Tag: family

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Don’t Be Shellfish

I got downstairs early today to walk the beach with Summer. She was finishing up her run as I got down there, so I got a couple pictures of her in front of Diamond Head in the sunrise. I missed a good one with the moon between a couple palm trees though. When she finished, we walked around by the water to see if we could find anything neat, but they do so much combing of all the trash and everything else that there weren’t any shells at all. Just some larger broken pieces of coral.

We headed back up to the room to try and score tickets to Hanauma Bay, but were unsuccessful. Julie came down and made French toast, bacon, and eggs for breakfast. Summer got us all tickets to the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, plus housekeeping had to come by in our absence to check all the lamps for women’s underwear. Once everyone was ready, I was able to get in touch with our cabbie friend, Susan, for a ride to the harbor. She had to send another friend of hers to get us, but it worked out fine.

I liked the memorial quite a bit more than I thought I would, and I really enjoyed for one of the few times in my entire life learning about world history. At first I got a bit confused by the audio tour because I didn’t see the numbers that were supposed to prompt me to play the next track. Once I had that straightened out, I moved through the displays as quickly as I could. We almost didn’t get to take the boat to the Arizona Memorial, but they started it up again and we managed to make it on the standby line.

After we finished, Suzan was able to come get us herself, and she helped us decide on dinner at Karai Crab. It was kind of a Cajun-style seafood place, and I think everyone really enjoyed it. Even Dad got adventurous with the mussels and clams. I was a little worried it wouldn’t fill me up, but I felt good afterward. Susan checked in on us as we finished up, then took us back to the Lagoon Tower. It’s been fun building some rapport with her, and she’s been really helpful just in our chatting during our rides.

We got back to the room just in time for the sunset, and then we went back downstairs for some ice cream. I had a five half-scoop waffle bowl that was super good. Summer finished hers and then crashed. Everyone else watched TV while I worked on my evening journaling. Tomorrow, we hope to find better local snorkeling than the super popular tourist destination that we failed to schedule today.

Can you eat the barnacles too?

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Why Did the Chicken Cross the Terminal?

I woke up at 3:30 this morning so I could have plenty of time to shower and pack up. We made it to the airport in plenty of time, but things got hectic super quickly. After checking our bag, I forgot to get my ID back, and made it all the way to TSA before panicking, completely forgetting that I had just had it out minutes earlier. Fortunately the girl that helped us brought my ID back, but then Summer had a couple oversized bottles of liquids. It would have been different if we hadn’t just flown to Florida earlier this year.

We made it to Houston without any trouble, but did have to huff it a bit to the next flight. If we had known better at the time, we would have chilled out for a while and maybe gotten some food. As we made our way out to the runway, a lightning storm blew in and kept us on the ground for about an hour and a half later than we planned. The pilot made up for it though, and we just barely made our connecting flight in Los Angeles.

That last transition really hurt us, because then we didn’t get any food, the snacks on the flights weren’t very substantial, and we also couldn’t precheck for the COVID requirements. When we finally made it down to Honolulu, we had to wait in an awful line for about half an hour just to get out of the gate.

Julie did great and arranged a taxi for us, so I made the call and made our way out to meet the guy that came out. He took us to Lagoon Tower, where Julie met us at the taxi. We got room keys and made our way up to the penthouse to unload.

Summer and I were starving, and it was dinner time for the others as well, so we went downstairs and out into a tiny, cramped marketplace to find some food. I felt super sweaty due to the heat and humidity after such a grueling flight, which just made me even hangrier. We stopped into an ABC store for a couple things and eventually got our food that had been ready for a while. Evidently the buzzer didn’t work.

We took everything back to the room to eat, and then I took a real shower and crashed.

Because his connecting flight was delayed and he had to be re-routed by the airline!

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Blast from the Past

Summer and I got up and out as quickly as we could this morning. I had to run to the house to swap shoes for comfort, then to my parents’ for some meds, and we were almost ready to leave town. Too hungry to wait, we stopped at Sonic to split a chili cheese coney. Then it was off to Fayetteville. Rogers, more specifically, to meet up with Josue. I hadn’t seen him in so long, so we picked him up for a day around town.

Our first stop was the Rogers Splash for a free wash and detail of the Murano, as a fringe benefit of dating company management. Summer had a blast wandering around and chatting with the employees to see how they did things.

Once we were done there, we drove back to Fayetteville to eat at Sassy’s Red House. The food was decent, but for as much as we ordered, I didn’t really feel overstuffed. From there, it was just a quick jaunt down the road to get to Arcadia Retrocade. Neither of them had ever been, and it had been quite a while since I had gone. We only had a couple hours left before they closed, but it was still well worth the fiver just to wander around through the relics.

Summer probably played the most games, bouncing all around the rooms. Yes, rooms. They expanded to the next room over, approximately doubling their size. They had so many more machines down the long ramp, though not much I recognized. It’s incredible just how many arcade machines were made back in the day. The highlight was probably watching Summer blow out an Atari cartridge so she could kick back with a joystick and play some Pac-Man.

We nearly closed that place down to take Josue back home. Then it was a relatively short drive to wrap up the day. We did stop at Braum’s to share a sundae. It was tough winding down early, but we’ve got a loooooong day ahead of us.

But the dawn is breakin’, it’s early morn’.

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Pizza Pie, Piece o’ Cake

Summer took Autumn to school this morning, then had to run by work for a while later. Eaddie and I got up and watched some House. When Summer got back, they went out for lunch and I went home to clean up.

I cleaned up the aquariums a bit, but they’ll need more work tomorrow. The day went by really quickly, and I didn’t get as much accomplished as I wanted. Eventually I got back out and went to get some things from my parents’ house before making it back up to Summer’s.

Autumn’s friend was already there with her dog, and Summer took them on down to The Garage Arcade for Autumn’s birthday. Eaddie and I followed shortly thereafter, stopping to pick up some pizzas along the way.

The kids had a good time, but I was a bit underwhelmed by the arcade selection. It was still neat, but I don’t have a clue how they make rent there. We got home pretty late afterward, and everyone shuffled off to bed pretty quickly.

Now they’re FROZ-N-READY!

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Bummin’ Sunday

I went to bed pretty late last night and then slept pretty hard until pretty late in the morning. Autumn was up and immediately threw a fit over absolutely nothing when Summer wanted to chat with her, so that got her into some trouble for the day. She straightened up surprisingly quickly and baked some cookies, and we were all good from then on.

I mostly played a bunch of Candy Crush like some kind of feral child, or meth addict. Eventually we got Eaddie out of bed, had her clean her room, and then cried through a few more episodes of Glee. We never got out, so I just made an everything-loaf sandwich for dinner. It felt like a pretty long day, but I hated that I didn’t get any more accomplished.

Let’s not have to wake up at 1 AM. That sounds terrible.

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Crushing It

I got up a little early today for it being the weekend, and played some Candy Crush in bed. I warmed up some leftovers for breakfast, then had to get the girls from their friends’ house. Autumn had an appointment for a facial, so Eaddie and I sat in the car while she did that. Then we came back to the house and I did some tinkering for Mark before taking Autumn to the high school to play in the band for graduation.

I went on home to clean up and hang out while I had the chance. Then I went to my parents’ house to clean up some leftovers for an early dinner. Autumn finished earlier than she expected, so I picked her up and we went on back to their house for the night.

Eaddie wanted to watch some Glee, and we finally got into some pretty good episodes. We finished three before everyone went to bed, so we’re about halfway through the last season. I’m still ready for whatever’s next.

Four more work days…

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Geek Bonding

I dropped the girls off today and made it to the shop early. Zach had me replacing Center Valley’s Chromebox lab with Kyle, which took all morning. We had to stop by Crawford on the way, but otherwise it was uneventful. We got to talking to the resource officer that sits in that lab about barbecue, which got Kyle and me craving Ridgewood Brothers.

When we got back to the shop just a few minutes before lunch time, we learned that everyone else was going to La Chiquita. Ben wasn’t going though, and I haven’t been super impressed by that place recently, so Kyle and I defected to get some barbecue. There were only a few people in line ahead of us, so we got our food and ate in plenty of time.

I burned most of the afternoon either working on an iMac for Daniel, or digging through random work orders. I felt pretty good digging through Ben’s PowerShell scripts, which is good because he won’t be around to explain them for long.

They let us leave half an hour early, so I went home and finally did my taxes. I came out owing about $100, which is about perfect for me. It’s like I got an interest-free loan of a hundred bucks throughout the year. When I finished up with that, I went to my parents’ house for some bún bò Huế. Julie was there and we chatted a little about Hawaii.

I picked up some Taco Villa for Summer on the way back, but still had to get a change of clothes and some gas. She ate a little when I got home, and then it was a quiet night without the girls.

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No Butts About It

I slept in a bit today since Summer took the girls to school and went to work for a little bit. When I got home to shower, Bác Vân was out back with the guys she got to cut down one of my trees in the back yard. I loved the placement of three trees for hammocks, but that one looked like it had started to rot a bit at the base, so I figured it was best to take it down before it came down on its own.

Summer dressed down for surgery, and we headed to Saint Mary’s for her procedure. We were there from a little before 10 until around 5:30, and I just played on my iPad the entire time. Her procedure went well, and they didn’t find anything to worry about. The nurse that was taking care of her was Autumn’s friend’s mother, so they had a good laugh once they realized it.

She rolled Summer out in a wheelchair, and then I took her to Rose Drug a couple times because they didn’t fill all of her prescriptions the first time. I’ll still have to go back tomorrow to get one they didn’t have in stock. On the way home, we picked up some Wendy’s for her first solid meal since Saturday. The girls shuffled themselves around with friends for their after school activities, so I laid with Summer for the rest of the evening.

After a while, she wanted some dessert, so I ran to Walmart to find something. I ended up with a turtle ice cream cake that was pretty good. The girls arrived home shortly after I did, and went to their rooms for the night.

Society isn’t woke enough yet to identify them as HERhoids.

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Ebb and Flow

I set an alarm this morning and got up to make a quick bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from leftovers before heading home to clean up for the funeral. We got to a late start, but Mom and Dad eventually showed up and we headed to Cabot to see the family for my cousin-in-law Bob’s service. The pastor was late, but a few got up to share stories in the meantime. The whole ordeal didn’t take very long since there wasn’t a burial service.

When we got back home, they dropped me off to change, and then the girls tried to meet us at Pasta Grill for an early Mother’s Day dinner. They were booked up, so Dad called Cagle’s Mill and we went there instead. A few people came and went from the bar while we were there, but we were the only group that was really just there for dinner. The food didn’t seem nearly as good as I remembered, and the prime rib was super salty. Nearly everyone had ordered it, so after some taste testing, the manager knocked 20% off the entire bill for us.

After dinner, we came back to my house to settle in. It wasn’t long before Eaddie bailed to spend the night with Maristella. I dropped her off, and then came back home to watch Falcon and Winter Soldier with Summer. We finally finished the series, and I can definitely say I wasn’t expecting to tear up so much. I’m ready for more.

Saturday Night Live did nothing for Doge. In fact, after the episode aired, it took a huge dive and broke Robinhood again. It dipped low enough for my buy order to trigger, though for several minutes I thought Robinhood didn’t even handle that. It quickly bounced back up a bit, and was my first real successful buy in a dip that I’ve ever had. Now if I could just do that a few dozen more times, I could finally retire on a yacht.

THAT AIN’T HOW MONEY WORKS! Money is a golden rock that we dig out of the ground. Then we hope no one kills us before we trade it for pieces of green paper. IT’S A PERFECT SYSTEM!

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Classified Woe Is Me Committee

It was a little rainy this morning, but it cleared up and got a little hot by the afternoon. All I could do was try and wrap up a couple projects in my office this morning before my performance review, upon which nothing is based. When lunch time came around, a group of us went to Zaxby’s since the dining room was open. Then I got kicked out of my office for the rest of the day while other reviews happened.

Kyle asked me to take care of something at Sequoyah while he had his turn with Ben, so I ran across town and updated iOS on an iPad while James, The Too Busy For eSchool, Yet Overpaid for a Teacher’s Aid, was running around unable to help. I got back to the shop just in time for our CPPC meeting, so I walked across the street and listened to an old man drone on about simplifying some policies, which I actually agreed with for the most part.

By the end of the meeting, we were all pretty tired of hearing him talk, but we had a mission to condense job titles or roles, and add job descriptions to every role that we have. I’ll be taking that and running with it to try and completely restructure our department, which very possibly might not work, but at least I’ll have tried.

When I finally left work, I had to run by Walgreens to drop off a FedEx package for Josh and pick up some medication that the nurse assured me would stop being filled by the pharmacy since I’ve been off the medication for months. Then I went home for a while before going to Summer’s for dinner.

I wasn’t hungry, but Summer grilled steaks and made some asparagus that sounded really good, and I hadn’t gotten to see any of them today anyway. We ate and chatted for a little bit, and then I headed home to miss the rain and thunderstorms.

Double or nothing.