Down by the river...

Ah, yesterday afternoon was relaxing, sitting on my ass by the side of a river (we changed from lake to river) having nothing at all to do but sit on my ass by the river and watch two little girls make things out of sand and get astoundingly messy and dirty. It was entertaining. I think it would have been just about perfect if my stupid-ass lymphedema hadn't been making my uncomfortable, but such is life.

I'll have to bug Aim to send me some of the pics she took of the messy little girls, especially the one in a princess bathing suit with a very saggy butt. ;-)

No, that wasn't Anna, just in case you were wondering.

So, I learned that the park in Oroville on the Feather River was a very nice place to play in the river, being as where we were was right on a big sandbar, so that the kids could wade out into the river in a really shallow area to play. I also learned that doggies were welcome at that park, and in the river, which is the exciting news of the day!! We'll have to get Stella a 50-ft line so we can take her swimming. Pea and Sparky will come back to us, but she'd be somewhere 3 miles downriver before I blinked.

Anyway... In case I hadn't fully explained, what with my anti-selfishness rant yesterday, the young'uns are heading east for a month starting Tuesday. I just thought I should mention that, since we might take every chance while they're gone to run away and goof off, leading to a dramatic downturn in the number of blog postings. Then again, since my visit with Dr. Mazj, I've got several medical things scheduled during the time they're gone (back to being a professional patient!), so I'll undoubtedly have stuff that needs posting.

But, one way or another, we're determined to enjoy ourselves, even if all we do is clean the

house top to bottom (so that it will STAY that way for a month) and then lapse into a stupor of watching movies together on the couch and eating a lot of Chinese take-out.

Either way - running away or lapsing into a stupor - it'll be a nice little vacation. I'll probably spend a good part of the time worrying that the kids are bored silly, like they were on their last trip back there, but the rest will be nice.

So, be patient with me if I get lazy about updating. If I get something up here once a week, I'm not dead; and the odds are good that I will have very little to report. That would be good, right?

Today and tomorrow are the hard-core packing days, in which we try to cram everything they might need for a month into three suitcases which each weigh less than 50 lbs. Tuesday, we load 'em up and truck down to Sacramento, to Grandma's house, where Mommy will be waiting. At some point after that, Mommy loads 'em up and trucks them down to San Francisco to the airport (no direct flights from Sac to NJ) and takes them back east. Middle of August, the process gets reversed.

So that's the scoop here. I'm exhausted, and I feel exceptionally sick to my stomach, but we're supposed to all go out to a movie this afternoon, followed by dinner in Chico, to celebrate Trevor's birthday, so I suppose I have to get to feeling a lot better very soon. Sadly, if I were to feel too crappy to go, I would be made to feel way, way worse in the form of guilt-trips, so I have to suck it up.

Wednesday I can collapse into a puddle, and Thursday I even get a massage, so the vacation will begin then!

Off to go sneak in some reading before too many other people wake up and I have to become productive. Productive, boo.