one, Tom.

And I sat down to blog. Double day blog. Which is why I started this at 8 or 9, and it's now almost midnight. Dangit. I'm super sleepy. I'm gonna sleep in in the morning.

We're going to "Dragon Park" as Crystal calls it, tomorrow. Should be a fabulous time! Now I just need to think of a way to keep my house clean from all of these little messy children! hehe :)


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I super duper love this one, Sharon! All those circles, and those colors are fab!!! Thanks for that layout, my darling dear!!!