I'm leavin'... on a jet plane...

... well, to be honest, I SHOULD say I'm leavin' on a Virgin Train! *lol*

Hubby and I are going off for a "dirty weekend" (as they call it here) to York!!!

I've been wanting to do this for YEARS! When we first planned on moving here, Hubby said that he'd take me away for a weekend once we got settled and show me more of Britain. Welllll... things didn't quite turn out the way we had thought they would, and we just couldn't. Couldn't afford to. Then, a year and a half ago when our marriage nearly broke up, I wanted to do it, as a way to try to save our marriage. He wouldn't.

Now we've been here nearly 4 years, and finally we're doing it.

I'm so excited I can't even describe it. We've been married nearly 8 years, and we have never - EVER - had so much as 24 hours without the children around. Our "honeymoon" was spent in my mother's house with the kids in the room next door. Our vacation to Colorado back in '01 was spent with all 5 of us (Chloe was conceived on that vacation) in the same hotel room. Finally, for the first time in our marriage, we will be completely A-L-O-N-E!!!!!

Of course, I have to admit, part of me is a little apprehensive about it too. BECAUSE we've never been completely alone. Will we run out of things to say to each other and end up spending our time in awkward silences? I hope not, but I have to be honest and say that it's at the back of my mind.

Of course we're not going to be spending the entire day cooped up in our room. We're going to do things and see things. Shoot, if all we wanted to do was spend a weekend in a hotel room, there's one down the road we could use! *lol* Part of the whole POINT of this is to do some sight-seeing. A mini-vacation, if you will.

But it'll be nice to know we don't have to rush home to let Vicci get back to her house, and that we can do whatever we want without having to worry about the kids at all. They'll all be here at home, as safe as they could possibly be.

I've got loads to do before we go, but I'm so happy I can't even tell ya!

Practical jokes... already!!!!

I couldn't stop laughing when I heard this.

Lexi





was trying to wake up Caitlin

only Caitlin was having none of it.

So Lexi - being the little evil genius that she is - had a "great" idea. She went and found one of the 9V batteries that are floating around the house. (I swear, those things must multiply or something. I find one and put it away and then I turn around and there it is again! Either they have some sort of teleportation powers or they're multiplying!) She goes up to Caitlin - who apparently had her mouth hanging open while she was sleeping - and sticks the battery on her tongue - connectors down, of course.

BUZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!

You bet your arse Caitlin finally got up!!!!

*LOLOLOLOL*

I couldn't believe it. How the hell did she even THINK of that? She's only 6!!

Methinks I better keep her on my good side. When she's older and even smarter than she is now, I shudder to think of all the nasty practical jokes this kid might come up with!!

Unforgettable Moments, Part 1: Oh My God Road

I got to thinking about this after a conversation with my hubby regarding an upcoming camping trip of his.

It was the summer of 1992. I was 16, and my "Mom" (Grandma, who raised me, thus earning the title) and I had flown out to Colorado to visit my aunt Denise. We drove to Central City and spent the day there. It was full of casinos, but "Mom" and I found some other things to do. We browsed in antique shops, we visited a museum, and we even took a little tour of the local church, which had been there since the town was founded. My aunt Denise and aunt Bernadette both spent a few hours in the casinos.

So we get ready to leave and go back to Denise's apartment, and the parking lot attendant tells us about this "shortcut," out the "back way." "It'll shave off almost an hour of travel time for you," he says (or something to that effect anyway - what do you want from me? That was 15 years ago!!!). So we, being the fools we were, say "Great! Let's go!"

Oh. My. God.

See that twisting line on the photo above? That's not a natural tree line, that's the road. And we started waaaaaaaay up at the top. It's not even IN this photo.

Every time Denise turned the wheel, my "Mom," my aunt Bernadette, and I would scream "OH MY GOD," because we were SURE Denise was going to drive us right off the mountain. To say it was a "harrowing" experience wouldn't even do it justice. We SERIOUSLY thought we were going to die.

So we get down to the bottom, and we stop in the first gas station we come to (in that town there in the photo). We all get out and hit the bathroom, because we nearly pissed ourselves. *lol* Then we go in, and we're talking about our near-death experience when the gas station attendant pipes up. "Y'all come down the mountain?" he asks. "Yeah," we tell him. And then we proceed to tell him how we nearly died of a heart attack. "Well," he says, "you know it's called Oh My God Road, don'tcha?"

What?!?!

He whipped out one of his maps and showed us - sure enough, the road's ACTUAL name is Oh My God Road.

To this day, I don't know what's worse. Actually driving down the road, or finding out afterwards that somebody way back when had the cheek to CALL it Oh My God Road!!!! *lol*