Let Me Put You On A Ship

It's hard to even start writing about our vacation.  There's so much that happened, and I took more than 1,000 pictures (yeah, yeah, I know I have a shutter problem).  I'll try to stick to very basic photo editing so that I can get something on here while it's still fresh in my brain.  I am going to have to do it in installments.  I'll start with an overview, then I'll probably do more detailed posts later.

Friday, February 24: Allen had given me a gift certificate to "Just Perfect Salon" for my birthday, but I hadn't had the opportunity to use it yet.  I really needed to get my hair done before the cruise, so I made an appointment for 11am.  I had hoped we could get out of town earlier, but the hair took priority.  It  only took her a couple of hours, and now I am much more blonde (and I look much more put-together).  She also put in some strawberry (reddish) highlights, though those have mostly faded.  It's okay, though.  I'm liking it more and more.  We ended up leaving about 3pm, and drove to St. George.  We met up with my friends Shelly and Shauna for dinner, and we stayed in Shelly's mom's basement for the night.

Actually, I've changed my mind.  I wrote a rather long blog entry while staying at the Adams' house, and I can't think of a better time or place to put it.  Alors, voila quoi.

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2/24/12

It has been a long day.  I can't believe it was just yesterday that I went to "Parent-Teacher Conference" with Miss Erika (and with monsieur in tow).  About the conference--I seriously love Miss Erika.  I love that they love Benji, that they know him and his quirks and they are sincerely trying to help him.  Anyway, she gave me a report on his progress for the year so far.  As far as understanding and completing commands, he's not really there yet.  The goal was/is to hear and obey two-step commands.  He can perform one-step commands (when he wants to . . . he can be a bit stubborn), but two-step is still a way off.  So are social skills, and playing with toys appropriately.  He'd rather spin toys than play with them the way they were intended to be played with.  There's not a lot of progress, but there is some. They gave him a huge jump in language and speech, (75% increase!), because he has started counting and using words and signs to communicate wants and needs.  He can recognize and repeat letters and numbers.  He likes to count to himself; he usually skips 5, but he does pretty well up to twelve.  Then he fudges a little, and gets to about twenty (at least, I think that's what he's saying!).  He does very well with "Book Awareness," meaning that he can tell if a book is upside-down, and he'll put it right and go to the beginning and "read" it.  He has been doing that for a long time, so I don't think that's such a huge deal.  Whatever.  He certainly has a long way to go before he'll be on-par with regular kids, but considering where he started this year, he has come a long way.  I really am proud of him.  

Side note: Benji and I were in the hallway of Lincoln Elementary while we were waiting for our turn, and a couple of different kindergarten classes walked by.  Benjamin is the same size as most of those kids.  Some were bigger, some a little scrawnier, but he could easily pass for a 5-6 year old.  I don't really mind that; it's just a little frustrating when people think he should be able to carry on a full conversation, respond appropriately to questions, take himself to the bathroom, etc.  Yes, I get to "have him as a baby longer," and I shouldn't compare him to other kids.  It's just really hard not to.  And when he does go to Kindergarten, he'll be one of those bigger kids.  I just hope the others don't make fun of him.  But then, Benji wouldn't care what anyone else thought.  I guess I should be more like that, too.

Well, after PTC, I had to go to work.  It was a pretty good shift--quite a lot of plastics, which I enjoy.  I got to scrub a gnarly GSW to the hand (in case you were wondering, you probably shouldn't put your hand in front of a loaded semi-automatic weapon when you have a finger on the trigger.  I'm just sayin'.)  Also, don't use Meth.  To quote from Super 8: "Drugs are so bad!"

So I came home after work last night, and cleaned.  I had left Allen with a list of things to do, since I know they wouldn't have been done otherwise.  He did start the dishwasher, but I kept finding dishes all over the house and loading them in, when I realized it was onto the drying cycle.  *sigh*  So I had to start the whole thing over again.  I folded some laundry and wrote thank-you notes for Benji's birthday.  When I finished that, I had some other things to do, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the couch.  I stayed there all night.

When I woke up this morning, I tried to get rolling fairly early.  Allen was still asleep, and the boy was talking to himself in his room.  I got him up and tried to take him to the potty, but he wouldn't go.  So after about 30 minutes, I got him ready, started another load of laundry, started packing, and took a shower.  Then I went to the "Just Perfect Salon" to get my hair done by Sarah's hairdresser, Nikki.  She's really nice, and she did a good job.  Instead of the ugly, faded mousy brown, it's now more of a strawberry blonde, and she cut off a good 4-5 inches.  My hair really picks up anything red, and the roots were so grown out that they picked up a LOT of color.  So it looks a little bright and brassy at the roots and darkish underneath, but in a couple of weeks, it will look FANTASTIC.  It's much better now than it was, but it will take me a while to get used to it.

Anywho, after the salon, I went home and packed.  Gads--what an nightmare!  I'm sure we forgot some stuff (like Benji's soap and toothpaste . . .).  It also took a bit longer than expected; we didn't leave town until after 3pm.  When we finally did get on the road, we had to make a couple of stops.  One of those was, yes, at the 7-Eleven for some Diet Coke.  I almost felt guilty about drinking it.  Yes, it's the first time I have had one in 2012, but I was a little bothered by the whole thing.  I did break it open eventually, and it tasted divine.  I'll probably give it up again once I get home, but for now--I'm enjoying it.  And you can bet I'll be taking advantage of the free refills. ;o)

I'm not sure if I blogged about it last month, but I read all three books in the "Hunger Games" series over the course of about 5 days.  It only took me that long because I didn't have the second book; I had to go purchase it.  I bought it and read it that same night, then read the final book the following night.  They are pretty quick reads (and I'm a fairly fast reader), but the real reason why I devoured them like that is because it is such a good story.  It is violent, but it is very well-written.  Anyway, I wanted to re-read them before the movie comes out in a few weeks, so I brought the books with me.  I may not do a lot of reading on the boat, but (thankfully) I can read while in the car.  I asked Allen if he wanted me to read to him, and he said, "Sure."  It does serve several purposes: it means we don't have to listen to Allen's terrible electronic "music", it means we don't have to talk, and it keeps both of us awake.  He is a better long-distance driver than I am; I tend to get sleepy.  So I don't mind reading (though my voice is a little hoarse).  I think he's liking it so far; we are about 1/3 of the way through the first book already.

We had to stop in Cedar City for gas.  Benji had taken a pretty long nap earlier, and I had given him a granola bar to tide him over before dinner.  Unfortunately, Benji tends to get carsick.  He had dry-heaved a bit, but nothing came up.  We stopped at a gas station, and I hopped out and washed the windshield.  Then I opened Benji's door to check on him, and he was covered in puke.  Poor little dude!  He looked so sad!  It was all over him; he had even gotten it in his hair.  So I walked him to the restroom in the gas station and cleaned him up and changed his clothes.  The pros: he did pee in the potty for me, and he was clean when we met up with Shelly and Shauna at Red Robin.  The cons: I ended up clogging the sink after rinsing out his clothes, and he decided to wipe his grubby little hands on my pants.  Very classy.

He did okay the rest of the way to St. George.  We had a nice dinner, and he ate his apple slices and drank his lemonade.  He didn't touch his chicken fingers, but he ate a couple of fries.  I thought that wasn't too bad, considering how yucky he was feeling.  It was fun to sit and talk to Shauna and Shelly.  I love those girls!  I can't believe we have known each other for almost 15 years.  I was roommates with both of them in college, and they are both smart and funny and cool.  We keep up with each other (by blog mostly), and usually Christmas cards.  I did send one to Shelly, but it was the wrong address.  So she didn't get one (sorry, babe).  Even so, we can just sit and talk and there isn't any pretense or weirdness.  I'm so glad I got to see them.  

While we were driving, I texted Shelly to let her know we were on our way.  She asked where we were staying tonight, and I still didn't know.  I hadn't made any arrangements yet (I'm such a slacker!), so she offered to let us stay in her Mom's basement in St. George.  I'm so glad she did, because a) it's free!, and b) Benji totally puked up his dinner in the five minutes it took us to get from Red Robin to Shelly's mom's house.  Honestly, I have never seen him puke that much.  Ever.  He looked so sad when we got him out of the car.  I took him straight in and put him in the bathtub.  Then he had his own little room to go to sleep in.  He does much better in his own room, so I'm very glad he'll get a good night's sleep tonight.  THANK YOU, SHELLY (and Kathy), er, the Adams family.  "Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike."

So now I'm sitting on the couch in the Adams' basement, typing about this crazy day.  Oh yeah--I forgot.  When I tried to brush Benji's teeth, he got one taste of the toothpaste and spewed it out.  And a lot of water, too.  It even came out of his nose.  :o(  I'm a little worried about him!  I don't know how he's going to do on the boat!  I know he's dehydrated right now, but I'm not giving him anything else by mouth until morning.  We'll have to stop at Wal-Mart and get some Gatorade and some anti-nausea medicine.  I hope they have something he can take, or patches he can use.  If not, I think we'll find an Instacare and maybe get some i.v. fluids into him.  He was pretty perky going to sleep (he likes the queen-size bed!), so I hope it will get better in the morning.  Here's hoping!  California, here we come!

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Okay, back to the vaycay overview.  And no, I didn't take any pictures on Friday or Saturday.  Sorry.

Saturday, February 25: We drove from St. George to Los Angeles, and did fairly well with time, only stopping in Primm for gas.  I finished reading The Hunger Games (Book 1) that afternoon.  We went to Tollene's house and hung out for a bit.  We went out with Dom for some karaoke, and stayed in a hotel that night.  Yes, I sang (The Scientist by Coldplay {a horrible choice for karaoke, btw} and later Don't Stop Believin' by Journey).  I'm a much better singer in my car than I am into a microphone, but it is fun.  It gets the adrenaline pumping a bit.

Sunday, February 26: We had some errands to run, then we picked up the boy and drove to the Port of Los Angeles.  We got a little lost, but I'm glad we set out early.  Allen's mom came with us, and she drove my car back to her house so we wouldn't have to pay for parking.  When we arrived at check-in, they asked us if anyone in our party had vomiting or diarrhea.  We mentioned Benji's motion-sickness puking (there was a lot of it, and I have a bit of an honesty problem), so after getting everything else settled, they put us in a side room to talk to a nurse.  It turns out that the registration gal marked vomiting and diarrhea, and when the nurse took his temperature, it was 99.7.  Gah!  I was getting worried we would miss the boat!  Eventually we convinced them that he was okay, and they let us on board.  We weren't the very last, but there weren't many people behind us.  We got to our room, then went to Guest Services and to the Oceaneer Club to discuss Benji (we missed the sail-away party).  There was a nice gal named Tess who really helped us with him and reassured us that he would be okay.  Anyway, we went to dinner at Animator's Palate and met Chatchai and Tumi, our servers.  Here's a picture of me there.  For the most part, I tried to avoid the camera (why do you think I have such a nice one?), but Sarah got this one of me.

Then Allen and I went to (a second) dinner at Palo, the adults-only restaurant.  Both meals were incredible, but Palo was outstanding (and quiet!!), even if we missed the show that night to eat there.

I didn't take many pictures on Sunday because it was such a struggle to get everything done and settled.  Here's a slideshow/link to my Sunday picture album on Picasa.



That's all I'm going to write tonight.  More to come, I assure you.