My wonderful spring break!

So, another spring break has come and gone, and I forgot to take a trip to Hawaii. Damn it, that makes 47 years in a row now. While many of my neighbors and friends jetted off to sunny vacations with their kids in tow, I, as usual, had no plans for spring break and no idea how I was going to spend it. I decided to just let it all unfold. And it not only unfolded, it unfurled into a week full of quality time with my kids, great time spent with my closest friends, and a lot of sunshine!

My spring break actually started the Thursday of last week. That was my last day of work and I had to scoot out to a (boring) meeting so I barely had time to say "See ya, suckers!" "Good bye!" to my co-workers. That night, I attended the high school talent show where my son performed with the Jazz Choir (and they were AMAZING).

Harrison and the BHS Jazz Choir

Friday, I did errands and cleaned and blah, blah. That was my most boring day. I carefully avoided cleaning as much as possible the rest of the week.

Saturday, we decided in the late afternoon to make the trek up to see the Tulips in Skagit Valley. Did I say "we"? I meant me. Jeff would have been perfectly happy puttering around in the garage all day, but I whined a little and so we went. It was a glorious day, albeit a bit cold and windy, and we enjoyed all the color of Roozengaarde, the show garden, and the colorful fields around it. We took a dinner break in La Connor, which Jeff had never seen before, and walked around the town. We returned to the tulip fields in time for the sunset. I took hundreds of photos. I was happy.

I love tulips! 

Sunday, we puttered, cleaned, erranded (that's a word now), and in the evening we enjoyed an awesome show - Harrison's band, Bushwhack, in concert at Sound Check Bar and Grill. They ROCKED IT and were asked to come back again.

My rock star son! 

Monday, I spent the whole day with my best friends, Janet and Tonya. We started out having coffee at Tully's, and we sat there for four hours when we decided we were hungry again and moved to Zeke's pizza for lunch where we sat another two hours. It was wonderful to just hang out, talk for hours, and EAT! The rain poured down and the conversation flowed. I love these two ladies - they have been a constant in my life for 21 years and time spent with them is always so much fun! 

BFFs!

Oh, I should also mention that on Monday, I let my son go camping with NO ADULTS for the first time ever. He was an hour and a half away with no cell phone. It's amazing how parenting changes with each child. I would NEVER have let my older girls go camping with no adult supervision at age 16, I was quite conflicted making the decision, but after consulting his dad, stepdad, and older sister, who all said "Why not?" I decided "Why not, indeed?" and let him go. I'm pretty sure the worst thing that happened was they nailed a 6-inch dildo to a tree, but I'll never know for sure. And I'm ok with that. 

Tuesday, I met Hannah and her nanny kids, along with my friend Sarah and her two sweet girls at an indoor play place. The kids ran around in endless circles while we attempted to make conversation in-between the mommy and the nanny juggling supervision, snacks and squabbles. I definitely had some nostalgia about the glory days of young motherhood, but it was also nice to be able to get into my own car to drive to lunch when Hannah's nanny child threw a fit and screamed "She cannot come to lunch with us!" at me. Lunch happened anyway, because she's not the boss of me, and it was quite sweet. Later that night, Hannah and I had dinner out, just the two of us, and we accidentally dressed exactly alike. It was a fun "Hannah" day and I got to see her in action as a (very calm) nanny. Bless her. I didn't get a picture of Hannah that day, but here's a cute on of her and Harrison at their "soon to be" stepsister's wedding over spring break.

All dressed up!

Wednesday, was Hayley day. We started out at Starbucks, then shopping at Target and Ross, where I bought her a summer wardrobe that consisted almost entirely of elephant-themed shirts. We had lunch at Panera and bought tiny plants at Molbak's. I didn't get any pictures of that day - shocking, huh? But here's a picture of Hayley anyway. And her girlfriend, Megan, because I seriously cannot find a picture of Hayley without her. :) 

Megan and Hayley

On Wednesday night, I went to one of those wine and painting places with Tonya. Except we don't drink wine! So, hard cider and beer it was, and we painted a picture of peacock feathers. Except mine looked more like sperm. And I kind of went overboard with my wavy lines. But it was hilarious and we topped it off with Mexican food and margaritas (ok, beer for Tonya!). Here we are pretending to be artists. 

Thursday was Arlie day. After much deliberation, we decided to go to the zoo. We got there kind of late - 2 ish - and the zoo closed at 4 but we decided to stay anyway. Bonus - someone gave us their parking pass so parking was free! We zipped around the zoo pretty fast and saw almost everything we wanted to see (except the elephants - they were whisked away the night before to their new home in Oklahoma City). We spent an inordinate amount of time visiting the jaguar and Arlie insisted she was communicating with him through her eyes. To say she is a little obsessed with cats is an understatement. We took dozens of photos and some video, too. She named him "Kristoff". I think the picture below sums up our day at the zoo. 

Here, kitty, kitty!

We topped off our day be eating at the Burgermaster in the U District then shopping at Value Village. Poppin' tags! 

Friday, Hannah went to Portland on the Bolt Bus and I had to drop her off at the bus station in Seattle. We decided to make it Harrison day, and after we dropped Hannah off, we explored the International District in Seattle for a bit, then headed to Fremont where we toured Theo's Chocolates, had lunch at the Red Door and walked around Gas Works Park. We walked so much that day, I actually got my 10,000 steps in! Plus we brought home delicious chocolate and enjoyed the warm sun and views of Seattle from the park. Hard to pick just one picture of the day, but I'll go with this one because he looks like a super model. 

Vogue.

Saturday was another glorious day so Arlie and I took Georgette to the beach. I realized I'd spent quality one-on-one time with each of my kids this week so why not my dog? Georgie used to love the beach but this time she just seemed overwhelmed and exhausted. She waded in the water, no swimming like usual, and she tried to keep up with the young pups, but she's just too old. Still, she seemed happy to be out and fell asleep in the car as soon as we left! Good old George! 

Georgette, age 13

Today, we started the day with coffee at a hipster coffee joint, then a little shopping in our local downtown.

Too cool for Starbucks

Afterwards, we did chores, puttered, and created some Sharpie art! It was another incredible Seattle spring day. 

Who needs crayons? 

We may not have enjoyed white-sand beaches, tropical cocktails, or a high-priced hotel room, but I'm going to have to say this was a pretty awesome spring break! Back to work/school tomorrow (sad face) but only eight weeks of school left until SUMMER (happy face)!!!!

I'm calling it a success! I love my life. 

Stress Dreams!

Don't you hate it when you have one of those "stress" dreams where you are frantic, or crying, or in mortal danger and you wake up feeling exhausted as if you really had run screaming from a knife-wielding maniac? Well, last night I had a stress dream about my wedding to Jeff. I was in some house (it's never your own house, is it?) and I suddenly realized it was 5:40 p.m. and I was getting married at 6. I had my hair in this weird half ponytail and my glasses still on and I believe I was in my pajamas. I was frantically running about trying to wet my hair down so it wouldn't stick up, trying to put my contacts in but every time I did, they got bigger and bigger and there was no way I could put this pancake-sized contact in my eye! Right in the middle of this chaos, I woke up and I actually had to "take stock". Where am I? What the hell was that? Oh, yeah, just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream. Whew.

And so, being the amatuer dream analyzer that I am (I LOVE to analyze Jeff's dreams and give him huge, long, philosophical and psychological accounts of what they mean! HAHA), I realized that this dream might have been about my REAL wedding to Jeff and the stress in the minutes before I went down to meet my groom. We were in a penthouse suite at the Coeur d' Alene Resort. I was helping all the kids get ready. And with four of them, that left precious little time for ME! I suddenly realized I was about a half hour away from wedding time and wasn't ready myself. On went a quick swipe of makeup and I ended up pulling my hair back into this half ponytail kind of thing and letting the rest hang down. And it's not my most flattering look. But it was either that, or my trademark "Medusa" hair so I chose the first one. I thought I looked passable so off I went (only after realizing that everyone was actually WAITING for me) and got married. And later, when the pictures came back, I was kind of disappointed in my look. For one thing, my hair wasn't fabulous. For another, while my dress was beautiful, it was not flattering to ME personally and my ample belly showed just a bit too much (I often wondered how many people might have thought I was pregnant!). But I took it all in stride. We did get some lovely pictures that I treasure. And I did think my dress was beautiful (and I look forward to wearing it again someday when I'm about 50 lbs. lighter!). But it just goes to show that things don't always turn out like you planned and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So, with Jeff losing his job, we've been talking about the possibility of moving and sort of "starting over." Now, this is nothing new to either of us. We spent a lot of time moving about as kids and adults, so setting up shop in a new location is no big deal. But ironically, our kids have experienced the exact opposite. They have lived this stable, same house, same school life for as long as they can remember. And yet, for the most part, they are up for the adventure of starting over. I think it would be a great thing for our family. Transition time is good. Just before Jeff was laid off I was telling him how I've always wanted to take an RV across the country and just see our country and all it's amazing offerings. Pull the kids out of school and make an adventure of it. Maybe write a book about it. So, for fun, on the airplane ride home from Ft. Worth, we made a list of all the things in the USA we'd want to see. Monuments, of course, and National Parks, but also the biggest ball of string or the Corn Palace. Just all the quirky, weird and fascinating things that make life more interesting. Frankly, I think this kind of experience would be a far better education than our kids are getting right now. With their various difficulties and ambivalence about school in general right now, it seems like a perfect time. And yet..........and yet. There are jobs to look for, bills to pay, a mortgage ever-present. Despite that, it can happen. Things like this DO happen. Or something else new and adventurous will happen.

Jeff said to me last night on the phone from Austin..."Will you still be here if things get bad? Will we all be together under one blanket if we're homeless on the street?" and while he was joking (I hope!), what it means is that we have to stick together through this, whatever the "adventure" might be. Things don't always turn out as planned. But sometimes, along the road, something else turns up that's a little different and can take you somewhere you never thought you'd be. And that's not necessarily a bad thing!