Trip Photos!

My baby chillin' at the 89' Ford Escort. Yes, the top of that coffee table is

made of mauve Formica, in case you were wondering.

Left and right views from the dirty windows of our room at the 89' Ford Escort

Dirty window 2.

Me being silly in....

...the cool pod bathrooms at the China Grill in the Mandalay Bay. TV included.

Too bad they were playing shitty music videos. Please note, this was after my very

large drink at the vodka bar.

The view from my in-law's living room. Pitiful, right? But really

the picture does the actual view no justice.

Thanksgiving in the "Great American Southwest", Part Four/Conclusion

Saturday at 9AM was the scheduled departure time at the Resort. Now, I don’t want to be ugly here but let me talk to you about what happened Saturday morning. First of all, Friday night was the first night all week (I believe) that the baby slept through the night. Of course, I was the lucky one to get up with her when she was up and at it at 6AM. Mom and Dad got up around 7 and let me take over. Derek insisted on sleeping “20 more minutes”. Sadly, I let him. Meanwhile packing his stuff, my stuff and baby’s stuff. Sounds pretty sucky, right? Then when I got him up he proceeded to take his time in the shower. I never got to take a shower that morning.

After much ado, we left for Vegas in Mom’s Prius at 8:55. That’s right folks, a compact car with 4 adults and a car seat for two hours makes for a sore ass.

So we get to the airport and find the short term parking after an intense lap and a half. I fucking hate Vegas taxi drivers. Yeah, they see you and they don’t give a shit. So we go inside to check in. We have to check in at the airport because we have to get an infant boarding pass to get through security. For whatever reason, priceline failed to convey our specific order to the two airlines we used (United and Delta, by the way). So we check in at the kiosk and then go to the counter to see about open seats for the baby seat and request the extra boarding pass. The first lady passes us off because we aren’t one the specific branches of Comair that she can service. So we end up down to the next person. I specifically told her that first we needed an infant boarding pass. Then I asked her if there were any open seats on the flight. Honestly, it didn’t seem like she even looked, but she said it was a booked flight. Ok, so now we need to check the carseat. So we tighten all the buckles and loose ends, etc and pass it off. When she handed us our receipts for the luggage, I didn’t see the infant pass. So I asked her again. Now she says it should have printed out with our passes at the kiosk. She didn’t really seem to know what to do so she wrote on the passes. Truth be told she was a real bitch. The end.

And now I’d like to give a California howdy to United/TWA/Comair and United Airlines. Thanks folks!

Mom and Dad walked us to the family line at the security checkpoint. I was sad to leave them behind, but we were ready to be back in the land of grass, trees and brown dirt. Lilly was a real trooper through the whole trip. She took a nice long nap on the long flight to Memphis but things got a little weird on the puddle jumper to Louisville. I dn’t know if I was showing her too much out the window, but she was a little freaked out. She could have just been tired, who knows, but she was super clingy with her daddy. We landed, got our luggage no problem. Derek and I were a little agitated with one another. Just ready to be done. I insisted on driving home. I needed the alone time. Daddy and Baby snoozed on the back seat all the way to Lexington.

When we got home I just got Baby out of the car seat, took her upstairs, changed the diaper, put on pajamas and had Daddy fix her some milk. She sucked down the milk in minutes flat. I gave her a few minutes to relax and then tried to lay her down. On a normal night before our journey, she would lay right down and fall asleep. No crying, just suck the thumb and out she’d go. But now, as I tried t put her down, she wouldn’t let go of my neck and proceeded to scream bloody murder. Daddy and I tried and tried and tried to no avail. I decided to just let her sleep on my belly on the couch, just for that night. The next night was rough too, but we decided that it would just take her a little while to readjust. So we are doing what we had to do months back and let her cry it out. She cried a little less tonight. It’ll just get better, I presume.

Yesterday, Baby and I went for groceries and spent the evening decorating the tree. I’m almost done with the mantle. I’m ready for the holidays, people! Later this week I’ll be trying my hand at a few new cookie recipes. Its on, Santa, its on!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday. Thanks for reading.

Happy Holidays,
Molly

Thanksgiving in the "Great American Southwest," Part Three

The week in the desert was excellent. Some annoying things here and there, but nothing really wacky to report on. That is, until the main event on Thursday afternoon.

Mom and Dad (in-law) invited their dearest friends over for Thanksgiving. We will call them Fred and Ginger. They split their year between Utah and Portland, Oregon. They planned well for retirement, as they both had excellent jobs, and live fabulously. Both Fred and Ginger are really sweet, especially Fred, as he seems to be the softy of the two. We all talked about interesting things over wine and champagne before dinner. It was fun, easy going, lots of hugs and kisses on the cheek and everyone loved on the baby. They even brought her a stuffed turtle (wearing a bike safety helmet). Really cute. So we eat dinner, all praising Mom for her excellence in turkey-stuffing-gravy-potatoes(me)-sweet potatoes(SIL)…all that jazz. Baby didn’t really eat much and was pretty fussy. She ended up going to bed early that night. Too bad because she was a real star earlier. But as stars do sometimes, she crashed and burned a little earlier than expected.

So we finish dinner and the party scatters around the house to different areas. Some do dishes, some watch the Broncos game, but I made the mistake of sitting too long at the table. By the end of dinner I had a nice buzz thanks so much to my sister in law who kept filling up my glass (thanks!). I’d probably had 1.5 glasses of champagne and another 2 of red wine. I wasn’t falling over in my mashed potatoes or anything, I kept it classy. But I was vibrating a little and this hindered my ability to make a good getaway. So then Ginger, mom and I are at the table and Ginger starts in on Israel. Time for an aside!

As I’ve mentioned before my husbands family is Jewish. I mention this only because usually, people who are Jewish have very strong opinions about the current state of Israel and Palestine. My in-laws and husband are an exception to the rule. I want to think that when we’ve actually discussed it (not often) that they feel both parties are to fault, etc. Which is also how I feel about it. Back to the story…

So I don’t remember how we got on the topic, but Ginger starts touting “facts” from books she’s read that have to do with how the Muslims are increasing in number around the world at a pace that will have them essentially take it over and wipe out the Jews. She even gave me a year. And she talked about how the current government isn’t doing anything to support Israel (hello, a little early!) and that Obama’s “Muslim background” is leading him to support the Arab states. And how my generation doesn’t understand how dangerous that is. I actually tried to argue with her, but she beat me back down every time. And you know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you are angry or nervous? I had it. Somehow during the conversation, Mom made a genius getaway (for her, its been there done that). But I was stuck, buzz killed, being talked at by Ginger. That being said, I can understand her passion. She’s Jewish and is obviously a conservative. Her son and his family also live in Israel, so it comes with the territory. Though throughout most of our…her conversation I wanted to run away, I also felt that she should be able to share her opinion about something she is so passionate about. Later in the evening as we said our goodbyes, she said, “I hope I didn’t bore you earlier.” I wanted so badly to tell her that her conversation was interesting, but that she should be more open to listening too. But I didn’t. I just told her how interesting it was. Everyone had pity on me later that evening. Apparently everyone but my husband and myself had sat through that before.

My nerd brother-in-law found online somewhere that the space shuttle and space station would be making a visible pass across the sky at a certain time on Thanksgiving. We all got to go outside and watch it. It was really quite wonderful.

Mom and Dad also have a hot tub, which Derek and I used 2 or 3 times. It was great at night because you could watch the stars with absolute clarity. It was almost as if we were closer to them…well, it was 7000 feet above sea level, so I guess we were. Ahhhh, geography!

One more chapter coming up….maybe with pictures too as promised before. Next, the journey home.

Thanksgiving in the "Great American Southwest", Part Two

Shortly after watching my baby ride away in a white Prius with my lovely in-laws, Derek and I head off to the Monte Carlo to hang with my sister-in-law and her husband while they check in. In the room we went around and around about where to go for dinner, but the only conclusion we came up with was that we would go get cleaned up a bit and then meet up at our hotel, the Tropicana in about an hour.

Sidebar: Just to give you an idea of what kind of hotel we were staying in, lets think of it in terms of cars. The Monte Carlo is nice, clean and modern. Lets call it a 2008 Toyota Camry. The Tropicana however, is loud, not well ventilated and the decor hasn't been updated since 1989. We'll call it an 89' Ford Escort with about 250,000 miles on it. But the breakfast buffet has really good eclairs. Oh, and this is where Wayne Newton has decided to perform his last shows in Vegas before retiring. Really Wayne? You couldn't find a better place to go out? I digress.

So Dana and Pat meet us at the 89' Ford Escort around 4:30PM. We decide to walk across the street to the Excalibur and start there, then work our way down the strip to the Mandalay Bay so we can check out The Red Bar. The Red Bar is a Vodka bar in the Mandalay Bay, with a communist theme, where the bar is actually made of ice. Perfect for serving vodka. We went in and it was not busy at all. They had some really neat stuff. Next we headed to the China Grill so we could check out their famed bathrooms, which are individual pods that are odly placed at the front of the restaurant. Each has its own TV. Yipee! See my picture below.

The whole evening kind of went like that. Wander here, wander there. We decided to eat at Spago (one of Wolfgang Puck's many, many, many restaurants on the Vegas Strip) which resides in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. We all ate grandly and wandered back to the Bellagio to watch the fountains. Derek was pretty much ready to retire after that. We'd probably walked about 8-10 miles, so we were pretty wiped out. Sadly it was only about 9PM. We realized that we probably should have taken an nap and started later that evening, but hey, live and learn. We had a good evening either way. We saw lots of cool things, weird people, fancy people, homeless people and got to spend quality time together.

So on the very long journey back to our 89' Ford Escort, we have to walk past a huge construction area. This really drunk guy gets behind us and is grunting and pounding on the wooden wall protecting us from the construction. I was afraid he was going to either do something violent or projectile vomit all over us. Derek held my hand we walked as fast as we could, but really couldn't get around anyone. We were stuck. He eventually dropped back. The end. Sleep was interrupted multiple times by more drunk people next door. Constantly coming and going and talking very loudly. The end.

Next morning we decided to visit a few casinos that Dana and Pat hadn't seen before, the Venetion and the Wynn. Both incredible, both sprawling.

Then came the drive to Ivins, UT. See, you have to drive down these long stretches of desert to get here and the wind feels like its going to blow you off of the road. It sucks hard for the first 30 minutes or so. And I don't particularly love my brother-in-laws driving. He's more used to it so he goes pretty fast. I managed to keep my mouth shut and the eye rolling to a minimum. Sometimes I just closed my eyes and waited for it to pass. To get to Ivins you hop on I15 and travel through Nevada, New Mexico and finally into Utah. Its only about two hours. We get off on some back roads for the last 30 minutes or so. This part is pretty amazing because its like driving through mars, interspersed with some old mud brick buildings/homes (western history, people!) and indian reservation land (really poor and depressed). Shivuwitz, I believe.

When we walked through the door my baby squealed with delight...and I cried again. Hey, its just who I am.

To be continued...Pictures up next!

Thanksgiving in the "Great American Southwest", Part One

So we get to the Louisville airport and check in to the airline that gave us the good deal on tickets. The guy at the counter is half talking to us and half talking on his cell phone. We check in at the kiosk (because that’s how you do it these days) and check our two bags. But I forget to check the baby chair. So the guy gets off his personal call and says he’d be happy to check the car seat. That being said, there were lots of open seats on both of our flights, why not take it with us and see if they can move us to some empty seats and use the car seat instead of holding the baby. Huh, we thought, that’s not such a horrible idea. I had a little trepidation, but we decided to go for it. So, here’s what we had to carry through the airport: my carry-on backpack (heavy), husbands carry-on shoulder bag, Lilly in stroller and the giant carseat. Let me tell you how much fun that was. So then they start calling passengers for our first flight (to O’Hare Int’l) and they don’t call people with babies first. We’re freaking out because we end up being the last folks on the plane and the plane is small AND you have to walk down the jet way and out side to get on the plane. That’s how small it was. I end up being the one trying to get the carseat to the back of the plane, which happens to be much larger than the space between the rows of seats and people’s heads and shoulders.

Are you exhausted yet? Because I sure fucking am.

So we move towards the back of the plane, last row even, and this guy is still standing up behind us with all of his things and I ask if this is his seat and he says yes but asks if we would like him to sit in the other empty seats. Yes, please and thank you. Then I can’t figure out how to get the carseat locked in to the airplane seat. We figure that out right before we take off. Lilly fell asleep and slept most of the way to Chicago.

It pretty much doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, what day of the week it is, or what time of the day it is. It is always busy at O’Hare. I’ve been in it many times in my life, travelling from wherever I’m living (STL, Nashville), to home in WV. Its huge and unforgiving. But the people you see are interesting. And its always fun to be in the place that has been in so many movies I watched during my childhood. Thank you John Hughes. But this time we had a baby with us. Lilly was wired and ready to run and play and do what she wanted to do. I can understand how frustrating it would be for her. She’s tired but she’s in this loud, busy, bustling place so hey, lets get this party started. But mommy wants to hold her still, in her hot tight grip and she is absolutely not having anything to do with that. No way, no thank you, no mommy. And everyone got to watch as I struggled with her alone, in line to board the plane while daddy begged the ticket counter agent to move someone so that we’d have a place for our very large car seat during the four hour flight to Las Vegas. Did I mention that it was a four hour flight? Four hours. Oh, and it was pretty much booked solid. That guy in Louisville was either high or full of horse shit, the later I think. Fuck you, guy in Louisville, fuck you.

So we get on the plane and learn that a very nice lady has agreed to move to a different seat so we can use the car seat. Thank you, very nice lady, thank you. Lilly kicked the person in front of her for about ten minutes before finally konking out and getting some sleep. She slept the whole way to Vegas. We managed to schlep all of our crap out to the shuttle service and get to the hotel. I found some milk at the sundry store and we all fell fast asleep. Lilly had lots of milk that night and that’s ok.

What I've learned so far about air travel is that no one cares that you are travelling with a kid (let alone a really cute one like ours). Its up to you to navigate it all, do not expect any favors from anyone.

The next day we slept in, ordered some room service (cold and subpar) and awaited the in-laws arrival to the hotel. We had lunch at Greenbergs Deli at the New York, NY. I had the best ruben I’ve ever had. Then we went to see the Lion exhibit at the MGM Grand and Lilly got to see some baby cubs snoozing with a trainer. She loved it. After that, we headed back to the cars where I let my baby travel back to Utah with the in-laws. I cried, but only for a second.

To be continued…

Update: The Annoying Backpack

Here's what I just returned (imagine this in light green): Here's what I bought in its place (imagine this in a nice olive green):

Tadaa! Compulsion resolved. For today.

The Annoying Backpack

(Please note: the underlying message in this post is me justifying spending money on a backpack. )

We have a large journey coming up that will take us to Vegas and eventually St. George, Utah for the week of Thanksgiving (that’s next week for those of you not keeping up with your holiday countdown). I have been shopping for a backpack for the last month. I have backpacks, but they are old, not airport-user friendly, etc. I’ve determined that the backpack needs to have certain qualities, lets discuss.
1. Large - I need one that will carry all necessary items but will get through security and doesn’t need to be pulled on wheels. It needs to go on my back, hence the name “backpack.”
2. Multiple compartments - I need one will have the following compartments
a. Small-Medium front section: Wallet and small personals
b. Baby section: large enough to contain diapers, wipes, changing pad and extra set of clothes
c. Mama section: Large enough to carry snacks, extra shirt, books/mags, and laptop if possible (not totally necessary, but would be nice)
d. Side pocket: for water bottle
e. Media pocket: for ipod (not totally necessary, would be nice)
3. Comfortable to carry: I need large, padded straps because this will likely be somewhat heavy. I have many large uncomfortable backpacks I could use, so lets make this one at least appealing.
4. Color: so long as it isn’t camouflage or Hello Kitty, I don’t really care what color it is.

Justification: I don’t think it unreasonable to purchase a new backpack. I am a student and something practical would be nice for use as I start taking more classes in the evenings and weekends. So its something that I will use for sure.

What I bought last night: so last night, I broke down and bought the $13 Eastpack from the Walmarts. Although it has almost everything I want, and is a nice color, its cheaply made. So that means I’ll probably get about 9 months of use. I mean lets be real: its plastic and made in China for school age kids that will use it for the 9 month school season (see: or falls apart).

The result of writing this post: I’ve decided that I’m going to go to Marshalls’ tonight (yay, another trip out…) to see what nice backpack I can find. If I find a nicer one for around $30, I’ll get it and take back the crappy Walmart version. If not, I’ll use this one until it falls apart.

Random Thoughts: November Edition!

“No Betty, no! Don’t do it!” Betty Draper kicks Don to the curb on Mad Men for sleaze-ball politician Joe Francis.

“Well, isn’t that just great. Oh well, I’ll just do it” Seeing that my husband didn’t finish his half of the dishes last night.

“Please don’t gag.” Upon giving Petit Bebe her first dried cranberry. She loved it…them.

"Wow, just like that.” Realizing how easily Lilly’s mood improved with a few sips of milk and some graham crackers.

“Pull it together, Jane.” Standing in the kitchen on Sunday morning, cooking pancakes, listening to Bing Crosby sing Faith of our Fathers and crying my eyes out. I was thinking of my grandpa, who won’t be with us this year at Christmas.

“Yep, you should be in bed.” Seeing a zombie kid in the actual shopping basket of the cart at Walmart last night around 9:30PM. He was sitting up on his knees just staring out. It was weird.

“Well, try being told constantly that you look like Bing Crosby.” Overheard last night at Target. Yes, I was at Target and Walmart last night trying to find a stupid, stupid backpack for this trip.

“Typical.” My thoughts after I slammed the right side of my body into a heavy glass door while walking a candidate to his next interview this morning.

"Just get it and move on with your life." Me, over and over in my head last night, agonizing over choosing a decent backpack for our long journey west. More on this soon.

"Booooooo" to Blogger a few minutes ago not loading my post and (Not Responding).

Santy Claws

Mom and Dad came down from WV this weekend to play. Translation: Dad helped us with some projects around the house and mom watched the baby. Dad and I made a banister for the stairs. He's a contractor but his favorite thing is wood working (cabinets, furniture, etc.) and he's fabulous at it. The open section on the stairs only goes about a third of the way up, so thats where it went. Its really beautiful. It needs stained/varnished and a few other little things, but I'm going to tackle that on my own. I've done it before, no big whoop. We also patched some holes in the wood siding made by some evil wood peckers and squirrels. We used bondo, which is normally used to patch holes in cars. Its awesome. We painted it to match the siding. Tadaa! It'll have to work until we can afford to put new siding up. We also replaced the water heater. I thought that was going to suck more than it did. But we did it and we now have hot water all the time! Yay!

Saturday night after baby went down and dinner was eaten, Mom took me shopping for some clothes for Christmas. We went to Macy's, a place I normally don't wander into because I've never really gotten past the pricey designer section. But we did and I found the less expesive, normal department store section. It was fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. I even found some new blue jeans. My mom's the best. She's real patient and won't rest until we've found the right fit, style or size. Its not as miserable an experience as it was when I was younger. I'm very real about how things fit on my body and what works and doesn't. There's no point getting upset about sizes, etc. I just want to look and feel nice when I leave the house. And we had a blast together.

So I have a monster test today that I think I'm relatively ready for. I've been studying since last weekend. My reward for studying and testing will be to put up the Christmas tree tonight. Just the tree and lights. I'll put the decorations on it tomorrow night. Bebe is going to go Kukoo bananas tomorrow when I show her. I realize you might think it too early for a tree, but I've decided that I don't care what you think. I have logical reasons. I'd explain, but that would insinuate that I care what you think. Its a very large tree, so I'll be pretty worn out by the time I get the lights on. I'll post some pics, then you'll be in the mood too!

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!
Molly

The Dance

In my new job, I get the mail for all the areas of the cancer center. What that means is that I take a rolling cart from our mail room to the post office in the basement of the hospital and then back up to put mail in their respective boxes. I kind of do this dance with my mail cart and the doors. I don’t have someone there to open the doors for me, so I push the doors open with my hips and swing around with the cart, etc. Its kind of fun.

I get to the post office by going down the elevator one floor and then following the underground hallways to the hospital. On my way I pass Radiation and the Nuclear Medicine clinics. As I pass I can see into the waiting rooms for Radiation and Nuclear Medicine. I can also sometimes see into the actual clinic rooms where patients are being treated. My eyes are wide open because I’m curious nursing student, not because I want to be nosy or disrespectful. I usually try to avert my eyes when passing the clinic rooms, but when I get to the NucMed waiting room, I look. Its interesting for me to see just how busy they are, how old everyone is, how the patients look, etc.

Earlier this week I witnessed something incredibly heavy (no big surprise, this being the cancer center). It’s mostly always heavy in the patient areas. Cancer is a monster. Period. Anyways, I was doing my little dance, listening to my iPod and I passed the NucMed clinic. But this time I see a relatively young couple, mid thirties maybe, and they are slouched against each other. The man was awake and had his hand to his head, just looking up blankly and stressed. The woman was asleep, her head resting on her husband’s chest, both looking worse for wear. But her feet are what caught my eyes. Her feet were resting on a stroller that was empty, save a black bag that looked like it carried some sort of medical equipment. The only way for me to interpret this is that their very young child was in receiving treatment. That’s just the reality of the beast. Cancer doesn’t care how old our young you are.

No Vegetables.

Husband, Petit Bebe and I decided that we would go to the Number 1 China Buffett for dinner on Saturday night. Its clean, well managed and the food is really good. So I'm fixing a plate for myself and I over hear the following conversation happening.

Lady: "Do you work here?"

Employee: "Uh, yes"

Lady: "Can you grill this?"

This is the point at which I look up expecing to see some peice of meat or vegetables that perhaps she wants to be cooked more thoroughly. But what I see is her holding a plate of white rice. This is when I decide to look away. My immediate reaction is embarrassment.

Employee: (clearly not understanding) "Uh, no?"

Lady: "I just want this cooked like fried rice, but no vegetables. Can you do that?"

Employee: "Uh, ok."

Lady: "Just fried but I don't want any vegetables."

Employee: "Ok. You want egg too?"

Lady: "Uh, yeah, just a little."

Now, I don't watn to seem ugly, but this lady look like the image of true health. So just to reiterate what our country is coming to, this lady wanted them to take some steamed white rice and add some oil to it. Oh, and some egg. Oil and egg. WTF?

Pity Party!

My name is Molly and I have a lot on my plate. Let me tell you about it.
1. Full time job
2. A baby
3. A husband
4. A myriad of hobbies that get neglected (listed below)
5. I’m taking a class that will hopefully help get me into Nursing School

Now let me give you a run-down of a typical day for me:
1. 5:00AM – Get up and work out for 30 minutes
2. 6:00AM – Get Derek up and in the shower/Get baby up, changed and dressed
3. 6:25AM – Pass off baby and take shower/get ready for work
4. 6:45AM – Hurry up and fix coffee and breakfast for the road while baby fusses at me from the Pack N Play or while daddy sighs and holds fussy baby (continually trying to hurry me along)
5. 7:03AM – Load everyone/thing in the car and head on down the road
6. 7:30AM – Drop baby off at day care
7. 7:45AM – Arrive at work
8. 8:00 – 11:30AM – Work
9. 11:30 – 12:30PM – Lunch
10. 12:30-1:50PM – Work
11. 2:00-2:50PM – Class
12. 3:00-5:00PM – Work
13. 5:00-5:30PM – Car ride home
14. 5:30PM -7:00PM – Love on the baby, get baby changed, make baby dinner, feed baby, love on the baby, play or go for walk with baby, bathe baby, love on the baby, give baby bottle and put baby down for the night.
15. 7:00PM – Start working on dinner for mommy and daddy
16. 7:30PM – Eat dinner and begin the process vegetating until bedtime.
17. 9:30PM – Bed. Time. Usually.

I have a list of hobbies that I’ve collected over the years that get neglected due to the above schedule…or my short attention span.
1. Quilting
2. Crocheting
3. Writing
4. Reading trashy novels (like the True Blood or Stephanie Plumb series’)
5. Creating awesome websites
6. Blogging
7. Day dreaming
8. Reading up on religion
9. Shopping
10. Cooking (see: eating)
11. Baking (see: eating)
12. Exercising
13. Photography
14. Watching movies
15. Listening to music
16. Playing music
17. Spending time with family (this one is my favorite and I’m grateful for that.)

These are things that are currently on my TO DO list:
1. Put check for mortgage in the mail.
2. Make hotel reservations in Vegas
3. Order mom and dad’s Christmas presents on Amazon (and think of some additional, more meaningful things)
4. Assemble veggie lasagna for dinner (check!)
5. Find a good travel backpack for adventure to Las Vegas/Utah
6. Get this blog posted (Check!)