10 Best Moments From My Weekend With The In-laws

Thursday - 12.13.12

I know it's long over due and this post has taken me almost two weeks to write! So here it is! Over the holiday weekend we went up to my sister-in-laws house in mid California. It's become a family tradition to celebrate our anniversaries since ours, my sis-n-laws and my parent-n-laws all fall in the last 3 months of the year, not to mention everyone has that weekend off work.

So we do a big gift exchange when we go up there and let me tell you, my children are not by any means deprived as some people think they are because we don't celebrate the holiday's.  These kids made out like bandits!

Anyway, there's one thing that can't be denied, this family knows how to have good old fashion fun. Not to mention were all a little crazy so there's never any doubt we'll be laughing at someone making a fool of themselves, usually me. There are quite a few character's in this post, so if you forget who's who, check out my character page. Without further ado the 10 best moments from my weekend with the in-laws!

1. Oh crap where'd it go?
The first morning there, I wake up after sleeping on a traditional deflating air mattress.  I grab my sweatshirt because putting on a bra to be in front of my in-laws is just to much work. As I go to zip up my hoody I notice a spider crawling up the sleeve. I HATE SPIDERS!!!! I scream and start swinging my arms around like a wild woman, trying to hit it on my pants. My husband, who's still laying on the mattress is starring at me and calmly (with a smile on his face) say's "That was good, now you don't know where it went." Now I'm freaking out ripping the jacket off, practically stripping down and running my fingers through my hair in a very crazy fashion to insure I didn't fling it up there. Frantically I search the bed, ripping the blankets off the bed and my husband. Yep no where to be found, I had to sleep in that room for two more nights...


2. I don't want to open gifts!
Like I mentioned we do a huge gift exchange while we are there. Mostly to celebrate our anniversaries but also to shower the kids in gifts. This was the first year The Dormouse was old enough to understand what was going on. We sat her and The March Hare down in front of all the gifts and let them have first dibs at opening a present. The March Hare was quick to rip the wrapping paper off his first gift, while The Dormouse ran in the other room whining that she didn't want to open gifts! What kind of kid doesn't want to open gifts!!! I grabbed her, sat her down next to me on the couch and put a gift in her lap. She quickly pushed it away, folding her arms, huffing "I don't want too!" So I started opening it for her, needless to say as soon as she saw pink inside the wrapping she was all for whatever was inside!

Only half of the presents!

3. Help!
While we are opening gifts The Dormouse declares she needs to go potty. She jumps up, runs in the bathroom and slams the door closed. We carry on with our business. About five minutes go pass and I see Bill the Lizard in the hallway by the bathroom door, then The Cook joins him. She's knelt down talking to the the door. I decide it's time for mom to investigate, as I get closer I hear The Cook telling The Dormouse on the other side of the closed door to turn the lock. Yes, she managed to lock herself inside the bathroom! I'm not the type of mom that panics so I'm softly talking to her, coaching her through what to do while a frantic Bill (they don't have any kids) is trying to find a tiny, long enough screw driver to fit in the door lock. Once the door was opened all I could think is I bet she does it again before we leave. She didn't, but still insist on playing with the lock when I take her to public restrooms.

4. Clever gift ideas
I can't believe I planned a gift a month before needed to give it! I made these fun succulent gardens for The Cook and Tweedle Mom, not to mention I made one for my own home as well. I made them from scratch, spend a day in downtown Los Angeles buying all the supplies including the plants. They were very easy to put together and not terribly expensive thanks to LA. If you need a gift idea for someone who likes gardening these are great! They don't require much care, a quick spritzing one a month or so and they are good!

5. Photo Sharing
We seem to convene each day by sitting at the kitchen table drinking our coffee. This particular morning there is me, Tweedle Mom, Tweedle Dad, The Mad Hatter and The Cook in the kitchen (no pun intended) and instead of everyone reading the newspaper, all of us are on our phones sharing funny pic's we found on Pinterest & Instagram. The Cook has a whole board dedicated to text message auto corrects, which I'm reading while she's making breakfast. She has to come sit down next to me to continue reading in my behalf because I'm laughing so hard I have tears rolling down both set of cheeks and I can no longer see the phone. The fact that online photos have become the morning conversation starter should scare me, but it doesn't, I do believe you would call us a technological family.

6. Boo boo finger
While we are all photo sharing, The Dormouse was playing on the ground with one of her new toys when suddenly we hear the all too familiar sound of her screaming bloody murder because she hurt herself in some overly dramatic, terrible way! She runs up to The Cook holding her finger. I'm sitting to the side of her, so I can't see fully what's happening. The Cook starts busting up laughing asking The Dormouse "Which finger hurts?" The Dormouse dramatically shows The Cook her middle finger and say's "This one." The Cook tells her "Go show your mommy which finger hurts." The fact the my three year old is accidentally and perfectly (all other fingers down) flipping her aunt and I the bird has all of us just rolling, something we probably shouldn't be teaching her is funny but was just too cute not to find humor in it.

7. I'm being attacked!
After I ate more yummy food and laughed so hard I may have had wet panties, it was definitely time for a shower. I get in, do my thing and then stand there a minute to enjoy the nice warm water. My peace and quite is suddenly interrupted when I am hit in the back with something relatively hard. There's a loud thud followed by me being nailed in the heel, which is then followed swiftly by me screaming, more of a muffle yell, call it a natural reaction to be zapped out of la la land, seeing as all of that happened in about 3 seconds. Well you can only imagine the families reaction to hearing what sounded like the pregnant woman in the shower eating crap and then screaming. They were practically busting out the tiny screw driver again, until they heard me laughing. I realized that the suction cup shower mirror on the wall behind had popped off the wall with enough force to hit me in the back! Yes, I was attacked by a mirror in the shower.

8. My own epic victory
I love playing games with the family, one of my fondest childhood memories was playing games whenever relatives came to visit. But because of my placenta brain I had managed to forget to bring any up with us! But Tweedle Mom saved the day by suggesting card games, well kind of. See The Cook only had two decks of cards, not that that isn't how many we needed, but one deck was Pepto-Bismol pink with no face colors (very hard to read). Either way we played a game called Three - Thirteen, very fun game when you have a bigger group. First we played just The Cook, Tweedle Mom and me, in which Tweedle Mom slaughtered us! Then we got the whole family to play including The March Hare who LOVES card games. Great time with laughing and farting and more laughing, but who took the crown this time... ME! And by a landslide!

9. Food
Where do I start?! The best part about going to The Cook's house is, well she cooks. And like every time we go up there I did not leave disappointed. The first night she made BBQ shredded pork sandwiches with homemade BBQ sauce. It was a little spicy for my taste but rich in flavor. To go with it homemade coleslaw made with apple vinegar and no mayo, again a little tangy for my taste. We ate out on Friday at a yee haw good time steak place where I got a crusted salmon that was to die for. Saturday night was the biggy: honey & thyme glazed ham, butternut squash & spinach cheese casserole (heaven!), mashed potatoes & gravy, shredded brussel sprouts and 2 different kinds of bread. Oh and remember the chocolate chip pumpkin bread, that was for dessert! Can you say Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

10. Home Sweet Home?
As soon as we got in the car to go home I turned to my husband and expressed my desire to move up near his sister. I love small woodsy towns, it reminds me of how much I loved the seasons in Colorado. Is it actually going to happen? Well for now it's still a dream, my hubby would have to change companies and that's asking a lot. But maybe one day...

Thanks for sharing another adventure with me!

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