The Small Family     

Well, it’s been a week of ups and downs around here. Let’s start with the downs and get those out of the way. Major downer #1: Chris will not be changing jobs. That’s not to say he didn’t get the new job--on the contrary, he did. However, the federal government (specifically, the Department of Education) shifted their priorities at least temporarily, so the project he would be working on has currently had its budget cut. It may resume in late summer, but there’s no guarantee. So for the moment, he got the job…but there is no job. Bravo to Chris for getting the job--boo to the feds for cutting the funding for the moment!

Chris is very disappointed, as you can imagine. He was really looking forward to working on the project. They did say they’d contact him in August if the project resumes, but we’re not holding our breath. And the annoying part of this is that about 10 days ago, they called Chris and told him to inform his manager about the job, as they needed to talk to Larry (his mgr.) about “transition scheduling.” So Chris told Larry--and then they never called. And when Chris followed up, he was told about the funding problem. So we’re both angry that the division had him inform his manager--only to have the budget yanked. We figure they probably had some inkling that this might be coming, so why have Chris tell his manager he was seeking out other employment? I mean, it’s all within the same parent company, but still--he might as well say to Larry, “I’m not really satisfied here, so I’m looking for other options.” Luckily, Larry is a good guy, and I don’t think that Chris really put his position in danger, but it’s still kind of maddening. I mean, if Larry wasn’t such a nice guy, that could cause real problems for Chris. Sigh…

So we found out about this on Thursday, and we were both quite upset. I spent all of Thursday working on a tedious 250-page chapter of resumes for a book I’m editing. Tedious! Come Friday morning, I get an email from the author saying, “I never sent you the resumes. Here they are.” I replied, “Yes, you sent them to me on June 1st, with this note that I could get started on them” and then attached the note. I added, “Please don’t tell me I spent an entire day of work on an incorrect document.” Guess what? Yep, you guessed it. He sent me the wrong version on June 1st. So even though I had his blessing to work on them, it was the wrong version. Which means I get to redo the entire 250 pages. As you can imagine, I was furious. Okay, okay, I know these things happen, but 250 pages! It’s as if my time was worth nothing. Oooh, I was hopping mad!

So, I took Theo and we went over to the park with Grandma Diane, where I vented about how irritated I was to have hours and hours of my time wasted, and how disappointed Chris and I both were about his job situation. When Theo and I got home around 1pm, Chris came out of the den and said, “Well, I’m done working for the day. My project is on hold for a few days, so I have nothing to do for the rest of the day.” I looked at him, still in my lousy mood over everything, and said, “What do you say we get out of town for a night? I need something to snap me out of this mood.” And so we did, and that’s where the week changed from down to up.

We loaded up the car with our overnight bags, dropped the dogs at the kennel, and within 30 minutes of deciding to take an impromptu trip, we were off! We weren’t even sure where we were headed, except I had a hankering to head to the coast. So we drove west….

We ended up in Bodega Bay. My friend Janeane has been going there since she was a kid, and I’ve always wanted to check it out. Beautiful--but cold!! We went down to the beach and let Theo play for half an hour, but then he said, “It’s coldy! Ready to go back to car!” It was a beautiful, sunny day--just windy and cold. So we hiked back up to the car and decided to drive inland to Santa Rosa. Chris was recently there for a test for a job he wanted to interview for, and he really liked it. I had never been, so I was up for a new place. Being about 30 minutes in from the coast, it was much warmer, too. We headed to the downtown (adorable!) and found a hotel--barely. Turns out everything was sold out or very expensive. I asked the desk clerk at our hotel why, and she made a face and said, “NASCAR. Sunday’s a race day.” I’m actually glad we didn’t know about this, because if we had, we probably wouldn’t have gone, and it really did turn out to be a wonderful adventure, even if we had to pay twice the normal rate for a hotel!

Theo loves, loves, loves to stay at hotels, so he was in heaven. And we went to Chevy’s for dinner, where he could scarf tortillas and beans to his heart’s content, so he was a happy guy. Our hotel turned out to be clean, quiet, and comfortable, so I was a happy camper, too.

Saturday morning, we got up and went in search of breakfast. We turned out to be Starbucks-cursed, as every one we found was either packed to the gills or closed, so we settled on Egg McMuffins instead. And darn if they didn’t taste delicious! Probably cheaper than Starbucks, too….

I Googled activities to do with kids in Santa Rosa and came across numerous rave reviews for a local park, so we headed over there. What a find! Not only did this park have two large playgrounds, but it had a lake where you could feed the ducks (or rent boats--which we passed on); a small barn with sheep, chickens, and a pig; a bouncy house (Theo was a HUGE fan); a carousel; pony rides (which we skipped); and, Theo’s favorite, a sprayground! I love these spraygrounds that seem to be popping up all over: They’re a series of fountains built into the ground that spray water randomly, so the kids can run around and play in them. Theo loves them. In fact, we were halfway across the giant park, eating some popcorn, when he saw the fountains, yelled “WATER!” and scrambled off the bench to run across the park and join in the fun. Best of all, this is an old park, so there were huge trees and lots of shade everywhere. Theo played for three hours before we finally had to drag him out, as we had to get home in time to pick up the dogs from the kennel. What fun!

Sunday was a quiet day for us, but a good one. I kept Theo busy all morning with a trip to the gym (he made an ice-cream cone as a craft at the playcare, and he’s been carrying it everywhere--he says it has “raspberries and blackberries and strawberries and blueberries, and it smells yike choc-yit!”) and a trip out to lunch with Auntie Jeanette. Meanwhile, Chris did the yardwork, put up our sunscreens (as the summer heat has arrived in full force), and replaced the canopy over our patio. After Theo’s nap, Chris took charge of him while I worked on the blog, did a little work, and went in search of some new shorts. The pugs ate, slept, and barked, as usual. :-)

And that wraps up our week! The only pictures I have are from the park in Santa Rosa--I didn’t take the camera on the beach because wind + sand + pricey camera equipment = bad combination. You’ll see many pictures of Theo being Spider-man.  He loves to climb those sort of rope “webs” that seem to be popping up at a lot of parks these days.

Next week, I should have lots of fun pictures, as we’re heading down to San Jose for the Smalls’ Fourth of July bash (on the 2nd). And then after that, my baby starts preschool. Sniff!

Hope you all had a wonderful week! Our was…well…up and down. But it ended up, so no complaints. Until I start working on the second round of that giant chapter, that is….