End of 2012

We have been planning a vacation for December 2012 for the last two years. Our plan was to escape a cold Utah Winter & head to sunny California to visit Disneyland for a week. I've been excited for it since the first of December & couldn't wait for it to get here. Then on Christmas, the day before we left, my 14 year old dachshund passed away. I spend almost all of Christmas day crying & trying to hide from my children so their day wouldn't be ruined. I knew that morning when we got back from my mom's house that she wouldn't be with us by the time we got back from vacation, I just didn't know it would be over that night. 

So that's how my vacation began.... then came the snow. It took us 3 extra hours to get to California because Utah decided it wanted to show us what we would be missing. Once we finally arrived in sunny California at the hotel, we realized that we had lost our envelope containing our hotel money. We have no idea where we lost it & we're still holding out hope that it will eventually be found somewhere here at home. Otherwise we made someone else $400 richer for the new year.

Then came Disneyland, apparently 200 billion other people decided that it would be a good time to get away also. Lines wrapped back and forth like huge serpentine and some of them took 3 hours or more to get through. We were literally shoulder to shoulder with perfect strangers for most of the first day. Oh, I forgot to mention that we took my parents & nephew with us on this trip. My mother doesn't like people, so imagine how excited she was to see 200 billion of them..lol. At one point while standing in line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, she actually tried to kick a guy to get him to move when the line started moving. It was kinda funny to watch.  We had planned on 2 days in Disneyland, then 1 day in San Diego visiting Sea World & Oceanside beach, then one day in L.A. visiting the California Science Center & Venice / Santa Monica Beach. Because of the weather forecast, we switched it up just a little bit & bumped Sea World up a day. Good thing, because the skies opened up on Saturday & poured the rain down on us.

Duane & I tried to be prepared and went to a Walmart in Long Beach Friday night & purchased ponchos for all of us. Who knew that we would be risking our lives by simply going to Walmart.  I think Yelp needs to add a space to say "very risky" when you search for a location. This Walmart was located in a strip mall where you had to park in a parking structure. Should have known we weren't in Kansas anymore when Duane could smell the urine as soon as he opened his door up. This store had been trashed, shelves were empty & we ended up in line behind two ladies who were higher than kites on Meth. You're asking how I know this? My husband is trained to spot it, plus they just wouldn't hold still. Kept swaying, bouncing & grabbing their kitty litter telling us it was theirs. Like we might try and steal it out of their cart. I've never been more uncomfortable or sick to my stomach while shopping in a store. I just kept thinking that no one knew where we were. We had dropped the rest of the family off at the hotel & said we were going to Walmart. Just didn't tell them we were going to the one in the ghetto.

So Disneyland got called early on Saturday because we were all tired of walking around like drowned rats & that was with the ponchos. Sunday morning I woke up and my right foot was killing me. I figured it was because we had walked over 5 miles each day prior, so I put on my shoes and headed out. I hobbled my way through the California Science Center where we got to see the Endeavour Space Shuttle up close. I truly humbling experience for me. After walking all around the museum, we headed for the Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach. By this time, I was having to lean on either Austin or Duane to walk, because my foot was on fire. However, I stuck it out and walked another 4 miles. If you've never been to Venice Beach, you have to go at least once in your life. There are people you will see there that you'll never see anywhere else in life. I think my parents were in shock & concerned a little for their grand-children's lives.  My parents have never been  there, my kids & nephew have been so they knew what to expect. It was a nice day along the ocean.

For the next two days of travel back home, I had to elevate my foot because it had swollen up nice enough that it looked like I had one big toe instead of 5. Yesterday after we got home, Austin took me over to the Urgent Care where the doctor nicely informed me that I have Gout. I thought Austin was going to bust out laughing. He thought it was pretty funny that the doctor was diagnosing me something I had just said was an old peoples problem. Welcome to being 40!!  So here's the recap of my week off work: Dog died, lost $400, almost killed in Walmart, rained out at Disneyland & last but not least, crippled by Gout.  Good thing everyone still had a good time on Vacation.

Bring on 2013!!