Adam found out on Wednesday that our German guests, who we initially thought were coming on Friday night, were actually coming Thursday afternoon. (Thankfully, we later found out that, due to time differences amongst the two countries, they were just confused and actually were still coming Friday). This meant that I spent a lot of the day Wednesday frantically trying to get the house ready for guests. In addition to the craziness, Adam and I had plans to go see Sandra's horses that evening, and being that it's getting dark earlier these days, that left us little time to do much once Adam was home for work. So, we ended up going to the see horses and doing an emergency shopping trip for some food and wine for our guests. Sandra has been gone this week, but I'm looking forward to spending more time with her and Magic, too.
Funny story about the emergency shopping trip...We decided to check out the Hispanic grocery story we had heard so much about. They sell pretty inexpensive fresh meat, so we decided to pick up some chicken for dinner for the guests. Being that it is freshly butchered, we were unaware that a chicken breast is actually the ENTIRE breast and not just half as we were used to. Therefore, Adam asked for 5 breasts...and we ended up with close to 10 pounds of chicken. It was a little excessive, but we won't be needing chicken for a while.
Thursday, we got word that the Germans were actually NOT coming until Thursday. Our only means of communication with them was email, so it made for a lot of waiting, and having to only go with the information we had...so it was somewhat of a relief to know we had some extra time to get ready for company. It also gave me time (Adam was at work, so he got to go on the clock) to go see the Shuttle "up close." Heidi and the boys and I met up with Adam and we stood in line for about an hour and a half to take a bus to the viewing area. While it wasn't THAT close, it was still neat to see it at all! Afterwards, I went home and cleaned, made pretzels, and waited for Adam. That evening, we joined Heidi and the boys for dinner at their place.
On Friday, Adam took the day off work so he'd be home when the guests arrived. It also gave him the time to get his physical so he can have approval to exercise at work. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we had also gotten word that the shuttle was taking off on it's 747 to head back to Florida early Friday morning. Thus, we woke up at 5 and went to base to try and catch the event. However, after waiting until almost 7 and not seeing anything, we called my mom and had her look up phone numbers for us...only to find out that bad weather in the south and high temps here postponed the takeoff until at least Saturday....so I was very tired and pretty grumpy. Thus, I went back to bed until Adam left for the doctor, worked hard cleaning while he was gone, and tried to forget how early I had gotten up :-p. We cleaned until we couldn't take it anymore and then sat down to watch a show...and the guests arrived shortly after starting. That night, we just sat and caught up a bit, looked at pictures, and had dinner with the Kesslers. They turned in somewhat early and we headed to bed soon after.
Saturday, we did some sight seeing. We drove to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary. The tours were very expensive, so we just looked from the outside and watched the movie about the Russian submarine that is parked there, as well. Not to mention the fact that I got a little creeped out by the Pirate convention happening there. I'm not joking...the place was swimming with pirates. I then realized it was National Talk Like A Pirate Day and was a little less frightened. After we exhausted things to look at, there, we headed to the Griffith Observatory that overlooks all of LA. We had a great view of the Hollywood sign, saw a Planetarium show, ate lunch on the veranda, and enjoyed the sights. Once we were finished there, we moved on to Hollywood Boulevard, which none of us really enjoyed all that much. We decided that, since we had done it once, we're pretty set and don't need to again. It was kind of tacky, full of tourist traps and junky stores, people trying to make money by charging for pictures with them dressed in costumes, and disoriented sight seers. I thought it was neat to see the Kodak Theater, but even that is surrounded by a shopping complex, now. We did take some pictures at Gruman's Chinese Theater, but weren't that impressed with the Walk of Fame, either. It will definitely take some convincing to go back there. Saturday evening, we went to see Julianne Hough in concert. It was a good show, and despite my grumblings, I actually enjoyed having the hour and a half or so to myself where I saved a spot for us so the others could go get more clothes, chairs, and food. When we got home, I tried to update the maps on the GPS, and only ended up succeeding in deleting everything from it and having to start over...it was finally resolved by Monday morning.
Sunday, we again woke up long before dawn to head out to see the shuttle depart. It WAS actually happening, this time, so we made a point of getting there. I went on base, and Adam and the guests stood just outside the gate. We got some good videos, and it was very peaceful watching the sun rise over the mountains....especially sans the frustration of the purpose of you being there being invalid. We came home, got some breakfast and headed west, again...this time to Santa Monica. We checked out the pier and spent most of the afternoon at the beach. Adam and I could probably spend all day just sitting there and people watching...and might someday. Adam's favorite part, by far, was playing in the waves. It started out as fun for me, too...but I don't like the out of control of your body sensation you get when you mix huge waves with undertow and can't find the ground for a few seconds. We headed back to Rosamond around 4, showered, and then brought the Kesslers to a Mexican food restaurant in town. It wasn't typical for a Mexican restaurant, but we didn't want to scare them too much with their first experience at one. It took a lot just to explain the menu. When we were all full, some more than others, we headed home and relaxed for the night.
Monday morning, the Kesslers took off pretty early to catch a flight at LAX to Millstadt to visit the other sector of Kuesters. Adam spent the day at work trying not to fall asleep...and I spent the day trying to get my computer to agree with me and cleaning up a bit from the weekend. (By the way, even though it says to tumble dry our mattress pad on low...which I did...it melted...grr.) We also began watching Molly (Heidi's dog) while they're on vacation in San Diego. I walked there in the afternoon (which it was way too hot to do), and after taking Lacy on a hike in the mountains, we spent a couple hours with her that evening.
Tuesday, I drove Adam to work so I could have the car to spend time with Molly, instead of walking in 100+ degree heat. I got lost after stopping at Starbucks and trying to get home on the one day I didn't bring the GPS. I finally made it to Heidi's around 8 and spent a couple hours there. I, again, spent most of the day fighting with my computer and external harddrive, and was thoroughly emotional and frustrated by the time Adam got home. After two days of trying to fix it, we ate, and went to Heidi's, watched Project Runway, and called it a night.
Yesterday, Adam dropped me off at Heidi's in the morning and I walked home after my Molly time. While it was a little boring, it gives me some good thinking time. I fought with the computer some more, and finally came to a resolve with it...fixing what I could and figuring out how to prevent said problems from happening again. I made the DVD of the Shuttle events, called USAA for more name changing nonsense (which I need to do again after this), ate dinner with Adam when he got home, went up to the mountains, again, and watched Hell's Kitchen at Heidi's.
Today, I went to Heidi's again, walked home with a short detour to the post office, ate some lunch and watched Glee (which I agree, Mom, is not that good...), and here I sit. I imagine we might go up to the mountains again, tonight (Adam's a little addicted). This is our last full day of dog sitting...which is exciting because it means Heidi and the boys will be back tomorrow. And with that, I have a lot that I've been putting off (including this, apparently...check that off the list), so I'm gonna get going and try and get some things done.
Sorry for the delay on updating this, and thanks for reading this far!
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