Adventure Day 4

Woke up trying to decide if I was happy we were going home or sad. Being gone a few days always makes me miss everyone but not all the responsibility that goes with them haha. Now that my kids are older I think the animals are really the only ones that care if I'm home or not. Well except for when everyone is hungry. I seem pretty important then.

We just watched TV snacked in the room for breakfast. Before we knew it, it was time to check out. Time to go booo.

When we went out to the car I was like OMG WTH happened to my car?

ick birds are disgusting.

We were both kind-of hungry but not starving so we decided to just drive a bit and find something to eat on the way home. I was like oh we can stop at Boomtown! Boomtown used to be all decorated like the old west and super cute inside. So we stopped there and walked in and they have totally remodeled it and it's just a boring casino now. AND all the food places were closed! Well that was a bust so back in the car we went and down the road.  

I was trying to remember what exit we take when we go camping in Tahoe since I knew there was some food stuff there. I think I turned the wrong way once I got off the freeway though since nothing looked familiar. Then this cute little burger place popped up so we decided to stop there. It's called Burger Me and I think it was on Diners Drive Ins and Dives, although I didn't see that episode I don't think (it's been awhile since I binge watched those shows lol). 

I ordered a bacon cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. The whole place was pretty packed but luckily I found a picnic table outside (that we ended up sharing with 2 different sets of people). The food took awhile but it was pretty when it was done.

The burger was ok but not anything I'd drive three hours for. I'd probably go back if I was in the area and order "extra sauce". 

After that it was back on the road until something flung up somewhere and whacked into my car. It was so loud my mom and I both did a little scream. I pulled off the freeway and went to investigate. 

Nice. No idea what it was and I never saw anything. Something had to have got kicked up from the pick up truck that was driving next to me.

I dropped my mom off on the way home and then I was finally home. 

You can see who missed me most. I've nick named her Shadow. I swear she has to be right next to me at all times and even will sit on my foot when I'm washing dishes lol. 

Mom and I had a great time on our trip and we are talking about diving up there once a year. We'll see if it happens though since something always seems to come up and it took us like two years to get this trip done!

Adventure Day 3

In the morning we got up slowly. The hotel had pretty thin walls so you could hear all the water running in the other rooms and a monkey. I kind of woke up a little bit and I was like "is that a monkey?" Nope, just a kid making loud monkey noises. Seriously who lets their kid make loud monkey noises like that. I would have told my kids to pipe down. I could hear the monkey all the way out to their car until they drove away.

I bet that mom drinks.

So eventually we got up and got moving. We checked out and then went back to the downtown area of Reno and went to the Buffet at the El Dorado. We hardly ever do buffets anymore. I took a tour and then got a little bit of everything. The food was just kind of  "eh" but then I hit the dessert area. OMG CHEESECAKE!  The cheesecake was so delicious (sorry didn't get a pic but I'm sure you know what cheesecake looks like ;)) and they had some fantastic macaroons. I may have wrapped up a few and stuck them in my purse for a macaroon emergency. Next time I go there I'm just going to skip the food and go straight for the dessert.

After brunch I got my mom to play a few penny machines. She doesn't really like to gamble all that much so that was fun.

She'd put in a dollar and then be like "it's all gone" lol. I'm like you might want to put in a COUPLE dollars. My Dad sent me a text and asked what we were doing and I sent him that picture and said "saving you some money" haha. Why is it saving money? Because my mom LOVES to shop. 

If you know me you know that unless it's a thrift or antique store I HATE to shop. I really dislike gift shops too. My Mom on the other hand just loves to go through them all. She did some gambling so I had to do some gift shops lol.  Who buys all this crap that says RENO on it. Just dumb. Unless you collect shot glasses for everywhere you go or something.

Lucky for me we found this AWESOME antique store on the back side of the El Dorado area. It was called Antiques and Treasures. It was a really big store and just when you thought you were done you go down stairs and the whole down stairs was full too! So much fun stuff to look at. I ended up getting two little crocheted little coin purses. I thought they'd be cute for when I go out and don't have any pockets and don't want to carry a big purse. I was just going to get the one with the button but then the other one wasn't very expensive and cute so I got that one too.

After hours of walking around and shopping we went back to the Atlantis and tried checking in again. The room was already paid for and I couldn't cancel it so why not stay another night?! Luckily this time it actually worked. 

Our room was on the 15th floor and was sooo nice inside. I stole this picture from someone on yelp, but this is what our room looked like

This is my picture, the view from our room

and at night, so pretty

Mom and I just kind of hung out in the room for awhile and watched some HGTV. Why do I not watch these shows at home? So much fun. I wonder if they have them on Netflix lol.  We watched an episode of Brother vs Brother and then a few of Love It or List It. Such fun shows that show the possibility of what COULD be if you only had $60-$100k to sink into your house. Oh yeah and someone to design it and do all the work. If only right?

Eventually we wandered down to the casino area where we spent about 45 minutes getting a players card from a nice lady that hopefully got some kind of commission off of us. We walked around and checked everything out and then went to the buffet for dinner. Yes, 2 buffets in one day, holy where's my elastic pants. This time I didn't even venture over to the desserts and ate a ton of crab legs that I fished out of some Mexican seafood stuff. They were pretty delicious. 

After that I made my mom lose some more money on penny machines until she had  "had enough of them taking her money" (I was actually up a bit). We went up to the room and watched a bit of TV and enjoyed the nice comfy beds.

Adventure Day 2

After we finally got up and moving we checked out of the hotel and went and had a late breakfast at Jerry's Restaurant. This is a 50's diner type place, but light on the 50's. We got asked our drink orders before we even made it to the table. The coffee was getting refilled so fast I had to move it away from the edge of the table! I debated on what to order but went with an omelet. I think it was called the "sink" or something like that since it had a bunch of different things in it. It was good but the peppers could have been cooked a bit longer for my liking. The hash browns were perfect. When I was looking up somewhere to eat on Yelp people were saying that the hash browns weren't cooked enough. Maybe the cooks read the reviews because these were great! Sadly my body decided to veto it about 1/2 an hour later. Too much grease I'm thinking.

After breakfast we went to the local museum. My mom is always saying that our ancestors are in the museum. That's why I wanted to go, so I could see for myself. I think I should have read up on who exactly these ancestors were because heck if I recognized anyone ;) The museum was fun to walk around anyways. There was a lot of just time period stuff, a section on the native Indians that I really enjoyed (baskets, houses, duck decoys and just about anything else you can think of made out of cattails of all things!) I should have taken more pictures but I was too busy just checking it all out. 

I did take a few pictures to share with Scott though. Look, a new bike! Isn't it amazing that someone could ride something like that?

an old car I never heard of before

This thing was a steam roller that was used to make roads. The back wheel there was taller than me. Pretty impressive.

Tractors! I had to take these to joke about for work. We have a program where people turn in their old tractors and get grant money for a new one. I figured these would be good candidates ;)

An old store was off to the side. Not sure if you could go in and check things out, we were kind of tired of walking around at that point.

'

After the museum we drove out to Uncle Don's house. This was the view for most of the ride.

Once we got there we hung out and looked at some of the pictures we had brought. The whole reason behind the trip was to deliver my Grandma's pictures that I had scanned. Uncle Don is Grandma's brother so my mom wanted him to have the pictures since there was a lot of his parents family growing up. 

They brought out an album that had belonged to my Grandma's Mom's Sister. There was some similar pictures but a lot I had never seen before. I took a few pictures of the pictures with my phone for fun.

ugh I don't know why it keeps turning my pictures, just turn your head ok?

I took a ton but I'll just share that one for now. This was my Grandma's Grandma's house I believe. They lived in Utah and were Mormon. They had like 10 kids. Crazy. 

So while we're all sitting around and they are swapping stories my uncle goes outside and comes back in with this big box of stuff. It was papers and stuff that belonged to his dad. My mom was super close to his dad, her Grandpa. He found all these pictures from when he was in the Navy in the 20's. A lot of them are really faded but there is some really neat pictures in there. He said we could take them home and put them in a book for him. 

So now I have them here in a shoe box to scan and try to see if I can make them easier to see. They are all black and whites so I think that will work in my favor. I really want to play with them but I'm making myself wait until after this weekend.

Eventually we left to go to he cemetery. My mom wanted to go to her Grandpa's grave site. Before we left I ran outside and took a picture of the view from the back of their house. How nice is that? 

We went to the cemetery and it was super windy. We only stayed for a few minutes. My mom and aunt took a few pictures and then we were off!

We had to drive back through "town' so we stopped at this fun looking antique store. It was called Just Country Friends or something long those lines. It had a bunch of really cool stuff out in the yard. Like lots of metal tables with fun chairs. I really liked this metal doll bed that would have been really cool to have in the yard but it was a bit too expensive at like $80!

Inside the store was rooms and rooms of fun stuff. I came home with a set of really cute bird salt and pepper shakers that I think are still out in the car whoops. Mom was still shopping when I was done so I went to sit outside on the steps for a minute. 

Yep, still windy.

We started to leave town after that but we decided we were ready for some dinner. I looked for something good on Yelp and we ended up at La Fiesta. It was right across the street from The Wok where we ate at the night before (well where everyone else ate at). 

It was decorated really cute inside with a lot of metal work.

The cabbage and salsa were kick ass. Sadly my taco salad was kind of blah. The meat was like too wet. Weird. I think I'm spoiled here in little Mexico. (and no I did not eat that huge blob of sour cream, just a little bit of it)

Mom's looked good.

Afterwards we drove to Reno and went to check into Atlantis where I had booked us a room. BUT. BUT but but I had no reservation for that night! I had accidentally booked it for the NEXT night. I may have done some f'me comments until I regrouped and got a list of the THREE places left in town that had rooms. 

Instead of staying in a super nice room we ended up in the this place, which wasn't really all that bad. It just had freaking scary ass HUGE windows. Really? Kind of scary. The room itself was nice enough, just not what I was wanting. 

I got out my Kindle to show my mom the movie Tiny about a guy that builds a Tiny house (we watched it on Netflix). We read a book about a gal that built a tiny house awhile back so I knew she would enjoy it. I made it through about half the movie before passing out. Good thing I had already watched it.

That was a LONG day. Talk about exhausted (not to mention totally bummed about the hotel).

Adventure Time Day 1!

I told my Mom I'd pick her up around 8 and I got there at 8:30 so not to shabby! I might have been there a bit earlier but I had to wash some dishes and clean the cat box. Oh and clean up ants. UGH ants. I left the family some love notes because I could just see coming home to them swarming all over the counter and the sink.

Mom was all ready to go and only had about 5 bags of stuff (she is such the packer!-I seriously only brought a couple things besides my clothes because I knew she'd bring stuff.) so it didn't take us very long to get on the road. Of course we only went as far as the next town before we stopped and had breakfast. We went to Denny's. Not that great but always dependable for breakfast, right?

After that we were really on the road and didn't stop until we were almost to Nevada. We stopped to use the bathroom in Nyack (not much to link to just a gas station lol). While I was waiting for my mom to come out I noticed this cool totem pole of sorts across the street.

And look a "Woody" version of my car, so cute!

We drove on until we got to Fallon, which is the town my uncle lives in. I had booked us a night at the Best Western so we went and checked in. The room wasn't ready yet (we were early) but they gave us the key and said just come back around three. So we went and found a place to have a snack, went through a thrift store (can't find it online) and then went back down the road a bit and went through a nursery. 

The Flower Tree Nursery was so nice! I wish I would have taken some pictures while we walked around. If I lived in the area I would have bought a ton of flowers. They even had the standard cat taking a nap in a chair of the shop. It was really a nice place to walk around and relax after that long drive. 

After all that it was late enough to get into the hotel so we went back and cleaned up a bit and then my aunt called and said to go meet them at their little bar. Well allll righty then we'll be right over!

We went over to this really old hotel called the "Overland". 

We parked and then found the entrance in the front. When we walked in everyone kind of looked up and was like hmmmm strangers. Which, I know is standard small bar hang out fashion. I didn't see my Aunt and Uncle anywhere but noticed there was some people outside so we went out there and there they were, with a big group of friends. We exchanged hugs and then my uncle went in to get us some drinks. We squished into the picnic table and I ended up chatting with a couple ladies and made some friends! My cousin came over after a bit (she was late because her hair dryer caught on fire while she was using it!) and we talked a bit before going to dinner. 

We drove right around the block and around the corner and stopped at The Wok. Now, if you have known me for awhile you know that I gave up Chinese food. I've been bad about everything else lately but I still have not caved into the Chinese food. I was pretty happy to see that they had SUSHI! Yeah! So I ordered a roll and everyone else ordered the standard greasy delicious mouth drooling crap. 

Uncle Don, Tyson Jr and his girlfriend

There was quite a few of us since my other cousin came and his two sons and one of their girlfriends. The waitress brought out our soup and then the Chinese food started coming out. I asked about my roll and they said the kitchen was a bit behind but it was coming. Everyone was eating and I asked again about my food since it was a bit awkward sitting there watching everyone eat. I snagged a couple shrimp off a plate and then asked again, and again I got the brush off that they were running behind.

Cousin Wendy, Jake and Cousin Tyson

Everyone was pretty much done eating and one of the waitresses came out and asked if she could box things up. She was standing right next to me and I was like um I never even got my food? Then the original waitress came back and asked me what I had ordered. I told her to just forget it because at this point I wasn't going to sit there and eat while everyone else was done. Then I asked to talk to the manager. 

Mom and Me

Did I mention how awkward this all was? So I complained to the manager how they pretty much embarrassed my aunt and uncle who took us out to dinner to this nice place and how they embarrassed me by making me sit there while everyone ate. She apologized, left and then came back and said that the ticket had got lost. So basically the first 4 times I asked where my food was they never even went and checked and lied about it. Nice! The manager apologized again and said she'd get me one to go. So that's what they did in a record couple minutes (gee maybe the waitress could have rushed one when I asked the 2nd time?). I took my little baggie to go and ended up eating it in the hotel room. 

Snuck one of Aunt Marcia and Uncle Don 

Back to the company at dinner, it was nice hanging out with my cousins. They are actually my mom's first cousins but they are my age. I used to write pen pal type letters with my cousin Wendy when we were in Jr. High through High School. We haven't really talked that much since then, just a bit of following each other on Facebook lately. The last time I had seen any of them was my Grandma's funeral in 2000. 

The Golden Gate Sushi Roll hours later.  (pretend it's turned, it turned itself when I uploaded it)

We had a pretty good time visiting with everyone. We took some pictures outside before we parted ways for the night and then went back to the hotel. I debated on even eating the sushi, thinking they probably spit in it after I complained lol. I did eat it though and it was good. I woke up around midnight with a stomach ache and thought for sure I was going to have food poisoning but I feel back to sleep after a bit and woke up fine. Thank God!

Adventure Time

As soon as I wash the dishes and scoop the cat box I'm leaving to go on a girls weekend with my mom! We are going to take some old pictures to her uncle in Fallon, Nevada. We don't have an agenda other than dinner there tomorrow night and a 2 booked hotels so should be a nice relaxing weekend!

I'm probably going to need a lot of coffee though since Scott kept me awake ALL NIGHT. He burned his had at work with the welder (tiny little spot) and it swelled all up and he was in pain all night. Of course that means he slept in the bed instead of in the recliner like he usually does.

He couldn't understand why I got up at 5 am and started getting read to go. I'm like DUDE I can't sleep might as well get up!

He was talking about going to the doctor and seeing if they could get him in but I reminded him that it's worker's comp so he went to work. Five bucks says he doesn't go to the doctor at all once he gets there because it will feel better. Then be in agony all weekend.

Just what I want to worry about while I'm off trying to relax. Why can't people time their sicknesses better ;)

Poor guy I kind of flipped my shit on him for a minute. Me + no sleep + stress + sick man= not happy. 

It's a good thing I never wanted to be a nurse. I probably would have got fired for smacking someone and telling them to stfu and man up. Probably why my mom keeps worrying that I'm going to have to take care of her when she gets old lol. I keep telling her I'll be good to her ;)

Oh and then he was telling me this morning all about how his boss is trying to find a new place for their business because they are losing their lease to Car Max. Thanks babe. More stress. Just what I want. 

So guess I should go wash those dishes. I woke up to a swarm of ants in the sink. Lovely. 

I'm sure I'll post some pics on Instagram while I'm out de-stressing!

Father's Day BBQ

Happy Father's Day!

Yesterday we went over to my brother Joe's house to have a little BBQ for my (step) Dad. My Mom is off gallivanting in Fort Bragg with her BFF so it was kind of weird having a little party with out her there.

When we first got there no one was there but Joe and his dog Rocky. Rocky is an English Mastiff. He's roughly the size of a horse and acts like an 8 pound puppy. It's pretty hilarious!

Notice you can't actually see his face because he hardly ever stops moving lol. After the littles showed up he got put in the side yard so he wouldn't knock anyone over.

Most of the day was spent holding babies and watching the kids play in the pool. The twins are almost 3 months now. I thought it was funny that they weigh 8 pounds. My smallest baby was Jessica and she was 8 pounds 8 ounces when she was born. So they are still smaller than her.

Emma

I mostly held Vincent (Vinny for short). Most of the time I was holding him he didn't really pay any attention to me. Then for just a little bit of time he made eye contact, tried to smile and coo. Oh the fun times are coming! Plus he only spit up on me a little bit this time.

I thought it was pretty cute that my Dad was taking pictures of the little ones too.

All the bigger kids went in the pool. The girls just love Melissa so much. 

I didn't get any pictures of Adrian but she can swim all over like a little fish now (she is 4 1/2). 

That's about all the pictures I took. I know what a slacker. But it was so nice just sitting there. I keep saying the nice thing about your kids being older is you don't have to worry about what they are getting into and if they are going to get hurt. 

The guys did all the BBQ'ing and my sister in law made this potato salad and it was awesome.

After it started getting late my brother Louie and all the little ones left (and Trevor went with them to spend the night with Tony). Joe lit the little fire pit thing he has and we sat around talking about how we wished we had stuff for smores. Adrian talked her grandpa Charly into going to the store to get some marshmallows. 

When they were gone Joe let Rocky back out and he tried to sit in all our laps and take everything out with his whipping tail. Eventually Adrian and Charly came back and we all toasted some marshmallows before calling it a night. 

No idea what we are doing today. At some point I need to drive to Stockton to pick up Trevor. On Friday I told myself I was going to clean my room this weekend. I should probably at least do something in there haha.

Freedom Run 5k

The most amazing thing just happened! Trevor got off the computer! I probably should have signed him up for some kind of summer something or other. So far he's pretty much been attached to the computer 24/7!

So this morning I got up super early and went and ran the Without Permission Freedom Run. I did the 5k. It was at a really nice park area along the river called the Tuolumne River Park. To get to the park you have to drive through some not so nice areas so I'm thinking that even though it seems like it would be a great place to go run, you probably shouldn't go run there by yourself. 

The first thing I noticed when I got there? No bathrooms. Well no port-a-potties anywhere in sight. I asked a volunteer where the bathroom was and she said "good question". Eventually I found it down the path a bit. It had NO DOORS on any of the stalls. Um yeah so no doors=no pooping before the race lol. Not to be gross but that's what I'm pretty sure almost every runner is attempting before a race.

My friend Kristin (not the one that just got married, the other one) met me at the park and ran the 5k too. I sadly forgot to get a picture of the two of us together though!

Right before the race started Scott sent me a message asking me what I put in the coffee because his heart was beating out of control. Um yeah cocaine? Just kidding. COFFEE what else would I put in it? So I got that message right when I was about to start the race so I spent the whole time I was running worrying about if he was keeling over or something.

The run itself was pretty nice on paved bike paths. There was not very many runners at all. There was a 10k and a 5k and the 10k probably had 20 people or less. I'm pretty sure that's the smallest race I've ever been in. Too bad I'm not back to where I was before or I might have actually won something!

As it was I ended up doing a bit of walking (yelling at myself in my head the whole time) but ended the race a lot better than the last one I did.

crappy selfie after the run 

My big goal now is going to be to work on running without walking. I have been doing 6 minute run 1 minute walk intervals when I run at home but I think I'm going to change those to 10 minutes and 30 sec next to see how that goes for a bit. 

They had laptops set up where you put in your bib number and it gave you all the stats. AWESOME! See that there were only 61 runners in the 5k? That's pretty crazy!

My friend was saying the end was all up hill and I was like,  "it was?" lol But yet, it was uphill, just a little hill though.

My pace was pretty even for most of the race

Here's Kristin coming in

Someone was there to hand us a nice cold water right when we came over the finish line.AWESOME! Someone finally did what I'm always saying!

They had tech shirts but they are really big. I started with a large and traded for a medium but I probably could have went with a small. I think I'm getting to the point where I need to clean out my shirts because they are taking up a lot of room in my closet and I don't wear many of them. 

We had talked about maybe going to breakfast after the run but I decided to come home to check on Scott. He's still feeling a bit off but napping right now so hopefully he'll feel better later. We are supposed to go to my brother's house for swimming and a BBQ. 

Now to find a run for July!