What the house actually looks like outside. Like every 3rd house in the neighborhood.
Big Ugly orange post gone. Tile in Dining room, going in Kitchen. That's a guy installing the tile.
Office doorway to the right, now.
New French door into the guestroom/school room
Fireplace and windows taped over
New lights going in ceiling. Make that lights going in ceiling. People who built California houses don't believe in lighting from the ceiling which makes for very dark rooms once the sun goes down. Larry fixed that. :-)
Living room to the right, wall far right is the wall to the new-made office
We were very blessed to have my parents here for a week (and a day). They kept our kids entertained so we could paint, clean and fix up the house. The kids had been going with us (as seen in the pictures) but were 'helping' a little too much with the paining. And getting pretty bored. We'd brought over a laptop and all our movies and set it up in the girl's room for them to watch movies and eat snacks (why the carpet remains in there for now) and for a while it was working fine.
Yesterday the kitchen cabinets arrived and the fort they have been planning for those boxes ought to keep them busy for another week and then the house should be done.
My parents got to experience life from the blog. I'd been meaning to write about it, since it just fits with my life, but my life has been a little busy even to blog.
But Monday.. was a typical nutty day. It started with plans to drop my parents off at the airport, stop at the Navy exchange and buy a Christmas present for Larry, get lunch for the kids, go to JM's Pediatric GI apt at the Navy Hospital at Balboa and then drive to Chula vista and pick up a van full of diapers from our friends' garage.
That was the plan. I had a schedule it was going to make the best possible use of my time.
What really happened was I dropped my parents off at the airport and before I got to the exchange I got a call that it looked like their plane was going to be canceled. Due to ice (in Pennsylvania). Which still strikes me as funny that you can get 'snowed in' as far as planes go when you're in San Diego.
Anyway. We stop for gas and just before we find a parking space we get the call that they are spending another night with us.
No biggie- go to pick them up.Get them and their suitcases back into the the van.
Try to get back to the exchange. I should have just gone the way I just had gone to the exchange, the one way I know, through downtown. Except I had a new GPS and decided to trust her judgment. Yeah. Sometimes she's just wrong. And oddly the Navy exchange isn't among her 'points of interest' so she's not all that helpful, anyway.
Finally get to the exchange after a detour through a fairly sketchy area of town. Pull in, go shopping. Mom and dad wander around shopping, too. We check out, get them checked out and I realize JM has a particularly foul odor coming from his rear quarters area. Send mom and dad to the food court for lunch and I head to the van to change the diaper.
Now this is the point where I should track back to earlier that morning. When I could. not. find. my. keys. Of course that's a fairly common occurrence here, and they usually show up, eventually. But we had a plane to catch (or so we thought) so I didn't have a ton of time to try to find them. I thought Larry probably had them in his pocket from yesterday, so grabbed the spare key and left.
But the spare key is just the key, not the little remote thing.
So I manually unlock the door and toss the key on the car seat. Change JM and pull him out of the car, put him in the stroller and shut the van door. Hear the 'ding ding ding' it does right before it locks.
I must have hit the 'lock' button on the driver door when I shut but the sliding door was open so it didn't lock until 2 seconds after I closed the sliding door
With the key sitting in there on the car seat.
Crap.
At this point, the clock is ticking and we REALLY needed to be on our way to the Ped GI apt to get there on time.
Call AAA. They tell me my membership is expired. I tell them that can't be since it's supposed to be on auto-renewal (because as evidenced in this blog... I NEED them. often) They transfer me to their membership dept, I renew on the phone, they transfer me back to the chick who will send me someone who can unlock my door. Tell me he'll arrive in about 30 minutes.
uh, oh. That's going to be really cutting it close.
Go inside. Tell my parents I locked myself out, leave kids with them, head to the car to wait.
Finally get a call from the AAA guy saying I had to meet him at the Gate (since I'm on the Navy base) and they won't let him in without my being there.
Walk to the gate, explain my situation.
The guy gets there and the guard tells him to pull over and wait for an escort.
WHAAATTT???
AT this point, it was 10 minutes before my apt, 20 minutes after I was supposed to arrive to register. After waiting on hold forever on the apt line for the hospital (the entire time I was walking from van to gate and until the tow guy got there), I get a human who transferred me to the GI clinic who I explain my situation and beg them to still see JM. They sound confused and say 'well.. I'll let her know what's going on.' click.
Call Larry frustrated and ask him if he has the keys. He doesn't.
Sitting there with the tow truck guy, it seems like an eternity. I ask 'how long does it usually take for an escort?' and he says 'sometimes an hour'
oh.no. That's not going to work. Go back to the guard and fill him in that I NEED to get to the hospital, my son's been waiting for this apt for 4 months, I'm supposed to have been there 25 minutes ago.... and he says he'll call (again) and about 20 second later the 'escort' show up. Which is just military police.
Tow guy takes 40 seconds to open the van. MP then needs my registration and ID to make sure the van I had the buy break into was really mine to break into. Joey proudly informs my parents that he knows they use a long special stick to open the van. And he knows this from the last time I locked my keys in the truck.
Into the Van, race to the hospital.
Leave the Van running with my parents and older kids trying to find a parking space while we sprint the 1/2 mile to the other end of the building after finally finding the Ped GI clinic. Which doesn't have a sign. The PICU has one right there, but it doesn't.
Meet a team of Senior Citizen Santas as we were running down the hall who made JM stop in his tracks in fear. That didn't stop them from touching him, talking to him and giving him a bear. Now named "stuffy bear" and goes with us everywhere.
Get to the apt was whisked to vital signs and seen and done with the DR in about 20 mintues. She seemed as thorough as one could be trying to get history on a kid who's had newborn stool since he was a newborn.
Sent me to schedule him for an EGD. Waiting to schedule it took about as long as my visit with the dr.
As we get out to where my parents are, Sonia has to use the bathroom. And the last place I saw bathroom signs was about 1/2 mile away. Trudge back up to the hospital and see an hourly child care place. hmmm... stop in and inquire about leaving the older 3 there for the AM of the EGD (because it's 2 days before christmas and we'll have to leave at 6:30 in the AM and finding a babysitter at 6:30 am 2days before Christmas will be challenging) and arrange that while Sonia uses their rest room.
All this time my father's been stuck in a traffic jam trying to get out of the parking garage. And absolutely none too happy about it. We didn't leave to find the bathroom until after he'd called about being stuck and were back to the parking lot just as he got out.
Back home, ate dinner, went to paint the new house
Next AM tried again to get them to the airport (successfully this time), actually got to fill the van with diapers (which wasn't going to happen with suitcases and stroller), ran a trillion other errands and got home in time to make dinner.
Oh.. yeah, those missing keys?
They were in my father's coat pocket.
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