It's Official!!

I just got off the phone with a lovely woman at the Marlboro, and after over six weeks of waiting for the background check to go through - we are officially scheduled to go to the Crazy Mountain Ranch from January 12 - 15, 2013!!!!!

I am over the moon excited.  I feel a little bad because all of my election-related excitement has really faded into the background (although I must point out that my beloved home state is the FIRST state in the nation to legalize gay marriage through a popular vote - I am one proud lady!!!!).

This has been my morning:

• 2:00 am - finally turned the TV off, after Obama made his AMAZING speech, and the news coverage ended
• 2:30 am-ish - fell asleep
• 6:45 am - woke up for work
• 8:00 am - got to work 
• 8:01 am - talked with coworker about our excitement over election results
• 8:30 am - made car and hotel reservations for "Prospective Students Weekend" at the high school my daughter is hoping to attend (check it out - it's pretty amazing: The Maine School of Science and Mathematics)
• 10:39 am - got the phone call from Janet at the Marlboro Travel office, congratulating me on being an official winner, and telling me that the earliest date available would be January 12 - 15th (this was really exciting, because when I called last week to check on the status of our paperwork, they told me that it would probably be mid-February at the earliest)
• 10:43 am - sent the first of roughly 8,000 texts to Conni (my travel companion, and big sister) asking her if those dates work - I have plenty of flexibility at work, so it's not an issue for me, however, she had to have her days off for 2013 submitted by last Friday
• 11:02 am - Conni replied "Yes!"
• 11:03 am - I call back, and tell Janet we're good for those dates!!

As you can see, it's been one busy morning!!!  According to Janet, we should be receiving the "fun" paperwork in a week to ten days - this will have our gear and activity forms.  She suggested we fill it out as fast as possible, as activities are assigned on a first come, first serve basis, luckily, there's a faxing option!!!  After that, she'll be contacting me in early December to finalize all of the travel arrangements!!

I am over the moon with excitement right now.  There's one tiny bummer - my nephew Aaron (who is completely and totally cool and awesome) is turning 18 while we'll be in Montana, and Conni is freaking out a bit over missing his birthday.  I think that just means we have to throw him the swankiest birthday party ever when we get back.  

I promise I will update the blog with any news I hear, and as soon as the paperwork comes in!!!

Read more about my Marlboro Ranch Adventures

Presidential Mints

It's been a long past couple of weeks - the moving - the birthday party - the presidential election - and I've been sick - yucko!

Azi's birthday party should be the topic of an entire new blog - I am so pissed off at the people at the pottery place we went to - Paper and Clay - they had this horrible woman running our party - and she "jokingly" told the kids they couldn't play or talk or have fun - unfortunately, she was really nasty about it and none of the kids got that it was a joke - she argued with one of the guest-moms - and made a snide comment about her - she made countless mistakes, and was super rude - needless to say, we won't be going back.

The party itself, other than unusually quiet for a child's bday party - was a good time - I got to see Mylissa - I hadn't since the early summer - that was fantastico - and Azi got to have Lexi spend the night - the girls were great - we played several board games, and they played SingStar - which is officially the coolest game EVER.

Faith is still here which is WONDERFUL. Both of us started feeling a bit sore-throaty this weekend, and when I still felt cruddy Monday, I made a doctor appointment (as our little family seems to get Strep Throat monthly) - Faith made fun of me for being such a wuss, but I faithfully went to my appointment - the doctor didn't even do a strep test (weird, right?), he just looked in my throat and took my temperature, and explained that i had an infection in my throat (called Pharyngitis - like laryngitis - but it affects your Pharynx instead of your larynx) it could be strep, or it could be something else, whatever it is, it needs antibiotics. I had to work at LLBean that night, but didn't last very long there, I was cruddy, and the whole talking thing wasn't working very well.

I stayed home from work yesterday, as I didn't know if i was contagious, and was still feeling under the weather. I did get out to vote though!! And I must say I'm ridiculously happy that Obama was elected - waaaaaaaay happy.

Faith took me out to lunch, she was quite convinced that us eating Thai food would help my throat. Then I got to follow her to the grasshopper shop. Funny thing - they had these little tins of candies called "presidential mints" (cute name) - and they had five tins of republican mints left, and only one tin of democrat mints. I figured that was a sure sign that the Dems would come out on top (not like there was much question, but I'm trying not to be cocky like I have mistakenly been in past election years). Looks like the mints were correct.

Last night I tried to stay up to watch all the election coverage, but whatever Pharyngitis is - it looks like it's made me super duper tired. I fell asleep sometime between 9:00 - 10:00 - I kept waking up and watching for a minute then falling back asleep. Eventually i realized it was a losing battle and just went to bed. Azi woke me up at 6:00 this morning and asked who had won, and I had to admit I didn't know. So - we watched the news this morning, and then did a happy dance when we saw the Obama victory.

I'm completely disgusted with the majority of California's voters for having said no to Gay Marriage. What bullshit. Grrrrr. But then again, maybe I should be more disgusted with Maine because we didn't even have the question on the ballot.

Seriously - although there were sucky setbacks like the California vote, and some local issues that piss me off around here - I can't help but be excited about what's going to happen in the next years! Hooray!!