Minnesota "Nice", Down and Dirty

Minnesota in January and Other Stupid Trips

As I sit on a (delayed) plane, I am bored and pondering why I'm going to Arizona in dead August. Not by choice, I'll tell you that much. For some ungodly reason, my company decided to have a sales meeting there. Originally it was slated for somewhere in the Rockies (Vail or somewhere), which makes way more sense. Whatever. Honestly, it's about the same as having a sales meeting in Minneapolis in the dead of winter.

Not that I have a bad attitude. Keep in mind that I'm leaving my baby for an extended period of time (3 days) for the first time, I'm trying to coordinate kids' schedules, birthday parties (side note, a totally hairy vagrant-looking guy is seated next to a nun! Ha ha! Cracks me up for some reason), dance sign-up, soccer sign-up, band sign-up, dealing with Kierstyn's custody battle, trying to help Kevin find a sitter for when he plays softball while I'm gone, etc, etc, etc. And now I have this, um, SUPER sales meeting in flipping Arizona. Oh yeah, and I'm sleep-deprived (not because of the baby so much, but because of all the other things). Add into the mix that my work email is all screwed up (all my clients probably think I quit), and that all equals some mild frustration on my part.

The good news is, I paid an extra $15 for an exit row, so I can (hopefully) sleep on my flight. My seat is in the middle (yuck) but it could be worse! Thus far the person with the window seat is missing (again, our flight is delayed), so I do have hope that I can scootch (yes, it's a word) on over to the window seat and REALLY stretch out. Phalanges juxtaposed (fingers crossed) on that one.

I'm seriously at the point of tiredness that is more dangerous than being on-your-butt drunk, if I had to drive. Thank the lord for Supershuttle!

Anyway, wish me luck in the land of sidewalk egg frying.

Upgraded Trailer Park Trash

As I'd previously mentioned, we got our new trailer/cabin-ette recently.  It's not like a trailer, like we'd had before.  You can't just haul this thing around the country, stopping at campsites along the way.  These are specially-made for more permanent living, such as at a retirement golf community in Arizona (such as the one Kevin's parents have), or on a seasonal resort (such as the one where we stay).  It's like a cabin, without having the traditional upkeep of a cabin.  No lawn mowing.  No dealing with maintenance, etc.

Our new little place truly is little.  400 square feet, little.  Though we do have a double loft, which is perfect as 2 extra "bedrooms", one of which houses the kids perfectly.  The other side is either play space for them, or space for sleeping quarters for others. This would add about 200 or so more square footage, if they actually counted the loft as such.

Our cabin-ette was custom designed by us...the floor plan, the amenities, etc.  Most people, when they get these things, pay for them to be furnished as well as with appliances.  We didn't.  We wanted our own furniture, mostly because you can pay less for furniture that is much more comfortable, if you get it on your own.  The appliances?  Well,we got nice stainless ones that were all a few notches better than the ones they sell you, and for much less than those as well (which are sub-par, comparatively). 

We also asked for a fireplace, which nobody we know has done in the past. Fortunately, they agreed to build it.  Unfortunately, they only offered one kind of stone, which was quite ugly, so we decided to do the stone ourselves too.  Lots of work ahead of us!  We also had them put in a cedar ceiling, granite counter tops, an island kitchen, and the whole thing is just fun! 

We're getting close to having everything done.  The stone on the fireplace has been started, the appliances are in, all furniture but our bed have been brought in, and our 2-ton A/C and heat strip are ready for installation. 

All we need now are guests!

Labor Day 2006:  Enter 9 people total.  Kevin and me, the 3 kids, my parents and Kevin's parents.  We all fit!  We all had a great time!  Our weather was some of the best we'd had all summer...and we'd had great weather all summer!  Our friends back in the Cities had rain all weekend.  Our parents' friends in Southern Wisconsin and Southern Iowa had rain as well.  We didn't have a drop. 

We hung around the fire, roasted marshmallows for s'mores, ate lots of food (my dad gained 6 pounds from my awesome cooking! Woo-hoo!), we fished, swam, walked, went to a fish fry, and relaxed.  It was fantastic!  Even when my mom locked the keys in my dad's minivan!  He was SO mad, but it was actually kind of funny.  Though, not as funny as when Alyce locked herself in the car at Kevin's parents' house while the car was running, in the middle of winter.  Now THAT was funny! 

Anyway, things went pretty well.  The kids had a blast, and we barely saw them the whole time.  Of course when we did see them, they were fighting, so we encouraged them to go away.  We did take them out fishing and swimming on Monday, and Sam caught her first bass!  Damon was in trouble (again), so he spent time with me on the boat.  We spent time taking pictures of one another, and either he is a fairly terrible shot with the camera, or he just likes my breasts.  I swear, the majority of the pics he took were from the neck down--oops!  I'm sure it is just his lack of compositional understanding, but it was pretty funny!  As for him...he's a complete ham.  Never a dull moment in Damon's world!  Though sometimes I wonder if "Damien" might have been a better name for him!

Oh, one thing that did kind of suck, was when Kevin accidentally bumped his parents' pomeranian down the stairs and she dislocated her teeny little hip.  Poor baby!  Otherwise things were okay though--and, Misty is going to be fine.

Come one, come all!  Take a look at the pictures in another album to the left, and let us know if you're up for a weekend getaway! We're pretty excited to share our poor man's cabin with our friends!

"...And a Partridge In a Pear Tree..."

Have you ever had one of those days that just kept going and going and going, like the Energizer bunny, except it was going in the WRONG direction?  Me too, but never quite as much as yesterday.  Yesterday was a complete (well, almost complete) debacle. 

Started off just fine, posing as Wonder Woman.  Even though my boot covers ripped to shreds trying to get them on and off (stupid Super Girl and Bat Girl had WAY better boot covers), the 40 minute presentation went fine.  Of course I wasn't nervous being dressed up as WW in front of 150 strangers, but a couple of the others were.  I'm sure I came off as a moron, but I didn't really care.  Afterward, I had breakfast with my friend, Laurie, and she took me on a little tour of Spokane. We even went on the (over-priced) gondola to look at the falls. 

Anyway, I had moved my flight up from this morning to yesterday afternoon.  My flight was to arrive back in Minneapolis at 6pm or so.  Not bad!  When I approached the gate, I realized that my flight was delayed (as were several of the others, based on the fact that there were gobs of people standing around).  There was nowhere to sit, because people are stupid and apparently have to leave one seat between them and the person next to them (and subsequently pile their stuff/newspaper/etc on the "empty" chair). So, I sat on a windowsill.

It was only a 30 minute delay or so, which was good.  I had an awesome seat, bulkhead, directly behind first class.  Well, at least I *thought* it was a great seat.  Then a toddler sat next to me.  Now, I like kids, but a toddler (15-month-old) on a plane is NOT fun.  He did really well though, for the first 30 minutes or so, and then I put on my awesome noise canceling headphones and listened to music.  No toddler noise, just pure blissful music. 

After another hour and a half, they told us to put away electronic devices.  Yea!  We're almost there, and the delay didn't delay us at all! Suddenly, I heard a strange, loud, annoying sound.  It reminded me of when we'd go out to the garage and Alyce would still be in the house, and yip and yap til we let her out with us.  Yup...there was a dog yapping loudly, directly in front of me.  Oh yeah, AND the toddler was screeching top of lung, 90% of the time. 

Thank God we'd be landing soon.

"Attention all passengers, there are strong storms in the Twin Cities, and we need to maintain our position for another 30 minutes.  No planes are cleared for landing, so we will let you know when we can make our way in."

30 more minutes (on top of the 25 minutes we were supposed to be arriving) of screeching and yapping.  No electronic devices.  Thus far, I had avoided eye contact with the parents of the screecher, in the hopes of them keeping the child from at least climbing all over me.  You see, as soon as they would see my eyes, I knew they would assume that it was okay. They'd be able to tell that I'd be a sucker and help out, or at least let the kid bump into my legs every once in a while.  I so did not want to make eye contact.

I made eye contact. 

Suddenly, my life worsened. I had Mr. Screech climbing on, under, around my legs. I had people glaring at ME now, for the noise he was making.  I had a tremendous headache.  And the dog was still yapping.  Mind you, we are in row 5.  First class is directly in front of me, and the dog is right there in row 4 of first class.  The other people in first class had to be PISSED.  *I* was pissed, and I was not in first class! 

A book was thrown.  Hit me in the face. Ouch.  A toy was thrown. Leg this time.  Screech! Yap! Smack!  Life was...a headache. 

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen...we are still not cleared for landing, and we need to re-fuel.  We will be landing in Des Moines and awaiting further instruction."

It is 7:20 when we landed in Des Moines.  Screeching. Yapping.  Climbing. Throwing. No electronic (heavenly) devices.  I was just about ready to break the rules.  As soon as we landed, everyone got up out of their seats to stretch, except me.  There was no room to get up.  Plus, I did have awesome leg room, so I was just fine to sit there and let the screecher squeeze his way through the swarms of people in the aisle. 

The dog poked its head out...the owner warned people against petting, as he is a biter.  A poodle.  A biter and a yapper. Sounds like a great pet, huh?! 

We could not get off the airplane, as there were not enough gates for us to pull up to.  Stupid small airports. 

Over an hour later, we were told that we were cleared to head back up to MSP.  Of course, it was normally a 45 minute flight, but naturally, we had to go around storms, so it took an hour and 15 minutes.  The child fell asleep for 20 minutes of it...PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Around 10pm, we land.  Yup...4 hours late!  I rushed to the baggage carousel to get my luggage and get the hell out of Dodge.  About 20 minutes later, I notice my bag was one of the first to exit!  Luck at last!!  I had this fancy new suitcase that I had gotten from a vendor that was impossible to confuse with any other.  Multi-toned, clear wheels, huge OGIO logo on the side...I was golden.  SOOOO happy to get home!

I was almost out of gas.  Gassed up with no issues--woo-hoo!  Carry suitcase upstairs, unzip it to get all my toiletries out. 

Wrong suitcase.