**DL's mood seems to be mellowing a bit. He may be evening out, but lord knows what might set him off again.
He did get through two full weeks of school. Phew! So I think this may be a turning point. We also left him for the weekend. Which I think might backfire as I wouldn't be surprised if he is extra clingy now that we are back. But, will see. He's generally been fine on the weekends and maybe he would have been fine regardless.
He has a 5-day weekend coming up so I expect that these next two weeks will be easy peasy, in comparison. I am not entirely sure how we will handle all those days off. He may decide he is perfectly happy home alone as long as I don't make him go to work with me.
We did have plans to go to Monterey Bay Aquarium on Friday, but... DL got invited to a pizza night with his besties from his old school. (Whom we know he misses very much!) I initially was very, "I don't think so," since they've gotten together a few times. But later MH read the whole e-mail and there was a twist. His favorite teacher in the world was just happening to be babysitting that night and had agreed to host the mini reunion for some of her students. O.M.G. We *then* later noticed they left out half the kids in their group, but I expect it was most likely she agreed to do this if they kept it very limited. (Though, who knows). DL still wants to go.
I can't imagine the kids will ever have another week day off together (outside of tax season or busy holidays), but... Last time we went to the aquarium was on a Sunday and it was quite pleasant at opening time. So that will be our new plan.
I am kind of stumped on what to do with the kids on Friday, since I have that day off and want to spend it with them, but MH mentioned I should take them out to lunch with one of those $50 gift cards. DL didn't want to do anything but maybe MM will have an idea of something fun to do.
I did also just get an art museum membership, which is just another idea to throw out there. Enjoy it on a quiet week day...
Edited to add: We will save $50 by buying Aquarium tickets through our credit union. We can just purchase online.
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MH & I had a nice weekend in Tahoe.
Our initial plan was just to do a super cheap getaway. But I expect that I was feeling relaxed after my September Savings post. So we splurged a bit in the end.
We left around 5:00 and traffic wasn't half (or 1/10th) as bad as we were expecting. I think we got ahead of most of the Bay Area weekend Tahoe rush. We made it about 1.5 hours in (with 1 hour to go) and then we were in dead stopped traffic for about an hour. Road construction. UGH!
Since our hotel was up a windy hill, we decided to stop for dinner around 8:00. (Not sure if there'd be any food up towards our hotel). Actually, the GPS had wanted us to turn off quite a bit earlier but we decided to look for food, on the main road, and I did notice that the alternate route wasn't adding much time.
MH had wanted to go to a stand up comedy show but I expected it was going to be far too long of a drive. But, we just happened to pass the venue (a casino) about 5 miles from our hotel. !! I said, "I think I can live with that". The 5 miles was about a 1/2 hour drive up a windy hill. When we got to the hotel we learned there was a casino shuttle, so I was sold.
It was SO COLD, and it probably snowed today after we left (per forecast). We lucked out big time in that we pretty much ran out of the show to the shuttle and only had to wait a few minutes. IT would have been a whole hour wait otherwise and I didn't really want to even sit 15 minutes outside (freezing), not really knowing when exactly the shuttle will be there.
The drive home was lovely. No construction. PHEW!
We probably spent way too much eating out, so about $200 total for the trip. We spent some on gas too, but I am sure that will be absorbed in our regular gas budget. ($20 gas)
The hotel was really nice and I think it would be a nice place to take the kids on a summer vacation. Something to keep in mind with our limited time off together and our lack of desire to do big trips. Tahoe is a little slice of heaven in our backyard. It's one of the nicer timeshares that we have stayed at, with lots of amenities. We just didn't have a kitchen, but if we plan ahead more we can get an apartment with a kitchen next time.
This & That
October 3rd, 2016 at 01:59 am
October 3rd, 2016 at 07:00 pm 1475517614
October 4th, 2016 at 02:37 am 1475545043