Burnt Fudge: The BIG Weekend: Traffic Jammed.

those that started it all:

so here's how it went:

Before my mom moved here, this would have been a day of dread. I had a LOT to do, Steve had to finish up important stuff at work and we wanted to get out of town as early as possible.

Abby had her last day of VBS (which means a little recital half way thru the day). And... well... Jack had to be taken care of as well. OH that's right - he hadn't slept the night before - he was very very fitful the entire night. Beyond fitful. Downright miserable. So Steve and I are working on no sleep. There was a second tooth to show for it though.

The drive went great... til the traffic at the end. Actually there were pockets of traffic throughout, but it was fine until the end. The end was awful.

I don't travel much, but what had to be the best traffic awareness sign ever read:

"Accident at Telegraph. Traffic jammed."

No hope offered, no solution, no time frame for relief. Just. Jammed.

Eventually we got to the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego. VERY cool decor and general feel. All

the staff were friendly in a "hard rock way" like answering the phone "this is Heather, how can I rock your world today?" which, granted did take a while to get used to:. "uh... er... no thanks? I'm looking for room service?"

They have nothing but valet parking which, whilst we aren't totally strangers to such things, we weren't exactly prepared to roll out of the car running and not have ANY access to the car unless we asked them to bring it out. Which takes a while and you tip and its annoying. SO rather quickly I realized we'd left the laptop and the diapers. Okay, definitely worth asking them to get for us. So they run to the car for us an dget them. Great! No problems with service - they were great. So about five minutes later I realized we forgot the kid's luggage. Now, listen... before you all think I'm insane... we had ourselves and my mom in the car - when we got to the hotel EVERYONE unloaded onto a trolly - including Bryan and Megan who got to the hotel at the exact same time... so I thought everything had been grabbed.

Anyway, with tail between legs we asked again - after all the kids are definitely going to need to change clothes once or twice on this weekend. Again, no problems, we're embarrassed but whatever.

Then I realized I left my wallet in the car.

So I didn't mention it and pretended I hadn't.

Next up was the rehearsal party - at the Omni Hotel overlooking a Padres/Giants game. We, of course, showed up decked out in Dodger gear.

Which ended up eliciting a lot of conversation between passer bys and ourselves.

The party was, true to Coleen style, an awesome party in an awesome location with fantastic food. I followed Abby around for the first half (Jack was with Gramma back at the Hard Rock) and then had a nice time not following Abby around after Sarah took Abby and Micaiah back to Gramma as well.