Monday started two days of pure chaos at work. This week is my Friday off, Wednesday and Thursday I'm off for the Dells, so two days to get as much work as humanly possible done. Yup, chaos. But, the day did fly by. I love my job and what I do, but the one downside is that nobody can really fill in for me when I'm gone - and, in our "line of work", EVERYTHING is a rush, so when we're gone, your stuff pretty much comes to a halt - much to the dismay of many. But, that's just the way it goes I suppose. I stopped at Walmart to do our vacation grocery shopping and checked that off my list of things to do. While Christian picked up the girls, I made my way home to get dinner going, get some laundry done and start putting together our vacation packing list. Once the girls were in bed, Christian and I settled in for the Walking Dead season finale. So sad it's over (for real now), but at least we're caught up with the rest of the world!
Tuesday marked our Friday at work! WOOT! It was another chaotic day, tying up every loose end possible before clocking out for the day. Then, it was sweet, sweet freedom for 5 whole days! Such a relief walking out the door before a "long weekend". My mom watched the girls for us today - since they weren't going to be there 2 of the 3 days this week, we decided to pull them all week so we'd only have to pay 1/2 of their tuition (score!). So, I picked up the girls after work and we made our way home. I just about finished our laundry, did some cleaning around the house and we just took it easy the rest of the night. Gearing up for all of the vacation excitement.
Giving Chuy some love before we send him off to Grandma and Grandpa's.
Packed up and ready to hit the road!
Hanging tough, refusing to nap. Such good roadtrippers though!
Day 1 Pics
Thursday was another great day at the Dells. We spent the morning hanging out around the condo, eating breakfast and catching up. Once everybody was up, ready and raring to go, we hopped on the resort shuttle and hit up two more waterparks. The main attraction at the first park (other than a couple slides and the kids splash/slide zone) was the lazy river. We took a few trips around and it was so relaxing. Loved it! The next park was the "waterdome" - it's a glass ceiling park, with a huge wave pool and the floor almost looks like a sandy beach. It was so awesome! We put some life jackets on the girls, grabbed some tubes and made our way into the wave pool. They were SO EXCITED to finally be able to "swim", they had a ball. When the waves started up, we hopped in a family tube and the girls thought it was hilarious. Such a fun experience. Everybody started getting hungry, and tired, so we made our way back to the condo for some lunch and down time. Amelia and Christian passed out in our room. The other dad, Tim, passed out for a while. Dawn and I watched some TV and inhaled some popcorn before anybody could notice and steal it from us, and the kids played for a while. We finally got everybody up, we got back in our suits, hopped back on the shuttle and made our way to the last waterpark. This one was basically just slides and kids zone's - probably our least favorite, but we still spent a good amount of time there, and had a blast. It started getting pretty late, so we made our way "home" for the night. Dawn and I made tonight's run to Walmart, while the dad's gave the girls their baths and started dinner. The kids were all pretty exhausted tonight and went to bed fairly early. We watched Dawn's movie - yes, she's a celebrity - whoa! :) - had a couple of drinks and tried out the Jacuzzi tub on the lanai and chatted the evening away. It's hard to believe we'll already be saying goodbye tomorrow, but we have another great night under our belt!
Day 2 Pics
Friday was our final day of vacation. We spent the morning playing, chatting, eating breakfast, and packing up the condo. We checked out, loaded up the vehicles, then hit the waterpark one last time...this time, just staying at the one in our hotel. We spent lots of time in the hot tun, relaxing, the girls swam their hearts out in the pool and wore themselves out on the slides, and we finally called it a day when everybody was starving. Everybody dried off, changed and we said goodbye to the resort. So sad! We stopped in to Pizza Pub for a late lunch, dragging it out as long as the crabby toddlers would allow, and finally had to say goodbye and part ways. Not a good feeling at all. I can't explain how much it sucks to click so well with a family, but rarely be able to spend time with them. She did mention the possibility of coming back to stay with us this summer, so hopefully that comes to fruition! The girls passed out about 30 minutes into the drive, and slept the entire way home. Sweet silence. Much to our surprise we ran into some snow shortly after we crossed into Minnesota - and ALL the way to our house. Snow, in April. WHAT?!?
Day 3 Pics
Then - the tragedy struck. As I was sitting there, enjoying the peace and quiet, starting to doze off myself, I started twisting and playing with my wedding rings, like I often do out of habit. As I grabbed my ring, I notice that it felt different - something wasn't right. I looked down, and sure enough - there was NO diamond in my engagement ring. It was gone - my beautiful, perfect, shiny diamond, gone. A symbol of us making the decision to become one and start our family, gone. I couldn't believe it, immediately started panicking, and, of course, crying my eyes out. We pulled over to look around the truck - I knew it couldn't have been gone for long - it wasn't loose, and I play with it all the time, it would never take me long to notice it was gone. But, we found nothing. We finished our drive and got home around 6:30. We carefully unpacked all of the luggage and the cooler, checked everywhere to see we could find it - still, nothing. We knew it was gone, hope was lost. At this point, I knew we didn't have it insured through our homeowners policy, so I was just holding out a small bit of hope that the jeweler would do something for us. I knew it was unlikely though - when he bought the ring, their policy was that you needed to come in every 6 months to get the ring inspected to keep the insurance valid. Well, my rings have been stuck on my finger since I was pregnant with Olivia, so clearly, it has not been inspected. But, there's no harm in hoping for a miracle!
My Sad, Diamondless Ring. So Depressing...
On Saturday, we were definitely dragging. Post vacation exhaustion was in full effect, and being emotional over my ring wasn't helping. But, we finally got up, had some breakfast and got ready for the day. Olivia started her new swim class this morning. It did NOT go well. Even though I signed her up for the same day, same timeslot - all of the teachers were different, and she was not happy about getting new teachers. She started crying and didn't want to participate. We finally got her into the pool and she slowly started doing what they asked and participating - but she was not happy about it. We had a LONG chat about it after class - it's one thing to be afraid of the water or something, but to throw a fit because of the teacher - no way that was going to fly! After class, we made our way into the city. I wanted to have lunch a delicious little hole in the wall Italian place where I grew up, but they weren't open. LAME! So, we stopped at a Chinese place in town that we hadn't been to forever. Then, we were off to meet my friend from work and her family at the circus! FUN!! We got there right after they opened the doors - walked around for a while, got the girls' faces painted, grabbed a "necessary" light up toy and settled into our seats. The show was fun and much different that the show last year, which was nice. The girls loved it...they sat through the entire thing, watching in awe. So fun :) It was raining when we left, so we parted ways with our friends and booked it for the truck. off to our next destination....my dad's, to pick up the dog. We stopped in to visit for a while, but the girls were getting tired and whiny, and Amelia was still terrified of their dog, so we headed home. We watched some TV together, and it wasn't long before the girls were off to bed. Christian went out with his friend from work for a while, so I settled in with a few episodes of Dexter. Some quiet, alone time with Dexter was just what I needed after this busy, chaotic week!
Starting her new swim class.
Lunch...their first trip to House of Wong. YUM!
Circus Fun!
Chuy, grateful to be home...even though he's spoiled rotten at my Dad's. What a baby!
Sunday was definitely our day of rest. We were pretty lazy all morning, just hanging out around the house, not really doing much of anything. We finally made our way to the jeweler at lunch time to see what they could do about the ring. Sure enough, it wasn't covered. Our initial plan was to just get the rings cut off and separated, and get my wedding band resized so I could at least wear that for the time being. Christian was pretty insistent that we at least check out some diamonds and see what they have to offer. In the end, he talked me into getting a new, at least temporary, diamond. We ended up going with one that was about the same size, but not quite as good of quality. They were offering no interest financing, and the amount we purchased can go towards an upgrade in the future, so we decided to splurge and go for it (but, it's nothing SUPER spendy or fancy, just enough t get us by for a few years, so I can hopefully get my upgrade at 10 years still, as planned). They did cut my rings off, but I have to wait a week or so until the swelling on my finger goes down to get them resized. I'll be without my rings for a few weeks - ugh, it sucks! After checking out, we made our way back home, and took it east the rest of the night. The girls weren't happy about our boring day at home, but after all of the excitement and running around, they needed a break.
The girls snuck out of bed this morning, hopped on the iPad, and helped themselves to a sleeve of girls scout cookies. Wow.
With that, we ended our week. Lots of chaos, tons of fun, some sadness, but over all, a fantastic week. It sounds like winter is making a comeback this coming week, and we're not looking forward to that AT ALL. This is going to be one hell of a spring!
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