Sulley Does Chicago

William wanted me to take Sulley on my trip to Chicago. So - here's a summary of day one:

I wrote a blog post on the flight and then my computer died. So - ill Re-write it tomorrow. Should be better the second time right? For now I just need this plane to find a gate so I can GO SEE MY AUNT!!!!!!

My Royal Heiness

Have I shared my potential trace of royal blood yet? If not - ill share the lineage another day but there is a very high probability that I am a direct descendent of Queen Victoria. True story! However, the royal family banished the descendent. Very sad.

When the royal baby was born my coworker and I had this conversation:

Sean: so did you get a personal call with birth info?

Me: well, William was too busy to call but Harry called me to tell me.

Sean: oh yeah? That's exciting. You must be so excited.

Me: eh, ya know - its just like my third cousin second removed, so we're not that close.

Sean: oh - I thought as far as the royal family was concerned you were just removed once.

He cut me deep.

Relay Friday

I didn't update last week for fear of over loading everyone. We still have a month until relay so I didn't want to run everyone off! And now I'm posting a day early because with Addie in town and tomorrow being our birthday, I don't want to forget to post!

We've been moving in the right direction - that's for sure! Last week we had our first fundraiser night at Buffalo Wild Wings. I'm afraid the wait staff didn't get all of the tickets allocated to relay, but that's ok. I don't have a total $ yet, but hopefully I will soon. We may have another one, we'll see how this one went.

We now have 15 teams and we are over halfway to our fundraising goal. Our official goal is $15,000 but I'd really love to see it over $20,000!!! Team WTB has reached our $1,000 goal but I'd love for that to be above our $3,000(ish???) from last year. So we've got a ways to go but we've also got time. I'm so excited at the prospect of clearing our goal.

I know I was never meant to be a sales person or telemarketer - I hate asking people for stuff. That's why tomorrow I'm dragging Addie on a few relay errands in hopes that she'll help me gain some bold confidence. I need to go to Starbucks, Costco, the donut shop and possibly target. I hope it goes well!!! I recruited a new team today so I have to go deliver some paperwork to them. Addie will be so excited :)

We also now have an entertainment chairperson Which is HUGE. Last year I ended up thinking of impromptu games to spark interest during the dull moments, and I don't think ill have time for that this year! Not only that, but that's probably not my strong suit either. So I'm so excited to have a chair person who can take over the DJ, games and scheduling of our entertainment. I believe we have a few fitness instructors who want to donate their time for hour-long classes, a dance group, and possibly a Zumba class...so I'm glad to have someone to get all of that in line.

I think that's about all on the updates. Wish me luck as I go solicit money and involvement from local businesses, and stay tuned next Friday when my post will focus on my favorite part of all!

Some People Feel Like Home

About a month ago Jodi emailed me and told me she'd be coming to California for a conference. She wasn't sure if it was in Sacramento or San Diego, she'd heard conflicting stories, but she wondered if she could see me. Well, there's about a 10+ hour distance between those two cities and I live somewhere on between, so I told her if it was Sacramento I could definitely swing it. She booked her flight to land Saturday morning rather than Sunday night and we quickly started counting down the days.

If you don't remember, I met Jodi a few months after we moved to Colorado and, along with Kaila, we had an instantaneous trio of fun. We hit it off from the start and we always talked about how it felt like we'd been friends forever - or at least we felt like we were made to be friends. Of all the things that made leaving Colorado hard, Jodi and Kaila rank at the top of that list. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out I was just a short 2 hour drive away from seeing her!

Sometime the week before her arrival I found out it was actually a 3-3.5 hour drive. But did I care? Not in the slightest. I just scheduled my Saturday morning run a little earlier, took a fast shower and hit the road around 9:00. 3 hours later my arms were wrapped around Jodi's neck and 4 hours after that we found ourselves enjoying the cloudy sunset at pebble beach. 

We spent the evening laughing at memories, talking about life as if we see each other daily, planning trips for the next 64 years and ensuring there would be bagpipers at our funerals.

Sunday we went to church where Jodi filled in as a volunteer at kids church with us - the coordinator loved her! Then we spent the afternoon at the aquarium before making our way back up to Sac (that's what the locals call it!)

Our drive back to Sacramento was just as fun as the rest of our time - laughing and talking like the best of friends. We had dinner downtown where we were almost certain we were going to be mugged for our leftovers (Sacramento is a little sketch) and we hugged goodbye with tear filled eyes in the hotel lobby.

Traffic on the way back was horrendous. I counted the hours and I spent 14.5 hours driving in a 40 hour window, and I got home at 1:00am on a Sunday night. And you know what? If Jodi called and said she would be back in Sac next weekend I'd do it all again. It was well worth the time, miles and gas to see her even if only for a day. Some people just have that special ability to make you feel like you're home, no matter where you are.

William Wednesday

With relay just a month away and my weekends packed from now until Labor Day, my mind is running rampant and I'm having trouble remembering what has happened over the last week. Has nothing to do with my impending old age I swear! I'll attempt to give the week a recap.

William is loving his tide pool class. He is learning a lot and loves to tell us about it. He had outgrown his old class long before they moved him which turned out to be very trying. But he's doing much better in tide pools! Most days when I go to pick him up I can't even believe he's one of the big kids I see on the playground.

Austin started playing on his company softball team in the base intramural league. Last week we went to two of his games and William loves to go cheer for him. He thinks anytime Austin scores it means he hit a home run, so we've got some logistics to cover, but he loves to cheer him on. He's a pretty big fan of spectator sports.

He is still a little sponge at church and I had lots of proud mommy moments last week. On Thursday Austin found out from Ms Ariana that William tells everyone at school about God and Jesus. Amazing! He also reminds me that we need to pray for his days sometimes on the way to school, or pray for his sleep when we're getting ready for bed. He's not the perfect child and we make lots of mistakes as his parents, but this sure makes the other stuff fade into the back ground.

What would you do?

Saturday I was driving to Sacramento when I found myself unsure of where I was. I had never driven that far north in California  so it was all new territory. I didn't even realize how far north it was going to be :) I was driving through Vacaville when I noticed a few street signs that made me feel like I was somewhere else...

There was also a Texas Roadhouse and a BBQ place named 'ol Jim's Texas BBQ'. Where was I?!

While I was enjoying pretending I was somewhere other than Vacaville, CA I noticed out of the corner of my eye a man in the car next to me trying to get my attention. I tried to ignore it at first - I generally don't respond to people while driving 75mph on the freeway, but eventually I had to look. I wish I had looked sooner! I looked over just in time to see him pulling his aTm hat back inside his sunroof. He saw me look over and got excited, waving his hat some more and showing the 'gig 'em' thumbs up. 

So what did I do to reciprocate?  i excitedly honked 'hullabaloo canek canek' in the middle of Vacaville traffic. What else could I do?! 

Apparently if you look hard enough (or pay attention when people are flagging you down) you'll find a little bit of home no matter where you are.

Relay, July 4th and other stuff

Happy belated Independence Day! I thought about blogging on the day, but I was enjoying my holiday with my boys! My half marathon running partner and I ran a 10k at a July 4th festival in salinas that morning and Austin was signed up to take William on the 5k walk. 

He ended up doing a 5k run because he didn't like walking with all the 'slow people' so he finished in plenty of time to see me cross the finish line. And, because we were in the salad bowl of America and the sponsor of the run was one of the biggest produce providers here, we got a back of greens and vegetables as we crossed the finish line!

After we left the big party the boys crashed and took a nap before we headed to the neighbors' house for dinner and fun.

I didn't do as well in the run as I would have liked but I did ok. I finished in 57 minutes and my goal for the half marathon is 2 hours. At that pace I'd have 6 minutes to go the final .7 miles. So it's almost the exact pace I need - but this race was completely flat and the half marathon is...not. Yuck. Last Saturday we ran 10 miles with 2 being straight uphill and another 1 being rolling hills before we headed back down. It was more challenging than the race will be, except for the additional 3.1 miles to add on, but again - my times wasn't where I want it to be. I hope I can pick up the pace over the next month because I finally feel like my body is on board with the running itself. I think next Saturday is 10 miles again so hopefully I can see some improvement. Or maybe it's supposed to be 12? Yikes. Wish me luck!

Things are continuing to rock and roll with Relay. When I say I'm bursting with excitement that doesn't even BEGIN to explain my enthusiasm. We had a team captain meeting this week which went well. The ideas for our birthday party theme are coming along great and the teams seem to be jumping on board. I arranged an event fundraiser for this Tuesday night at Buffalo Wild Wings and everyone is REALLY excited for that. Especially Austin's soldiers. We are having a team meeting there that night but I think some soldiers want to go twice that day. I love the progress we are making and the direction it's headed. This will be a busy month - I think I'm blowing up my staff partner's email with questions and ideas and updates...I hope she doesn't ask to be removed from seaside next year :) But it's coming along great.

I had made a goal to cross over $5,000 on July 3rd. Our relay's goal is $15,000 so I wanted to say we were over 1/3 of the way there. And on the morning of the 4th we did it! I think now we are at roughly $5,250. Team WTB is at $385 so I'd like to see that number grow (our team goal is $1,000 but truly I'd like it to be $3,000 to match last year) but I'm happy with the overall success of our relay. And with a month to go - I think we can get there.

My birthday is in 2 weeks. The countdown to the end of my 20's will begin. I can't believe it! I've had a few people ask me what I want for my birthday and honestly - I want my relay to do well. I want our team to raise more money than last year. I LOVE purses and shoes and jewelry and clothes - and I might actually be able to use the word 'need' loosely when referring to clothes. But what I'd really love to see is for our relay to surpass our expectations. If you are someone who generally gets me a gift and was thinking 'what will I give her?' - I just made it super easy for ya. Just go to www.relayforlife.org/seasideca and find Team WTB. The best gift I could receive would be for you to help me honor the memory of my dad. 

I think that rounds out my update through Friday. I can't wait to write about my exciting 48 hours with Jodi. Or maybe it's only 30 hours? I don't even care. It's well worth it.

What can you say?

It's not Wednesday but this story is too good to wait.

About a month ago William and I were sitting in the backyard eating dinner. I was having a glass of wine and William asked if he could have some. I responded by pointing at his head and saying, 'see this? That's you're brain. Your brain is growing and wine is not good for that'. He accepted my explanation (shocking!) and dropped it. 

A week or so went by and we found ourselves eating dinner outside again. I was having another glass of wine. William pointed to my head and said, 'see this? You have no brain so you can have wine'. I was speechless!!! What do you even say?

But wait. It gets even better. Remember, that was a month ago. Fast forward to last night.

Austin and I had margaritas with dinner and William asked if he could have some of our juice. I said 'no its not juice, it's a margarita. Margarita is kind of like wine, you can't have any'. He responded by saying, again, that we have no brains. Austin thought it was funny the first time but apparently doesn't want his son under the impression he has no brain, so he Explained that we have brains they're just done developing. Then William came up with this:

When I am bigger my brain will be done growing and I will drink margarita. And wine. And beer!

I replied with a chuckle and said 'yes, you can' and he said 

A LOOOOOOOOT!

Oh boy.

Uh Oh - It Happened

I was almost certain it wouldn't happen.  I told myself I wouldn't even have to fight it; there's no way it would happen.  Not here.  Not in California.  No way.

And yet, somewhere between church and the gym, tax season and football season, somewhere in the midst of Relay planning and lost in the jumble of the last 13 months it happened.  I woke up today and realized it had happened.

This place feels like home.

This is a special feeling.  I was so so so certain it wouldn't happen and I was unsure whether that was good or bad.  

It's good to feel temporary.  It's good to feel displaced.  It's good to keep things at arm's length so as never to have to pull up your roots and dust off the dirt as you drag them away.  It's good to maintain casual relationships knowing they'll end very, very soon.  It's good to know that you could walk away from your house at any moment without looking back or even the slightest pang of sadness in your side.  The life of a wanderer.

I am almost anything but a wanderer, but for the better part of 13 months I really thought I had put on those shoes.  And I liked it!  Leaving Colorado was hard for me and I don't know how many departures I have left.  Keeping things at a distance seemed safe and ironically secure.

Problem is: it's not me.

I'm sometimes slow to love.  I'm sometimes slow to open up.  I'm never slow to speak, but I'm generally slow to dig in and get messy.  I guess that's how it was with building a home too.  I thought I'd washed myself of the need to feel rooted when really I just didn't remember the process.

In any case, I woke up today and realized this is home.  Our church is home.  My job is home.  Our friendships which stretch from my work to his work to William's school to our neighborhood to the gym - they are home.  We are home.

It's wonderful, but its scary.  Because even though I have still have the ability to attach myself and build a home, I have the knowledge that it will be over.  I'll wake up tomorrow and the movers will be taking our things and I will wonder what life was even like before California.  I will wonder how I ever loved another job, house, scenic view or home.  We may not agree politically...or socially...or economically...or damn near at all, but somehow California has become my home.

As Casey would say, I'm a Texifornian.  And I'm...proud???...of it.