Trevails of the Travels

Like totally OMG guys! I haven't posted in what seems like forever. Okay, I posted using my phone while on vacation, but still, I don't think that counts.

So onto the Travails of the Travels.

We took the cats back to Colorado with us. We spent the night in Lubbock with Shawn's friend and his family. One of the cats spent the entire night under the bed. Until we were asleep, then he had a party. We go up and drove to Parker. We stayed with my parents and since my parents had been in Hawaii the week before, their dog was still at the kennel so the cats had free reign of the house and interestingly enough, they LOVED it. Quazi especially enjoyed the exercise room because there are floor to ceiling mirrors in there and that cat sure does love looking at himself in the mirror.

On Monday we went to Shawn's parents house and helped them by painting the trim on the chimney, patching holes in the chimney, moving an exercise bike and cleaning out the fridge (as per my previous post).

On Tuesday we went skiing. That was miserable. As I posted via twitter, "The first time I ski is out of love, the second time is out of pure folly." That or being completely shitfaced.

Wednesday I convalesced at Mom and Dad's house and read a book until it was time to meet Grinder at Anthony's Pizza. He claims I was pretty spry. Which is a word you use to describe an 80-year-old woman. So, considering I was feeling like I was 90, I'll take it as a major complement. We went back to my parents place and then Matt showed up after dinner and we watched "War Games: The Dead Code." I'm amazed the boys managed to get through it since they're both major computer nerds and kept pointing out all the flaws in the movie. We also put the cats out in the snow. Quazi did not like it at all, and Ivy thought it was just a hindrance to her explorations.

Thursday (aka Christmas Eve), we went to Shawn's house and Shawn shoveled while I pulled old glassware off the top of the cabinets. At one point, Shawn's mom asked his dad to go get some cardboard barrels out of the attic so the glassware could be packed in them. This is the point where Shawn's dad fell down the second half of the attic steps and knocked out 3 of his front teeth and then bent a fourth one back (so it looked like it was missing at first). Needless to say, Shawn's parents then spent the rest of the day at the emergency room while Shawn and I finished washing the dishes, cleaned the stove-top, organized some movies, and made Christmas Eve dinner. We opened our presents that night. And then headed back over to my parents' house where we opened presents there until midnight.

Friday (aka Christmas Day) we woke up and had breakfast then opened our Christmas Stockingbags (my mom didn't do stockings since Shawn's and my stockings are down here in Austin, but decided to just put everything that would go in a stocking in a plastic shopping bag instead). We started watching Angels and Demons (it was a gift for my dad). We had to stop so I could peel potatoes for dinner. Then the sink got clogged with potato peels (hey man, my mom has ALWAYS put peels down the garbage disposal and never had a problem, I do it once and end up having to use a plunger to get the sink to drain). Oddly, there was one point where I started giggling uncontrollably because I was standing there plunging the sink while Shawn and my dad stood there and watched. We watched some more of the movie until Shawn's parents arrived for dinner. Then we all ate a pound of perfectly cooked roast beef each. We watched more of the movie while Shawn's parents were there and finally ended up finishing it after they left. We then packed up all our crap so it would be ready to go in the morning and finally went to bed around midnight.

We woke up at 730, ate breakfast, packed up the car and the cats and headed back down to Texas. We got to Lubbock around 7pm and stayed with Irwan again where Ivy, once more was a trooper with the toddler and Quazi spent the night hiding under the covers. Once Ethan went to bed, however, then that cat was going everywhere and being everyone's friend. Ethan had gotten a matchbox cars racetrack which of course provided endless amounts of entertainment for the adults because the goal was to do as many loops as possible without having something to wrong. Our record was 3 (it was a total MouseTrap situation and it required each adult setting up 2 cars before the loop was complete to keep it going).

We drove into Austin on Sunday, and other than a small mishap where Shawn got confused between the clutch and the brake, we didn't have any problems. The cats traveled extremely well, albeit Quazi was a bit of a spaz, but Ivy was perfectly content to sit on the console between our seats.

I'll update later with pictures when I get around to getting them off my camera.