Finally, some SUN!

What a miserable, cold, rainy week it was! OK... maybe it didn't rain everyday, but it seemed like it.

John made some flight and hotel reservations for us to go to Vegas for the upcoming holiday weekend. William, Freddy, Jake and Lena will be going too. Irene and Sal will be joining us from CA. I'm really looking forward to it! The guys have gone to Vegas for various birthday celebrations (Robert's 50th, someone's 40th...) and have always come back with great stories. It will be a short trip (leaving Thursday night and coming back on a Saturday night red-eye) but hopefully we'll pack in all kinds of fun and adventure.

Last Thursday, the Chumados won their first fall season playoff game against "Mamma Lucia" and will face the "Strays" next week. The Strays won their first playoff game 29-2. The Chumados beat the Strays (their only loss of the season, I think) in the final regular season game, so this should be a really good one!

Saturday night was a big surprise birthday party for Alison at Matt and Alison's home in DC. See, M&A host an annual Pumpkin Carving Contest/Party every year and Alison sent out invites for a Sunday evening event. Matt decided to turn it into a surprise party for Alison on Saturday night and sent e-mails to everyone telling them to go ahead and respond YES to the pumpkin party but come to their house by 6:30 on Saturday night. Alison was definitely surprised to find folks in her house when she and Matt came home from the movies. A good time was had by all, although we did our normal non-mingling thing. Not that we didn't mingle at all when we go to a party where we don't know everyne... just that we mostly chatted amongst ourselves and caught up with one another. We haven't really been hanging out as much with John and I having all the family and wedding things to do these past few weeks.

My final ranting thought of the weekend is, "Why didn't my parents buy a minivan???" A few years ago, my folks were in the market for a new car and bought a really nice Toyota Camry ("LEM"). My aunt and I strongly suggested they buy a mini van, as whenever they have guests in town, they can't all go together. They either cram someone in the way-back of my Rodeo (not a good place to be) or have multiple vehicles going to their destination. This was OK when it was just my parents, my aunt, and an out-of-town visitor or two. But now, they've got multiple visitors in the house (two from Thailand and another aunt) for 3 weeks or so. This takes the normal Dallas Avenue household count up to 6 and LEM only holds 5 adults. When they all want to go somewhere together, someone else (namely ME!) has to play chauffer to the ones who can't fit into LEM, as my mom and aunt don't drive much anymore and never on a highway.

Somehow, my parents always insist on going places that are way out in Gaithersburg or beyond. Can't they eat in Silver Spring or Bethesda??? Don't get me wrong, these places serve delicious food, but there are all kinds of yummy places near their house! When we do something during the week with my family, I have my hour drive home from work, then we have to go from Laurel to SS (30 minutes, depending on traffic) to pick up some people and then another 45 minutes or so to the restaurant. So you wonder why I'm bit cranky by the time we're at the restaurant after being in a car/traffic for two and a half hours.

Last week, they all went up to Atlantic City and rented a minivan. Hmmm.... wouldn't it have been convenient if my parents had their own minivan all along???