my cousin stalked us yesterday by stopping by (nearly) unannounced at my sissy’s. later in the afternoon, we headed to my dad’s for dinner and visiting and then we stalked my cousin back by dropping in unannounced while she was pulling chicken. we had a great visit with her and my cousin-in-law before coming back to find my sissy and BIL up in the renovated playroom playing old arcade cames on ps2. hubby had to join in so that he could show BIL his mad galaga skillz. we stayed up far too late but had a nice evening. i slept hardly any and after hubby left for the office this morning, i discovered that the internet was down. great. now that it’s finally back up, time for cramming some productivity!

we made it to orlando around 23:30 last night to find my sissy’s whole family waiting up for our arrival. turns out that they’ve been doing some serious redecorating and were anxious to show it off. almost every room in the house got some fresh paint so everything looks very nice. some great new color schemes. but the big reveal was the play room. they did a complete t(w)een makeover on it. it is an awesome space now, we were truly impressed. especially when they said that they did all of the painting two days ago and all of the furnishings were done yesterday in order to have it all set for our arrival. i feel so special. so today i’m trying to get woken up get some organization going on these shower plans and we’ve got dinner at my dad’s tonight. i wonder if our friends made it home alright from our place.

i don’t know what the problem has been, but this week has just seemed all but unbearable to me. i’m ready for it to be over and maybe next week will be better. at least as far as work is concerned. after work i’m going to be running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out how to throw a shower. won’t be much visiting going on this trip. unless some of my friends want to help me run around like a headless chicken. 😉 since we’ve been working, we haven’t had a whole lot of fun time with our friends (one of them works with us so it’s the norm). after we three finish up in the evenings, we’ve been going down to the beach to meet the others. there’s been some fancy sand sculpting and a little kayaking. not a whole lot of water-play because there’s been dangerous conditions this week and they’ve been going by in a truck every thirty minutes and yelling for everyone to get out of the water. they’ve started ramping up the warnings and flag-education after a couple more folks died in the water this week (and, of course, dozens of rescues). we’ve also had some good conversation and wii-play after the kids have gone to bed. we should get to spend some good time together tomorrow and whenever they start packing up to leave, so will we. i’d imagine we’ll get down to orlando pretty late but i should get to at least visit my dad on sunday. i’ll have to call my brother and see when we can see him too. i can forego some friend visits for the shower, but i can’t not see my family.

i’d really like to write about what a good time we’re having with our friends – because we are – but, unfortunately, i’m just very down this week. if it’s not bad enough that i’m a completely worthless employee, i’m also a subpar wife. swan-dive off the balcony anyone?

why is it that work depresses me more than anything else in my life? no matter how loyal i am or how much i bust my butt at my job, i always end up feeling like a completely worthless loser.

i’ve already got the bunk bedding done and the towels are ready to be dried. wash up one more bed, make said beds, fold and put away said towels, vacuum, and we’re just about ready for the next houseguests coming in tomorrow night. i love that people come visit us!

they just left. they’re actually heading west an hour or so to drop their boy off with friends and then they’ll head back home. sadly, it seemed like a very short visit. but we had a great time. saturday we had a fun time at the beach and pool with boogie boards and my duckie. my duckie was a huge hit amongst all of the chilluns. there was then some afternoon nappage followed by a nice evening of walking around our favorite shopping plaza and dinner at a place we had not yet tried. there was even some late night rock band jamming.

sunday was a more adventurous day that started out with sissy and the chilluns flying around.

the boys thoroughly enjoyed taking a dip or three.

the girls were happy hanging out together.

it was then time for maiden voyage – the sequel. our new kayaks with their matching life vests were anxious to prove they were better than the other ‘yaks.

the whole family got in on the action after hubby and i had our fun. bro-n-law was a fierce paddler.

he even tried to t-bone his son.
nephew² enjoyed surfing.

sissy braved the deeper waters a bit.

and even niece caught a wave.

after buying the new ‘yaks home friday at lunch, we left one (mine) in the car so that we could take it on a quick trial run after work (before returning the other kayak and paddle). the surf was up (for this part of the world) that afternoon and we were tremendously pleased with how the new ‘yak surfs.

we actually managed to sell the kayak that i won yesterday for the amount that we were asking. so, we are taking the other one back tonight and we got these beauties to replace them. since i’m such a girl, we got a red one to match hubby’s red life vest and a blue one to match my blue life vest. we’ll be well accessorized kayakers! the biggest reason that we made the switch is that these are 1.5 feet shorter. doesn’t seem like much but when you live in a condo, it’s a huge difference. they went into the elevator with no struggle, i can carry one by myself much easier (about the same weight but more compact and better handholds), and, perhaps most importantly, we’ll be able to keep them in our outside storage instead of having to carry them through the house to store them on the balcony. that’ll really save our carpet, furniture, and walls. my cousin, in her wonderful selflessness, went way out of her way last night to purchase paddles for us and drop them off at my sissy’s so that they can be delivered to us tonight. yay for new (nicer) kayaks again!!!

we just spent about twenty minutes out on the balcony watching a relatively large (probably about five foot) shark swimming all around a couple of swimmers. i don’t think the swimmers noticed him, even though he got as close as ten feet from them. we watched him swim out to sea and come back in around them again several times but i think he finally got tired of them and went out to sea for good. it was fascinating to watch. i had my camera ready but he was too far away (next building over) and staying too far under the water. it was a fun break anyhow. and, luckily, those two body surfers must not look very tasty.

my friend had his pet scan and bone marrow biopsy last week and met with the dr to get the results yesterday. the good news is that they don’t believe that it has gotten into the bone marrow. the not so great news is that they have identified three separate cancer masses (one large one) with high suv values. they have identified him as being in stage III, which from my research isn’t really all that important in the grand scheme of treatment in non-hodgkins lymphomas. the dr gave him several treatment options ranging from watch and wait to an experimental clinical trial form of chemo. my friend is weighing the options with his family. they are leaning toward the experimental treatment right now but they have two weeks to make a decision. my friend commented that if he can just survive long enough to walk his daughter down the aisle in a few years, he’d be happy. i, of course, started tearing up like crazy at this point. i just can’t imagine. but he is trying to stay positive and i’m trying to stay positive for him. i know he’s going to beat this and he’s going to be around for a long, long time. he’ll walk his daughter down the aisle, spoil his grandkids, and take his wife on that hawaiian honeymoon that he promised her twenty-five years ago.

every time i think it’s going to start getting more tolerable, i get !$#&#! all over again.

if my head would stop throbbing now.

assuming that they can get a spot for their dog at the kennel, my sissy and her family will be coming to see us this weekend. they plan to leave monday or tuesday and tuesday night, our friends beth and jeremy and their kids will be arriving to stay with us until next saturday. we’ll leave when they do to head down to orlando where my hubby has to go into the office for the week and i’ll be planning, preparing for, and throwing a bridal shower for my friend the following saturday. we’ll come back home sunday after the shower and then my cousin and her hubby will be coming to see us the weekend after that. yay for having lots of fun company to look forward to in the coming weeks!!!