WOW!!

When life is slow, I wonder if there will ever be anything to do. BUT, when life is busy it is CRAZY busy!

This past week was a prime example of what I mean by crazy! It all started last week with Thanksgiving actually. We had about 25 people over here for Thanksgiving dinner. Dave cooked up 2 turkeys and we made the stuffing, yams, and cranberries. Everyone who came brought a little something to add to dinner, which is always nice. We had a great holiday and enjoyed all the family and friends who came over.

The rest of the weekend was pretty tame with just a couple of outings and some tutoring for me. But, then the week started! Wednesday Aunt Judy came over in the morning and we took the kids up to Walnut Creek for a photo shoot for the next Discovery Toys catalog. They fixed us up with hair and make-up (that was really fun) and took about a thousand pictures of Judy and Jayden with a book-toy-game and Eliana and me with a little ball and Eliana by herself and Judy and Ellie and more and more. The original plan was for them to shoot Jayden on Wednesday and Eliana on Thursday. So, I booked us a hotel for Wednesday night and we stayed overnight. We decided to stay overnight anyway even though they did Ellie's photo shoot on Wednesday because it sounded like fun. We went to CPK for late lunch/early dinner. The food was GREAT as usual. And did a little wandering of the downtown plaza, but decided to hit Safeway for a bottle of wine and some munchies and go back to the room. Thursday morning we got the kids the free breakfast from the hotel (which was perfect for them with fruit an instant oatmeal) and drove back to the plaza for Starbuck's for us. While sitting in Starbuck's we saw Sephora across the way and decided to stop in. That was the cause of our tardiness and we got a parking ticket (WWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH). Neither one of us had ever gotten one before! Bummer, but not a big deal.

Then we came home. I put the kids down for naps and spent time printing out overhead slides for Saturday's big event. Then, before I knew it, my babysitter was here and it was time to start tutoring. Friday was my day to get to Kinko's and take care of last minute things for the weekend. Then, it was Saturday morning! 6AM--Get up and leave for Asilomar. The annual math teachers' conference is held the first weekend in December at Asilomar conference grounds in Pacific Grove. I signed up to speak at the conference last year and re-upped to speak again this year. Last year, my session was at 2 in the afternoon. This year, 8:30 AM! Since we (my mom, Charlotte, and I) decided we were not spending the whole weekend down there, we had to leave insanely early to make sure we had enough time to get there for my 8:30 session. We got there with plenty of time to spare. My session was packed and a lot of fun, but I'll tell you, it's going to take many many many many many more of these conferences before I am not nervous to speak to a group of adults anymore.

Anyway, we toured the conference for a couple of more hours and didn't find much more of interest to us. We found that without teaching in the classroom full-time, there really wasn't much we were going to be able to take away with us from the conference. So, we left really early and stopped on Cannery Row for lunch. YUM!! Then off to home. At home, I had a short amount of time to pack and shower before Dave and I packed the kids in the car to head up to Judy and Gary's for the night. Well...the kids were staying at Judy and Gary's for the night, but Dave and I were off to SF for Symantec's Holiday party--a masquerade ball--and we stayed overnight in the city. Typically, the trip up the hill was wrought with anguish--Jayden puked in the car about 15 minutes from Judy and Gary's. We were expecting it to be Ellie, but I guess you never can tell! :(

Despite all the troubles, we managed to get to SF and have a GREAT time. It was the first night we spent together without the kids since Ellie was born and except for the one night we left Jayden with Grandma Tess one night right after I got pregnant with Ellie (I was SO miserable) it was the first night since kids we spent alone! It was nice! We will definately be doing this again! Perhaps next time, though, we will go somewhere more our speed. SF is a little too busy and crazy for us. We are more beach, lake, country type people.