Wednesday, June 24, 2009

greetings from California!

Our story begins last Friday, Hubs and Bugg headed out of the house by 8:30am to drive to Sacramento. Bugg was playing in the Cal Finals for volleyball at the EXPO center. Peanut and I were waiting for Nana and Papa to head to Portland. Family vacation, do you like how it is starting. We began getting updates from Bugg and they had arrived by 3 ish to the hotel. She was due to have practice at 6 pm, so they needed to be there and settled before then. They had a good drive and they shared the driving. Bugg drove the last half. The rest of us were driving around Canby, by way of google maps, looking for our motel. We were following the directions to the t and we were by no means at a motel. So we back tracked and stopped and called for directions. We were no where close, thanks for those directions!! We finally found our motel, checked in and went looking for a restaurant in which to eat. That was an adventure as well. We found the Tasty Onion or Sweet Onion restaurant, we thought it was a black tie eating place at first, but thankfully, all of 4 of us could eat without incident. It was good food, just spendy.

So, Saturday the four of us headed out early. Peanut needed to be at the fields by 9 am and we really weren't sure where we were going, since our directions the previous night had led us to a place that wasn't. We got to the fields with plenty of time to spare, a little too much if you ask me. The girls played and we lost the first game, we shouldn't have, but we did. We then played again and won. We had a break and we found out the girls in California were doing great. We were scheduled to play on another field, and none of us knew how to get there. We tried to follow each other, but we still managed to get lost. We got there and the girls immediately had to start warming up. It was rather entertaining. We put up one of the mom's shade covers, not for the shade, but for protection from the rain. It had been on and off all day. Well, during the game, it was a virtual downpour! We had to delay the game for 20 minutes! We pulled through and won that game as well. The girls in Cali had won all of their games. We headed out on an adventure to find dinner. We found a Denny's. The first thing we all ordered was a hot chocolate from being wet and cold, only to hear that the weather in Cali was very nice, not too hot and not cold at all, nor wet! We took Papa to the motel and Nana peanut and I headed to Target. I in my haste to pack to bags, I will get to that later, I only packed one pair of underwear and I was wearing them!! So shopping we went. Nana needed a book light, because she forgot her other one and she doesn't sleep at night anyway! Back to the motel. We heard Hubs was hanging out at the pool with the parents and Bugg was bored. We weren't!!

Sunday, our girls were scheduled to play at 8:30 and so were the girls in Cali. When we got to the fields a game that hadn't been completed the night before because of the rain, was needing to be completed. So we were there far too early. One of the little sisters brought her barbies, so our whole softball team was sitting at the picnic table playing barbies. It was priceless, but the camera was in Cali! We finally got to play and we did great. We won! During this game I was part of a surprise for Father's Day for my dad. My sister and the kids were driving down to meet up with us. It was fun to see dad's face light up when he saw the gang walk up. The next game we were scheduled to play needed to wait for another game to finish. The girls in Cali were losing their first match and winning their other two. We started our next game and we were playing the team we beat the day before 13-4! We lost 5-2. We were done for the tourney! We all headed out to find a place for lunch. Peanut and I were scheduled to fly out of Portland at 8:55 pm. We had scheduled the last flight out, because we didn't know how long we would be playing. It was only two o'clock. It was raining on and off and we had lots of time to kill. We ended up at the same Denny's that the four of us had gone to the night before. We had a great time, with a great waitress. The weather turned ugly and we were so grateful we were inside the restaurant. We hung out for a while, then decided to wander around, somewhere, for a while. Papa and Nana headed out in my car, back home and Sister and the kids and Peanut and I headed out to the direction of the airport. I wanted to go to IKEA. I had heard from everyone!! about how great a place it is and I was curious. We had time, or so I thought. We had an adventure trying to get to the turnoff. Neither sister nor I knew the name of the complex that it was known as, so we made a couple of passes by the store before realizing how we really needed to get there. We weren't sure we were still going to have enough time to make it through the store before we needed to get to the airport! Yes, we passed by that much!! :~)
Well, needless to say, Peanut and I were a bit overwhelmed at the size and volume of the store!
Sister found something to buy, so we had to check out. That wasn't bad, it was just overwhelming inside that place. So sister and the kids dropped Peanut and I off at the terminals.
We had an easy check in because we didn't bring any bags. We sent our bags home with Nana and Papa and had sent other clothes with Hubs and Bugg to Cali. That made things much easier at the airport. We got a drink and a snack and set out to the waiting area. We played a game together on the game boy and "people-watched". Our plane was to board at 8:40, but there were 3 planes in about 10 feet of space that were all leaving at 8:55. How the 3 gates were all going to board at the same time was a wonder to each of us. We boarded about 8:50 and we actually took off by 9:00pm. Our flight was pretty uneventful, our very feminine male attendant was the most entertaining. Peanut began to not feel well during the flight, so we decided to play games. Our flight last just over an hour and we were landing and she was feeling all the more better, just landing. We turned on our phone and let Bugg and Hubs know we had landed and they were waiting. We were the last off the plane because we were in the very last row. Hubs and Bugg were waiting for us at the end of the escalators. It was great to see them.
They took us back to the motel, which was a luxury compare to what the four of us had stayed in in Canby! It was a great suite. We had to get up early because Bugg needed to be there at 8 am again. They played two games on Monday morning and my voice was gone!!! Hoarse as hoarse can be! I so tried to yell for the girls, but it was nearly for not. After they won their two games, we headed to the motel, Bugg was going to the water park with the other "Lynsey" and the others of us fell fast asleep! We got up and headed to the mall, picked up Bugg and went out for a great dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Then a little bit more shopping and back to the motel.
We started packing up, because we were off again after the Tuesday morning games. Late to bed, early to rise again. The girls were playing great, they had some awesome matches and they played a team from Oahu. That was a great match because those girls were little, but mighty. We barely beat them to move on to the team in first place. The girls were 3 times the height we were and they were from Portland. Our girls did well, it was a tough fight and we only scored a handful of points, but they were hard won points. It was not a blow out, our girls did well! But, we lost and we were out of it.

The next leg of our trip was driving to Clearlake to be with Hubs' mom and brother. We made it about 30 minutes up the freeway and the air conditioning went out in the burban. It was about 100 degrees outside! The girls thought life was over! We had been through this before, but you know~the girls were miserable. We couldn't get to the condo fast enough. We finally arrived at the condo and all of us headed directly to the pool. After a refreshing swim, we barbecued and had some good visits with Grandma, Uncle and his friends. We finally headed to bed. This morning was great, because we didn't have to be anywhere at 8 am! We got up and fixed breakfast for all the family and Uncle's friends. The boys left, we all got ready and toured about clearlake. Saw Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, went to lunch at Konocti resort's great lunch room, headed to Kelseyville for a dessert at Lu Lu's ice cream parlor, to find out it isn't open on Wednesdays!! :~( We finally made it back to the condo for swim, dinner, walk and relaxing.

Tomorrow, we head up to Eureka to see the other grandparents. We are looking forward to that. A couple of days there, then we will be home on Saturday. Hope you all are well and good, will see you all soon!!! Happy Vacationing. :~)

1 comment:

Cheryl said...

Phew....never a dull moment :)

Hope you are enjoying the rest of your vacation.