Slowing Down

Finally things are slowing in my world. It seems like so many things were going on at the same time, and that was complicated by very heavy work volume. Working my way backwards to recap the many events taking place . . . .

The turn-around trip this past Sunday to Harrah's was fun. For the first time in what seems to be forever, Laura and I got to spend several hours alone without the kids bugging us. Even better, we didn't have to break up one of their fights. Brady stayed at home alone while we were gone, and Nina stayed with my mom and grandmother.

At Harrah's (in northeast San Diego county, not Las Vegas) we didn't win any money, and blew through what we brought a lot faster than I expected. The slots just sucked up our cash. We carefully searched out for two slot machines next to each other every time we switched denominations, downgrading each time until we reached the nickel machines. We made it last a little longer when playing nickles as opposed to quarters or dollars.

At least I was able to stretch my last $40 over the last hour and a half we were there by playing roulette. Laura didn't want to play, but she stayed by my side for good luck.

The trip to Harrah's came on the heals of Brady's eighth-grade graduation party. This took place the Saturday night before. We had a catered dinner from Lascari's - well the main course and bread was catered. We bought salad from the store, and a cake for dessert too. For entertainment, we had a DJ and a jumper. We even broke out my old bar from my single days to serve non-alcoholic beverages for the kids, and beer and wine for the adults.

There was a big turnout: something like 16 of Brady's friends, and several other family members and family friends. Laura did a great job organizing the whole affair, and decorating the backyard. We rented tables and chairs to accommodate everyone. All the kids danced, and everyone had a great time. I'll post some pictures soon.

In order to be ready for the party, we cleaned house like never before. I was up at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning to get a head start. Laura was up around 8:00 a.m., but both of us and Brady busted our collective asses off to get ready.

The weekend before last (Memorial Day Weekend) we attended the D.O.M. Annual. This adventure included a late start due to a change from the original plans, an accident (not us, someone else) that caused traffic for us on the way there, and not one - but TWO blow-outs on our trailer tires. There is way too much to write about the Annual here, and that's way I have a blog just for D.O.M.-related stories.

The night before we left for the Annual, we attended Nina's softball banquet. Since Laura was team mom, she had to do all the planning. (So in actuality, she was planning two parties at once: the softball banquet, and the graduation party). Most of the work for the softball banquet fell on Laura's shoulders, but her stress and anxiety affects me too.

One thing she took on was a DVD she created for presentation at the banquet. It was a slide show of team pictures of all the girls and the coaches. Unfortunately, despite buying a DVD burner for our computer, she could not successfully burn DVD's to distribute to all the players. Instead, she brought our computer to the Community Center and hooked it up to their projector and sound system. Everyone enjoyed it, and it played continuously throughout the night, but Laura wanted to give everyone there own DVD. Oh well.

I know. Too long of a post, but then I haven't been posting much lately. I'll try and work on that.