No Ethan for 2 Weeks!!! =(

Mike and I both woke up this morning at the usual 5:45 and were a little relieved we could hit snooze on both alarms. This is day 1 of not having Ethan. As promised, he gets to spend 2 weeks in Ohio with Grandma, Poppi, and "old" Grandma.

I don't get to sleep in very much, so I was happy to get the extra 15 minutes. When we finally got out of bed to get ready for work (45 minutes later), we found ourselves (even with the extra sleep) with seemingly a little too much time of just......... silence.

No Dora the Explorer in the background to "encourage" Ethan to get out of bed. Mike usually dresses Ethan, only for me to look at him and decide on the spot that I didn't like his outfit so I change him again. Mike didn't have to cook microwavable pancakes. I had to fight traffic without the carpool lane because the carseat behind me was empty.

It was really weird.

Last night, we had our first Skype date... something I had made mandatory on this trip to have every night before he goes to bed. He was so blown away by all the new toys Grandma got him, that he didn't even seem like he missed us one bit!

My Mom Called me a Bore

Notice anything different?

I actually had my hair done (not well, I might add) for Mother's day. My beautiful sister decided she would spend her hard-earned mula to break me from my comfortable long black do.

I liked the fact that

1. I got to spend some girly time with my mom and Sissy, but mostly

2. that I didn't have to pay for it.

But I had reservations.....

My mom ended up taking us to this lady that she goes to. We went to this lady's house and she propped me in front of a mirror in her family room. "She used to work at a salon," my mom reassures me. Apparently, I looked a little worried.

I really didn't want to color my hair. I've dyed my hair ONCE my entire life (on a spur of the moment kind of thing in Italy years ago). And guess what... I dyed it jet black! Ha! Talk about adventurous.....

"You're boring!" my mom finally said. "You shouldn't look older than me!"

True, I thought. I shouldn't look older than her. So I popped my big girl pill and (with hesitatation) agreed to everyone's suggestion to chop my hair off and put blonde highlights.

You know when they say stick to your first instincts?? Well, let's just say I wasn't a happy camper when this lady was done. I was so mortified, Sissy had to dye it back to black that same night.

Well, it's been over a week and a half and the black over-the-counter dye is now starting to fade so my highlights are coming back. They're more subtle than they were that fateful Saturday, but I'm afraid it's going to go back to the chunkly platinum blonde highlights. For now, I'm trying to get used to it, but I think I prefer my long black hair. :)

Day Off Checklist

So my boss tells me I could take the day off after working a few late nights - didn't get home last night (this morning?) til 2:30am. I'm a little at a loss about how to spend my day. Law and Order SVU isn't playing a marathon so I don't suppose I could just plop on the couch and watch re-runs and eat chinese food until I fall asleep.

Nope. Got better plans.


7:00: Slept in........ all 30 minutes worth. I asked Mike to take Ethan to school so I could catch up on some sleep, but just couldn't seem to force myself to sleep past 7am. How sad. I tried to stay in bed for a while until my mom woke me up complaining about a print problem (she apparently thinks I'm her personal IT helpdesk).

7:30: Ran on the treadmill for the duration of a CSI NY episode (ok... so I fast forwarded through the commercials. Once you DVR, you never go back). We bought a treadmill from Craigslist 2 weeks ago and I said my goal is to run twice a week. I ran once on Saturday and limped (stretch much?) Sunday AND Monday. This morning, I made sure to stretch afterwards.

8:30: Did 2 loads of laundry..... considered deferring the folding to Mike, but he has school tonight so I might as well do it.

9:00: Started building the cubbies for the entertainment center. Took me 1.5 hours to build one, and it's not entirely complete (but I'm so excited to brag about building it 95% through minus Mike that I'm prematurely posting it anyway). The middle sections aren't secure, the plans from Knock off Wood recommend "toe nailing" it which I guess is just nailing it at an angle. By then, my bad hand started hurting from all the pre-drilling and countersinking, I called Mike and told him I'll let him finish it :) One down, 3 more cubbies to go.

10:30: Snack on last night's leftover Chianti braised short ribs from Olive Garden (company always gets us dinner whenever we have to work late) and read 2 chapters of Nicholas Sparks - The Rescuer. It's one of his older books that I haven't read yet, I picked up from the Goodwill Bookstore I've recently discovered near my work for .99 (already stacked up on .50 children's books!).

11:15: Check my emails. Visit my usual blogs. Blog.

1:00: I'm meeting Mike for lunch in an hour - when either one of us has the day off, we always meet for lunch - $1 says he'll want to get sushi.

2:00: I'll pick up Ethan after lunch, and we'll go shopping for his baseball outfit for Saturday's big game. He's supposed to get a cap, shirt and pants (included in the $60 registration), but apparently, those recent nasty storms in the east have delayed the uniform orders and they may not be here for Opening Day. Oh well. We'll probably go to the park to break in his new cleats and practice some more of his crab walk and alligator. It's nice to be able to see my son while there's still some daylight out. I can't wait til the summer.....

6:00: Stop by Ross to find something to hang above our sad-looking mantle in the family room. I've been on a bargain hunt for a while, but haven't had much luck. Maybe I should just build something........... ;)

7:10: Catch Planet 51 at the Regency with Ethan - yay for $2 movies!


My thumb's really bothering me now, even by using the space bar. It sucks to think it'll always be in pain now since surgery a year ago. Ugh. Time to soak it....

SICK!

I've been meaning to post photos from our busy Halloween weekend but we've been hit (and hit hard) with the stupid bug.... so all my energy is directed keeping my head from exploding.

Ethan started coughing about 3 weeks ago. Then Mike started coughing a week ago. And yesterday, I suddenly felt it.

Misery loves company.

I must be looking like a drag, my boss actually sent me home early today. And our president kept coming by to check my temperature... and insisting I should go home... he's a sweet man. I was a trooper today and decided to stick around, although my constant hacking is probably getting a lot of people nervous around me and wish I would just take the damn sick day and quit infecting everyone.

Then I get a call from Mike today that his boss is sending him home... but not before he gets checked out by a doctor to rule out H1N1. After several hours at the VA, they say he has Influenza B, sent him packing with a slew of prescriptions and told him he has to stay home for a week.

Great.

Ethan had an appointment this afternoon with his new pediatrician (we didn't like his old one) and was sent home with an inhaler. When he was one, his pediatricians then told us he has "asthmatic tendencies" but was too young to be diagnosed. Every year since then, he gets the same, recurring croupy cough. I don't know for sure if this new doctor diagnosed him with asthma, but I'll be calling her tomorrow to get a better idea.

For now, we're all sick as a dog and we can only hope for a faster recovery. I feel like curling up in bed right about now.....

Back from Hiatus

Wow. 4 months is a long time not to blog....... it's a new record for me! I have an excuse! I promise!

Right around the time I started lagging on this blog was about the same time I got hooked on Facebook status updates. It was just so much easier....... one liner.... blasted to everyone..... comments enabled....... quick and dirty.

>> from one social networking addiction to another <<

I now realize how much I miss being able to look back and revisit through my blog entries. Now I have a 4 month gap, which I could tell you, were everything but uneventful. So it's not like I didn't have anything to talk about, I just.... well... needed a break.

And now.... I'm back! No more promises to upkeep a certain number of posts per week...... I get enough stress from work :)

The rest of this post will just be snippets/brief updates of what has been going on in our crazy lives these past few months I disappeared:

Mama Mary came to visit us in California for two weeks.... which was a GODSEND... since she helped us tremendously with getting the house ready for our overdue house warming. Ethan stayed home from school the whole time to spend some quality time with grandma.

Ethan is back in pre-school. Have I mentioned how I ♥ Montessori? He knows how to write his numbers up to 15. He can name the 7 continents, 12 months of the year, 7 days of the week, parts of a plant, parts of a tree, cycle of an insect, 4 seasons and how to county in Spanish up to 10. He's also become quite a tattle tale... he'd tell us about getting into "fights" in school and getting trouble for it, or he'd tell us when one of the kids are being mean to him.

Mike's doing well with his new job at the courts -- been there for about 2 months. I've been in mine for a year last month. Aside from my sporadic late hours, we work about the same hours so we at least have the evenings.. although we have been trying (when there's a default babysitter) to get away once in a while. We went to San Diego a month ago to the Coronado Speed Festival, and 2 weeks ago, we spent a nice overnight date in Palm Springs.

The house is coming along great... we finally had our housewarming last weekend and had friends and family over. I think I'm far from being "done"... but we've come a long way, thanks to everyone's help. I'm actually excited to decorate the house for the holidays!

Alright..... I gotta jet!

My Week in a Flash

It’s 1am, and I’m still at work. Yes, still at work.

Why am I blogging then, you ask?

Because I can.

Well, that, and the fact that I’ve spent the past 15 hours working on a deadline…. a deadline that we should never had a problem meeting if only people would extend a little courtesy and not PROCRASTINATE so we all don’t have to stay until 2 in the morning to finish something that should’ve been finished 3 days ago.



/RANT

Here’s a blurb on what’s happened the past week-

Friday: Attended Matt’s graduation, and then went to a dinner with the family.

Saturday: Spent the morning with Ethan, went to the mall to try to find Mother’s Day presents (unsuccessful), and then went to Matt’s graduation party.

Sunday: Spent most of the morning quarantined at the hospital with Jojo – negative on the swine flu, but he did have a pretty nasty ear infection. Met with Sidney to look at a few more houses, nothing we excited over. Went to Dave and Buster’s for Mike’s graduation party that evening.

Monday: Mike spent at least 7 hours on the operating table for his anthroscopic ankle surgery that was only supposed to last 2 – they ended up taking cartilage from his knee and placing it in his ankle.

Tuesday: Looked at more houses (our realtor is super great), one we ended up putting in an offer for – long shot, but at this point, I guess it doesn’t hurt. This is Offer #1 on House #2.

Wednesday: We found out from Sidney that after having been denied on Offer #2 on House #1, the listing agent tells her the buyer then picked over us backed out and (if we were interested), he could submit our offer to the bank without having to put the property back on the market. Essentially, we wouldn’t be competing with any other loans. After a bit of hesitation, we decided to put in Offer #3 on House #1.

Thursday: I came home from a long day at work to find poop all over the house. Ethan has done quite well in the potty arena, but he has pretty nasty poopy accidents. He must’ve been too busy playing to take a break, because it all originated in the playroom – and you could follow the trail through the hallway where he must’ve reached in to “check things out”, then ends in our room where he cleverly disposes the soiled underwear and shorts and tried to wipe them off with his socks.

Fast forward to yesterday/today (now technically Saturday at 1:30 in the morning): Got a GORGEOUS tulips bouquet from Mike. It always makes me the center of attention in the office. A coworker even warned me never to bring him to the office because she’s fallen in love with him (because he does my hair when my hand is broken, meets me for lunch, and sends me flowers all the time). BACK OFF, he’s taken!

Our First Offer

We’re putting in our first offer for a house this afternoon! I know I shouldn’t be getting all emotionally attached to the house, since it’s never a guarantee… blah, blah, blah. But I can’t help but get excited that we’re on our way to finally getting our own home. It is after all the American dream, isn’t it?

We’ve only been searching for 2 weeks (seems like forever) and have seen about a dozen or more houses across two neighboring cities. Many had potential, some were just “ok”, and others were just too disgusting to even talk about. This was the first house that we both like that is within our range – in the lower end of our range, even. It fell off escrow on Friday, our agent told us about it immediately, and we looked at the house first thing Saturday morning. Spent Sunday mauling over the “big” decision, and concluded that the only deciding factor would be my commute to work. So I woke up really early this morning, went to the house, and timed my commute from there. It took me roughly the same time to get to work compared to what I drive now, so at 8am this morning, we gave our realtor the green light.

Only to find out that someone else had made an offer late Sunday night and so we’re technically not “first in line” but we were assured our offer will be considered just the same.

While we’re hopeful about this one, we’re not wasting any time. There’s another house that went on the market today that we’ll be looking at.

We’re keeping our fingers cross though. Hopefully, the bank will get back to us with an answer by the end of this week.

Progress Report

• Like the new 'do' that Ethan's sporting? I'm trying to grow it out, but it's getting there ever so slowly. I'm kinda digging the shaggy look...
• We’re officially back on house-hunting mode. It’s a little more stressful than I anticipated, but the goal is to be in our new home for the summer.
• On the potty training front, Ethan’s doing well with #1 (we’re down to 1 accident a day), but he’s not doing so well with #2. We’ve been finding him with chocolate delights all over the house…
• Ethan’s spring break is over, and while it was fun to spend all day with daddy, we’re sure he’s anxious to see his friends again.
• Day 3 of being free from the cast, my hand is still a little stiff, but I’m excited to report that my thumb can touch my forefinger again!
• Mike has a new obsession -- Guitar Hero Metallica. I guess he’ll have plenty of time to master it, while he’s recuperating from his foot surgery (scheduled in the beginning of May).


I'm keeping it short today... have a great weekend everyone!

Hot Pink, Eyebags and a Great Catch

Horrible bags under my eyes....

I have been in a cast for 4 weeks now for my broken finger. The cast, bright in hot pink, goes up to almost my elbow. It’s extremely uncomfortable, gets heavy to lug around and very difficult to sleep with (I've actually hit myself over the head with it a few times, and Mike insists I gave him a black eye). I’ve noticed I’ve been more tired than usual… my doctor just says the body takes a lot of energy to heal. I still have a bottle of vicodin for those intolerable nights.

It’s unfortunate that my job relies heavily on my fingers to work on the computer and my hands for production. It’s been a royal pain in the you know what, but I’ve quickly learned to compensate with my left hand, and even though it’s slowed me down, I’m at least still getting things done.

But can I just say, that I’m the luckiest girl to have the greatest husband in the world?

Ever since I got imprisoned in this cast, he’s been so helpful and understanding. Even though I know he probably cringes when he hears me yell “Babe!” from the other side of the house, he’s been SUPER when it comes to doing things I normally could do myself.

He does laundry, cooks dinner almost every night, even grocery shopping! He wraps up my cast before I get in the shower, buttons up my pants, and doesn’t complain when I wake him up early morning to tie my hair in a ponytail (he’s actually gotten quite good at it).

Babe, if you’re reading this… THANK YOU, and I LOVE YOU.

Stubbles

Love is....

...letting him be stubbly.

I don’t know about you, but I personally do not like stubbles. And this particular dislike of mine resulted in a cunningly provoked fight between me and the hubby.

I don’t like it. I think it makes a man look grungy and dirty, like they don’t care to take care of themselves. I think it’s ugly. And it feels “funny”.

Case in point: Ethan tried to give Mike a kiss one time and scowled “Your chin hurt my mouth, daddy”.

He insists he’s doing it for “Mustache March”…… it’s apparently a whole underground movement against clean-shaven faces all over the country. And I say, if I wanted a Chewbacca, I would’ve married one!

In fairness, Mike has had to shave everyday for the past 4 years because he was REQUIRED to (uniform and all), and now that he doesn’t have to, I suppose I could cut him a little slack. He did shave for an interview 2 weeks ago, and as a token of peace, shaved again yesterday.

So now, peace has been restored in our household.

And I promise to be a little more lenient with the mustache/beard rules, AS LONG AS HE NEVER lets it grow out like this guy.

Ew.

Pink is the New Black

I finally saw my Orthopedic after having surgery done 2 weeks ago on my thumb. They took the surgical splint off, took one look at the pin protruding out of my skin, and said,

"See you in 4 weeks!"

Crap.

4 more weeks of this!?! Though I can't complain, especially after hearing about actress Natasha Richardson's skiing accident that left her brain dead. My prayers go out to her family.

That just looks disgusting, and yet I can't stop looking at it......

Who woulda thought I would pick pink?

Now I have to buy new pink wardrobe to match!

Post-Op

Surgery went well, I suppose. I was surprised it needed to go that far. When I fell on Saturday, I knew it hurt like hell, but I had hoped it was just a sprain. Learned pretty quickly at urgent care that night that I would have to deal with at least a cast. By Tuesday, the ortho specialist tells me they have to put pins and wires in my hand.

Pins!

I was glad they set up an appointment for my surgery fairly quickly. Yesterday, I went in, got prepped, was completely out through the procedure, recovered long enough to drink through a straw, went home and slept for most of the night and the better part of this morning.

I was told they didn't have to open me up. They somehow stuck the pins and wires and manipulated my bones through the skin. I have a temporary splint still, until my follow up next week where I'm guessing they'll be putting it in a cast.

For now, Vicodin's become my best friend. It usually makes me woozy, but I'll take woozy over excruciating pain any day. I took today off just to take it easy... and I'll likely spend the weekend laying around too.....

Ihave to say, Mike has been an angel throughout this whole ordeal. It's an odd change of roles where I'm the broken one and he's the one cooking dinner and timing my pain meds. I don't know what I would do without him!

I really did a number this time

Apparently, you just can't snap this one together.

I Guess Mommies Get Boo Boos Too

My mugshot at urgent care

My first actual BROKEN bone in my entire existence (not counting the hairline fracture at the tip of my finger I sustained as a souveneir from boot camp). This time, the culprit is that dang extreme sport they call snowboarding. Go figure.

I'll post my gruesome xrays tonight.

So I have to go in for surgery tomorrow – pre-op instructions say the procedure should take about 45 minutes but I’ll probably be out a little longer than that. They have to put rods to keep my bone in place and then perhaps cast it for the next 2 months.

I’ll be taking Friday off to recover, although I imagine I’ll probably just sleep it off tomorrow and be fine the next day. Then again, I thought initially it was just a sprain… and now it’s turned into a whole saga. A saga that Mike is very much familiar with… but not me!

I guess mommies break too sometimes……

More updates later.


P.S. It’s hard to freaking type with one hand.

Facade

For the past couple of days, Ethan and I have seemingly been having the same conversation.

Ethan: It hurts, mommy.

Me: What hurts baby?

Ethan: :coughing: My throat :his hands on his chest:

Me: You mean your chest? Does your chest hurt when you cough?

Ethan: Nooooooo. :annoyed that I didn’t get it the first time: My throat hurts. And it goes down, down, down and down. :motions from his head to his shoulders to his tummy to his knees and all the way down to his toes:

Me: Your toes hurt too?

Ethan: Yes, it hurts too.

Me: I’m sorry.

Ethan: I’m sick. Make it feel better.

Me: What do you want me to do sweetheart?

Ethan: Take me to the doctor.

Me: First, you have to rest, and eat and drink your medicine. That will make you feel better.

Ethan: Are you a doctor, mommy?

Me: Yes, I’m Dr. Mommy.


That nasty cold is back, and the nasty cough that comes along with it. It started a few days ago, and we’ve just been giving him some over the counter suppressants and his breathing treatments. The last time around, the pediatrician didn’t give him medicine until he had been sick for at least 2 weeks. He suggests we let these viruses take its course, before rushing to give him antibiotics. But when my kid is wheezing in the middle of the night and coughing up his lung, what else am I supposed to do???? The other night, we saw him for the first time puking in the toilet. Of course, he was more fascinated with the chunks coming out of his mouth and flushing the toilet a hundred times than the fact he just pushed out stomach acid through his esophagus.

Then again… aside from the coughing, snots, loss of appetite and heightened irritability… you wouldn’t guess that this boy is sick. If anything, he is MORE hyper! Either that or he’s learned very quickly that he gets to get away with a little more stuff when he is “sick”.

LIVESTRONG

Sometimes, I feel like we're living in a sports bar.

Football is on hiatus, we never miss a Cavs game, Mike has taken a keen interest in hockey, and when there is absolutely nothing else on, he'll watch gymnastics.

For the past week, the highlight has been on the Tour of California. Since he took on cycling as a hobby sometime last year, he's been following the sport closely, and was especially excited to see Lance come back this year after retiring a few years ago.

Mike met Lance at the "Support the Troops" weekend last summer in Las Vegas.

If the weather cooperates, Mike plans to go up to Solvang on Friday to take Ethan to see the "bicycles". Maybe we'll come see them when they get to Southern California this weekend.

Will I ever get on a bike myself? Well, Mike's still trying to convince me. He convinced me once to do a cycling class at the gym, and I swear I walked around funny for the next four days after that. So unless they pad those seats by ten-fold, I'm not gonna rush to the bike shop just yet.

Treasure Hunting

It’s true. Ethan knows the word “yardsaling”.

Like me, he’s not keen on getting up earlier than you have to… UNLESS it’s a Saturday… then all bets are off. You don’t even have to fix yourself, who cares if you have raccoon eyes from the night before. It’s a different state of mind when you get ready for a morning of yard sale rounds. You just go. Cash in hand. Ready for a hunt. Eye boogers and all. You know what they say, early birds get the worm.

I’ve even taught him to look out for neon signs with directional arrows. It’s seriously how he learned how to distinguish left from right.

He even helps me "scope out" a sale - that's when you do a slow drive by and determind whether their junk is worth your time to get out of the car. A few times, he's told me to keep going because "they don't have any toys".

That’s not the best part.

The best part is giving him a dollar and giving him the freedom to decide on what to spend it on. Seeing his eyes light up when he sees colorful toys laid out on the driveway for his pickings. Never mind that he just got hundreds of dollars worth of new toys for Christmas and his 3rd birthday… He likes the adventure of finding that treasure… that unwanted toy that’s probably been sitting in the garage for months, worth no more than a fraction of what it was bought for, then suddenly becomes his proud new possession. What’s even funnier to watch is seeing him negotiate with the chum change he has in his pocket and get freebies while he’s at it.

This is his latest find – “gun water”, as he calls it.

I asked him how much he paid for it, and he said “Only 1 dollar, mommy”.

That’s my boy…

Under the weather

You know that bug that’s going around… ya, I got it. Stupid bug.

My ear feels like someone’s repeatedly stabbing it with a screwdriver, my head’s about the explode, I’m sneezing every 10 seconds and my nose is dripping like a faucet – I actually feel really bad for the trash guy having to empty my infested snot-filled tissue piles at the end of the day, my throat hurts every time I take a sip of my Chai tea latte, and I am cranky as hell because of all the above.

I do not want to be at work. I want to crawl up in bed and sleep the misery away.

But I guess I can’t complain too much. Thank God I still have work to go to.

A few of my colleagues finally spoke up in the last staff meeting about concerns with the recession and how it’s going to affect our company. Now I work for a construction and engineering management firm, and a good percentage of our business comes from infrastructure projects with the cities and the state. They tell you that we’re probably in one of the select industries that can be considered “recession-proof” (whatever that means) – especially with all the infrastructure projects President Obama is promising. Then we hear about one of our bridge projects getting frozen because of lack of funding…

OK, so I don’t build the damn bridge. But I work with the marketing department that gets them the contract to work on the bridge. So I like to convince myself that I’m somewhat indispensible and I really shouldn’t be worried.

But I do. Worry, that is. Who wouldn’t?

You hear about people losing their jobs all the time. I talked to a friend from college and she just got laid off (along with 15 other people, including her sister) from a consumer electronics company after working there for 5 years. I know people who work for the state of California who just found out today that starting next month, state employees will be forced to NOT work (and lose pay) for 2 days/month to try to redirect some money for the overgrowing deficit. But I digress…

So one of the supervisors come back with a pageant-world-peace answer. “[Our company] will be fine as long as everyone continues to focus on what we are supposed to do. We will all ride out this together as a team.”

Was that supposed to be reassuring?

I suppose they wouldn’t outright tell us if the company was in any kind of trouble anyway, but I guess I was expecting something a little more specific. Well, for what it’s worth, I really do like this job amiss the late nights sometimes. And I’ll just keep dreaming of my dream job with Disney for now.

September Recap

September was a busy month. Can you tell? I had 2 posts for the entire month! :)

I know, I know... I've been slacking off again. In my defense, it was quite a busy one, so here's a little recap:


We celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary.
Is it just me or does that not sound like a long time? Well... I'm sure being away from him almost half of that time makes it longer than it really should be. But I refuse to make this a ranting post. I did get to spend the week with Mike to celebrate and we drove down towards the beach in spite of numerous warnings of the hurricane... and spent a couple of rainy (and FREE) days in Baltimore, Ocean City, Virginia Beach and Richmond. I'll elaborate on the free part later.

I started a new job.
Immediately after I got back from the trip, I, indeed, re-joined the employed world of deadlines, bosses, and no afternoon naps! The job at the fire department didn't pan out, and I ended up with a company that I initially didn't even apply for (they pursued me). Turned out to be a lucky break. I'm now working as a graphics/web designer for a huge engineering consulting firm. Pay's good. Commute is manageable. Coworkers don't bug. So far so good.

Ethan started at his new daycare.
After spending the summer together, I knew it was time for him to get back into a routine... and be around other kids again. He was starting to forget how to share. So far, he's gotten in trouble for trying to fix one of the girl's hair (the story was that it was "standing up" so he was trying to pull it down to fix it, but apparently pulled too hard to make her cry), and he reported bit another boy yesterday over a toy. *sigh* Boys will be boys.

I turned another year older.
Nothing to celebrate here as I get another year closer to 30. I received a beautiful bouquet of roses at work (Mike always pulls through on my birthday), my boss let me take off work 2 hours early so I could take Ethan to get his flu shot, then I had dinner with family... and that was about it.


So that's it! That was my September in a nutshell. What do you mean I had plenty of time to blog inbetween?!?!

You're probably right....

Ferris Wheels, Mean Goats and Deep-Fried Oreos

It’s been years… but we finally ventured back to the Los Angeles Country Fair.

The fair was what you would expect it to be. Overpriced admission, overpriced midway games and overpriced food. With the economy being in supposed turmoil, you’d be surprised how many people still insist on paying $15 for “preferred” parking. Oh wait, I was one of them. They did have a shuttle for those who wouldn’t pay the extra $5, and they also had guys pedaling around on bicycle-pulled chariots who would take you to the gate for an additional fee (on top of what you already paid just to get a space!).

We bought our tickets from the AT&T store for $10 (compared to $17 at the gate) so it wasn't too bad. I was pleasantly surprised to find out they allow outside drinks into the fair. They confiscated our canned sodas, but they ok’d the water bottles we stuffed in a cooler under Ethan’s stroller, so that alone saved us a TON. There were several Sparklets water stations where you could get free water… you could only get them in those itty bitty cups like you get at the dentist office, but I applaud the effort.

We walked through the carnival rides/midway games first, but failed to find anything too appealing. The rides looked scarier than what I remember them to be. After having a kid, the thrill of going on the rides (just to beat the odds of being on it when it breaks down because they forgot that one bolt) just isn’t there anymore. The prizes looked cheesier than ever… Ethan was fascinated, but he wanted no part of it.

The three little piggies...

Of course, you can’t go to the fair without going to the animal exhibit. The barn was fairly clean, and the animals looked happy. They had more space to roam, and the majority of them weren’t even show animals… they were just… educational. And the ones in the “petting complex” were surprisingly more friendly, almost aggressive, which was odd. Don't they feed these animals??? They sure make a lot of money selling those itty bitty cups of feed for $2 so they should be able to afford to feed them! Most of them were nice (I think I might've made a new friend), and some were just downright mean. One of them almost took out Sissy... it was actually pretty hilarious.

Nice goat...

Mean goat...

Best part of the day was the fair food. They had EVERYTHING deep-fried --- twinkies, snicker bars, frog legs, pickles, coke? How does one actually deep fry coke? It must involve some freezing, but it will have to remain a mystery. After much debate, our curiosity led us to get the deep-fried oreos… what a heart attack in a small paper basket. It sounds absolutely disgusting, and after 2 bites, I could hear my arteries screaming for help, but boy, it was de-LISH!

The deep-fried white castle burgers were tempting...

We also decided to try the smoked turkey leg, but was left very disappointed (maybe not Jojo). I had a craving for a funnel cake, but that dwindled away after the unappetizing turkey leg… or whatever that was.

I have to say I was surprised that I didn’t see any presence of security past the gate, so we did make sure to get out of there before dusk after hearing about local gangs using the fairgrounds to congregate at night. It was a bit crowded… and with any crowded public place, you’ll always run into a group of people you don’t want to be around with, but what can you do? We didn’t see any fights, but you can bet I had four eyes on Ethan the whole time and was ready to b-line to the nearest exit if I needed to.


Overall, it was expensive but we had fun. We’ll probably do it again next year.