Category: Family

We woke up near noontime the Friday after we got back from San Antonio. It was perfect timing because Mario’s off on Fridays. We chilled out, sorted through our luggage (I gave him the cap and T-shirt we brought him–he loved them!), watched the end of Enchanted because the kids and I didn’t get to finish watching it the night before while on the way home and then Mom sent us to get chicken for the family. She and my in-laws were going to watch the kids while Mario and I went on a date.

We drove around in circles for what felt like forever and finally decided to try BJ’s Brewhouse, a new-ish restaurant. We were originally going to go to Chili’s, one of my faves, but we wanted to try something new so we went there.

It’s a gorgeous place; kind of an upscale sports bar. Mario falls in love immediately when he realizes they specialize in beer LOL. As I’m flipping through the menu I’m sort of freaking out…the prices are insane! Almost every dish is $20. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good meal, but man, that’s just a little exaggerated!

Mario gets his beer and I get a Strawberry Daiquiri. We decide to get a spinach and artichoke pizza. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. That pizza was SO WORTH the price!! I want some right now…

We picked Mario’s paycheck up after dinner and went to Walmart to cash it since all the banks were closed by then. We shopped around a bit and then I think we went home.

If I remember correctly I paid bills the next morning, went to see Gramma, and then Mom, the kiddos and I met Mario and his friend Manny (who was visiting) at Burger King for lunch. He told us all about his job; which he made sound peachy and all but I still wouldn’t be okay with Mario being away for so long. Mario was actually thinking for some time about going with Manny, but we talked about it and decided it wasn’t in the best interest of our family, regardless of how much money he’d be making.

I can’t remember much from Sunday. I think this is the day I decided to stay home and clean.

Monday (June 23rd) was spent lazying around most of the morning and then John took me to Kumori while Mom watched the kiddos. It was delicious as always. We joked around and enjoyed our food (neither of us had had sushi in quite a while) and then we went to the mall for a stroll. We were browsing around in Game Stop when mom called on my cell. She asks if we’re on our way yet–Alaethia’s been throwing up non-stop. Oh gosh. My poor baby. Her first encounter with vomit, ever. We weren’t sure if it was a stomach virus or if she’d caught Matthew’s Strep. One of the first symptoms he’d had was vomiting. We rush home as soon as I hang up with Mom.

I get home and sure enough, the unmistakable stench of vomit seems as though it’s penetrated the walls. Alaethia’s seems to be in good spirits, though. I get to washing everything, because Mom of course just tossed everything into a lovely, smelly pile. I’m gagging the whole time, because as I’ve mentioned tons of times on this site, vomit is not my forte as a parent.

I ask Mom if Alaethia puked on my sofas, because I notice the throw blanket that she loves to snuggle with was covered in puke. She says no. Once I’m done getting everything into the laundry I scoop Alaethia up in my arms and fall into the sofa with her. And just as we hit the sofa the nasty smell of vomit poofs up into the air. Alaethia had indeed vomited on most of the sofa but Mom didn’t want to tell me. She didn’t have to, I smelled it! It took tons of the cleaner they gave us at Furniture Row and about half a bottle of Febreeze to make the smell come out!

It’s later in the evening and Alaethia starts getting warm. Mary’s holding her while I administer the Motrin. She hated it but took it anyway. Mary’s still holding her while she, Mario and I are talking in the kitchen and Alaethia starts vomiting violently. I feel so bad for her; she’s so helpless and little and all the while Mary’s leaning her over the trash can, Alaethia’s desperately reaching for me. My poor girl.

I took her to the doctor the next morning and her Strep culture’s negative so it’s most likely a virus. They prescribed the usual: Pedialyte and Motrin and just wait it out. I don’t even get the Pedialyte at the pharmacy because they don’t have the non-flavored one (to mix with juice) and buying the flavored ones they do have is a waste of money. She never drinks them. So we give her Gatorade (which was hard enough to give her, much less the crackers and soup) and when she became really desperate, watered-down milk.

She didn’t throw up anymore but she had constant diarrhea. We’d never gone through so many diapers.

Mario gets home from work and we’re talking when Jaylen rushes to the bathroom because he’s got a tummy ache. Sure enough he missed the toilet by an inch and threw up all over the bathroom mat and anything in a three-foot radius. We get him cleaned up and into bed and put a wastebasket near his bed just in case. I disinfect everything with Lysol and throw out the rug completely.

As we’re getting into bed we hear Jaylen throwing up violently, again. We rush to his bedroom and once again he didn’t even have time to lean over towards the wastebasket; he threw up all over his Transformers comforter. We clean him up, roll everything up, throw it into the washer and get him new sheets. I’m trying to be extremely careful and try not to breathe in anything or touch anything without washing my hands. I spray everything down with Lysol again and as I’m changing the trash bag inside the wastebasket I see Mario leaning in to give Jaylen a kiss on the cheek. Uh oh.

I’ve got Eenan keeping himself separate from the other kids and it’s extremely hard for him since he wants to be with Alaethia all the time. Alaethia’s still got diarrhea but her appetite’s getting a little better. I feel so bad for Jaylen. He asks if he can play Game Cube and I say of course. I get him the controller and he props himself up and starts to play. I went into the room to check on him about 10 minutes later and he was asleep with the controller in his hands. Poor baby.

Mario calls around 12 noon and tells me he’s caught the bug; he’d already thrown up three times. He was on his way home.

He quarantined himself in our bedroom and I spent most of the day tending to my sickies and cleaning up. I don’t think I’d done more laundry or used up more Lysol and Clorox cleaning wipes in my life! Jaylen threw up at least 3 more times that day and he got diarrhea. I’d noticed that with this virus, once you got diarrhea the vomiting was over.

Mario’s such a big kid; if I went 10 minutes without checking on him, and if he was awake, he’d moan, “Ohhh…no one cares about me…” LOL

Mario’s week of vacation was supposed to start the next day, Thursday, but we laugh that he began half a day early. Certainly not the way he wanted to, though.

I kept wondering when the bug was going to hit me, since I was the one who’d had contact with everyone. I was sort of hoping that if I was going to get sick for the brunt of it to be that Wednesday and wear off for Thursday, because I had a dinner date with the girls and wasn’t going to miss it for the world. I don’t know how I dodged the bullet (obsessive hand-washing, perhaps?) but I didn’t get sick at all. Neither did Eenan.

Mario felt much better Thursday and so did Jaylen, thank goodness. Alaethia still had mild diarrhea but at least her appetite was back. Mario wouldn’t watch them alone, my mom and in-laws were there to help. So I left to meet the girls at night feeling okay; not as guilty as I thought I would.

My first stop before meeting the girls at Olive Garden was at Conn’s, where I would pay for a third of what I got Mario’s camera for. Turns out I had to re-sign and do the contract all over again since the guy who originally worked on my account wasn’t there anymore. So I couldn’t give them a payment on that day, or for another two weeks.

Karina was already at Olive Garden so we ordered our drinks (I got a Strawberry Mango margarita) and just had a good time chatting. Carmen got there next and then Sally did. We ordered our food and ate and had great conversation. It’s great getting together with them. It doesn’t happen often so when we do get a chance to meet up we’re bursting with stuff to talk about. Sometimes I feel like we don’t get to talk enough! There are only so many hours that a restaurant stays open, for example. Olive Garden closes at 10…we were still there at 10:30! Our waiters were nice and patient and even took photos for us.

I can’t stress enough how awesome it is to have these girls back in my life. And I’ve got Myspace to thank for it!

Thursday was our last day in San Antonio. As much fun as I was having I missed Mario terribly and couldn’t wait to get home and see him.

We got up, got ready, and packed up all our stuff. While we waited for everyone else, Mary, the kids and I went to Walmart to get a few things for the road. We got packages of ham for Alaethia (one of the only things she wanted to eat during the trip), fruit, milk and drinks.

We had breakfast at Denny’s (yum) with Jose, Elda, their kids and Jorge. Tommy, Yadira and their kids arrived later since they were going their own way.

Our first stop was Cabela’s after breakfast, which is this huge sporting goods store in Buda, TX. All the men in our family love some type of hunting so they all loved this place. It was really amazing, actually. It had huge dioramas of stuffed animals in their natural habitats such as the mountains or Africa. It was really cool. My boys were throwing fits while I was taking photos and looking around because they were desperate to get to the shooting range upstairs. So after I’d taken at least 50 pictures of all the animals we went up there. And then they were upset because they couldn’t shoot the targets correctly. After they’d played there for a while they took pictures and then we went to the aquarium. It was a nice aquarium; lots of bass fish and a funny one called a Black Crappie LOL. I became 5 years old when I saw that one and laughed along with the kids.

We hit the road again and stopped for gas. While we were there we asked for directions to the Inner Space Cavern. Nobody knew the way except that it was in Georgetown. We followed Jose and Elda through Austin and then Round Rock and then got to Georgetown. The kids were antsy and hungry (mine were throwing spectacular fits not wanting to leave the gift shop—which is quite rude of the people to put it right at the entrance!)

We went back to Round Rock to have lunch a T.G.I.Fridays. What a shame that we didn’t have a truck or money…Ikea was right in from of Fridays!

I ate the usual plate I’d get when we actually had a Fridays in the Valley, the Sizzling Chicken and Shrimp, or something like that. It was so good.

We went back to the Cavern and waited for the tour to start. They told us no food or drinks were allowed but they were crazy if they thought Alaethia would stay quiet the whole tour without a sippy of milk. It’s not like we were going to graffiti the walls with it or anything. So we smuggled one in in Sammy’s shorts.

We got on the trolley to go into the cave and right at the point the tour guide told us the 95° heat would change to a cool 70°, it did!

The kids were amazed by the formations; I especially liked the straws. We weren’t allowed to touch anything except for the Formation of Temptation, or something like that, and other places he told us we could.

He told us the history of the cave and how some DOT people found it while checking the ground in preparation of a new highway. The owner of the land wanted to explore so they dug a huge hole through the ground and dropped him in with a rope. He landed on a pile of prehistoric bat droppings. The only bats that inhabit the cave right now are teeny tiny ones, can’t remember their name. He said, “Imagine a chicken nugget with wings,” and they totally look like that!

Alaethia was so sleepy halfway through the tour that she threw the fit of all fits. Not fun in the confined spaces of the cave “rooms”. Mary and I stayed behind the group, away from the eyes of the tour guide, and gave Alaethia her sippy while trying to put her to sleep. I don’t know how Mary does it. I eventually get Aly to fall asleep, but Mary just rocks her and hums to her and voila! She’s out!

Mary passed her on to Jorge on the way back, since it was kind of slippery and uphill. The boys had such a great time looking around, feeling mysterious and like explorers. Even Jaylen, who hates to even walk through Wal-mart, had a great time and only complained a handful of times about his feet hurting (he’s in such a tattle-telling, whiny mood lately!).

I took tons of pictures; it was so interesting. We were the last tour so we only had a bit of time to look through the gift shop, which sucks because I wanted to look around more and get a souvenir, since I didn’t get one anywhere else. But oh well, at least I got my babe something.

We got some ice cream (I craved a Snickers ice cream bar immediately and had one. I was a naughty diabetic the whole time we were over there!)

Alaethia was moody all the way home. She desperately needed to sleep, but didn’t want to. She’s so dramatic—she’d cover her face with her hands and scream “Aye, aye, ayyyyee!” We heard that till we stopped at a rest stop. I got her down to distract her for a little bit but as soon as she got in the car seat again it was Scream City. She eventually got so tired that she passed out and stayed asleep till we got home at midnight. All the way over I was texting Mario a play-by-play of our location.

We got home and left everything in the car; we were too tired to bother with luggage. The boys slept over at Mary’s and Aly, Mario and I came home and watched TV. Mario surprised me with a Jensen iPod docking station/stereo, which he’d already set up on my desk in our bedroom. He’s so sweet to me. We put Aly in her crib and updated each other on the goings on of the past 4 days. It was so nice to be home!

We were up by 8am, but everyone else was having a hard time getting out of bed. I was rolling around being lazy and then I hear Jorge hurling in the bathroom. I quickly became nauseous.

Mary, the kids and I decided to walk to Whataburger right next door instead of waiting around. We had a quick breakfast then went back to the hotel to finish packing up the diaper bag and made sure we had everything we needed for our sure-to-be long day.

When everyone had already had breakfast we followed Tommy, our leader, to Sea World again. I was so hot the day before I decided to wear a tank top, regardless of how huge I thought my arms looked. Besides, it would do some good to get rid of my horrible “Farmer’s Tan.” All the other ladies at the park seemed to be comfortable with their bodies, why couldn’t I?

We were supposed to start off with the rides, but of course, Eenan and the kids wanted to go to the Lost Lagoon, where you get wet. Their first stop was the tubing place. I was really nervous about them going in there, especially since they were bobbing all over the place even with life jackets on. I wanted to get in there with them to help them out and take Alaethia around a few times, but I stupidly didn’t take a change of clothes and didn’t feel like walking around feeling damp like the day before. Sammy, Brandon, and Jose went in so I left the boys with them. They always stick together, so I felt confident that nobody would stray.

Meanwhile Elda and I went into one of the shops to either find an over-dress, shorts, or a bathing suit. Everything was super expensive but I bought myself some board shorts even though they were a size bigger. When I’ve gotten changed and I’ve got Alaethia in my arms I see Sammy and Jose, soaked, walking towards us. I ask them, “Is Brandon still with the boys?” Sammy replies, “Yes. But Jaylen’s looking for you.” I stop dead in my tracks and think What do you mean Jaylen’s looking for me!? As my heart starts racing and I go into a panic because I imagine him lost and helpless in this huge park, a lifeguard with a clipboard is turning around a corner and is asking someone, “…what was she wearing?” I crane my neck to see who’s behind him and its Jaylen sobbing. I scream, “JAYLEN!” and grab him. I ask the lifeguard, “How long’s he been with you?! Has he been lost long?” and he smiles nicely and says, “No, ma’am. He just came up to me a few seconds ago.” I gave him the usual lecture of, “You NEVER, EVER wander off alone!!!” and walk him over to where Mary is waiting with Jorge and Tommy (neither of them got in the water) because Jaylen’s too shook up to go back.

When Alaethia and I went to meet Yadira, Yazmin, Angela and Matthew at the tubes I ask if they’ve seen Eenan and Brandon floating around. They tell me no, not the whole time that they’ve been there. My heart sinks. Not again!

Tommy had been filming Matthew in the tubes with Yadira and he said Mary was with the boys. Thank God. I managed to have a pretty relaxing time floating around with Alaethia. She enjoyed it a lot. We went around about 3 times and then got out to go to the kiddie pool. I tried getting Alaethia to go on the tiny slide or under the splashing mushroom but she was terrified, clinging onto me for dear life. So we just sat in the foot of water for a bit until she became brave enough to splash a little.

We changed and met everyone at the table and chairs we’d claimed “ours”. I was in pain. Stupid shorts I’d bought had some plastic stitching and scratched up my legs. I didn’t notice till I slid my jean capris back on and rubbed my thigh. It hurts just thinking about it.

Alaethia fell asleep for a good long while. I couldn’t change her tank top, but I removed her little water undies and diaper and just left her in a clean diaper. She was nice and fresh.

If I remember correctly our next stop was the Journey to Atlantis ride. It was Jose, Jaylen, Yazmin, Angela, Yadira and me. I’m not a big fan of roller coasters; I hate that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach…that pressure. But, Yadira had, as always, convinced me to go on it. As soon as we got in line I was chickening out. And then I realized I had my Centro in my pocket. I called Mary and poor thing came all the way to get my phone. Once we got on the ride (and my heart felt like it would pop out of my nostrils) it wasn’t too bad. I mean, yeah, it was all I expected it to be (scary) but it wasn’t THAT BAD. We slowly went up, had a little spin that turned us backwards and down we went, took another spin and then BOOM! Straight down we went into the water. That was the part I liked the least. Jaylen was probably braver than I was; he wanted another go! So Jose left and the rest of us got back on.

It was me, Jaylen and Yazmin this time around in our row, which was the 3rd one or so. The first time Jaylen was between Jose and Yadira in the very front row! So we’re on our way up we’re excited and then we just suddenly stop. There’s another boat in right in front of us on the part that turns you backwards and up ahead was another boat backwards right before the part that spins you forward again. We were up there for 10 minutes, at least. Turns out a little girl in the very first boat had thrown up and they needed to clean it up. I got SO SUNBURNED while we were up there. When they got the girl and her mom down and everything went back to normal Jaylen wanted another turn! We said, after that, yeah right!

We met everyone at the bottom and sat around a little. Then we decided to go to lunch. We went to Ray’s Bar-b-q. They had the best brisket and creamed corn! When we went back we went to the Haunted Lighthouse show again, because we’d missed Pirates 4-D. It’s sort of the same thing; a show in 3-d where they splash you with water, air and so forth. I figured Alaethia would be terrified again, so I sat near the exit and when she started screaming I went outside with her since I’d watched it the day before and Mary didn’t get to. It was so hot out we went into one of the shops and just basked in the cool air conditioning. We walked around and when we passed some walrus plushes she cooed, “Doggy!” so I promised her that when everyone came out of the show (and I got my money from my camera bag which stayed with Mary) I’d get her one.

We sat atop a stone wall while she drank her cup of milk in my lap. Everyone came out and we headed to the gift shop. She wanted a small walrus, but then I showed her the pup that Jaylen got and she wanted that one instead. She hugged it so tightly, it was too cute.

We missed the Rockin’ Ski Party and Waggin’ Tales shows so we headed to Sea Lions Tonight again. This time I took video of it, but it wasn’t as funny as the day before since it wasn’t the same guy acting.

The boys complained for a good while that they wanted these darn spray bottle fans. I kept telling them the past two days to save their money, because we’d be going to Fiesta Texas on Thursday but we decided not to go after all. So I spent $15 for each bottle…grr.

All the shows were over by then so we all went to a bench and sat down. Then Elda remembered the Rio Loco ride. I told Mary, “Go ahead, go! You haven’t ridden anything.” She smiled and said, “No thanks. Go ahead. I’ll watch Alaethia.”

So Eenan, Jaylen, Elda, Jose, Sammy, Brandon and me went to the ride. It was pretty quick getting to the beginning of the line since it was almost closing. The first way around I realize I have my darn cell phone again. Never learn. I had nowhere to hide it; I was getting soaked fast! So I stuck it in my undies LOL. It stayed pretty dry!

The boys wanted to go around again so this time Elda and I asked the ride attendant to hold our phones. He already had 4 other ones in his pocket LOL. We went around two more times and it was awesome. When we’d pass by this certain point Jorge would wet us with this water gun thing and Mary would show Alaethia where we were and she’d wave. The boys had so much fun on it, especially when it was their turn to get soaked under the waterfall.

We had to get creative in the truck so as not to wet the seats too much.

I’d sent my cousin Jessica a message that we were in town and she left me her number. I called her back and we talked for a good while. It was so nice to hear from her! We wanted to meet up but she’d be at Fiesta Texas he next day and we’d be at the caverns. She’s coming down this month so we decided to meet when she was in the Valley.

I got Jaylen bathed and Mary got Eenan and Aly bathed while I spoke to Jessica. I ate dinner (can’t remember what) and then I took a shower. I had a harder time sleeping that night; everything was waking me up. Even Alaethia stirred for a cup of milk and as I was getting up to get it, Mary had already come back with it and Alaethia had fallen back to sleep.