And this little guys set the tone for our trip! He looks grumpy, doesn’t he? Towards the beginning of the week we drove up the coast along the beautiful pacific ocean and headed for Monterey, CA! Our main purpose was business, as my husband and I both had to take a State exam for Pest Control…I know, bizarre! His business fell into a loop hole with the state and if he didn’t pass the test than the upcoming summer business was no business at all! So we both took the test in hopes that one of us passes (It’s a really hard test)! I haven’t decided yet, what I’ll do if I do pass, well other than what I have to do. I should put this certificate to work, don’t you think? With today’s competitive market I have to stand out among the crowd, so I came up with an idea to modern day pest management…I’ll call it “Don’t Kill, Just Chill” It will be a bug babysitting business…I’ll show up at your house, watch your bugs and therefore you won’t be bothered by them. No added pressure of taking somethings life…Perhaps I’ll even train them to perform in a little bug circus…as an added bonus, you’ll receive bug entertainment…Ya! What do you think..do I have something here?
O.K. enough of my brilliant ideas, On with my story…we stayed at the Embassy Suites, which we had never stayed at before and OMG these people were nice. We were greeted by a doorman, who scooped up our luggage and met us at our room (of course I tipped him, I’m not that cheap) who asked us if there was anything he could do for us and let us know that the children were welcome in this hotel…WOW! That evening we were offered free Booze (yahoo!) at the managers social, which apparently happens nightly (do you think they get weirdos who live in the area, that show up for free booze every night? I would). So the hubby, MIL and I had a wonderful time slugging a few back (I said a few, c’mon we had the kids) and headed to dinner at Applebee’s (which btw was HORRIBLE).
That night we climbed into bed looking forward to a wonderful nights sleep and a 6 am breakfast (also included with our room at no extra charge) before our state exam at 8am!!!!….so we nestled into bed and fell asleep. Then the unlucky numbers came…3:30 am…that’s Siena’s witching hour and she woke up SCREAMING..LOUD! She didn’t stop, screaming, loud, for awhile and then she wouldn’t go back asleep…on the one night we REALLY needed our sleep! And No, we didn’t get to go back to sleep, we were up, she was up and I’m pretty sure the entire Embassy Suites may have been up! So we awaited 6 am and headed for the Free (yahoo!) cook to order breakfast (with my french vanilla coffee mate in hand, I know, sick and wrong) and I immediately asked the waitress where the permanent coffee drip was…she said it was over at the juice bar and I headed for my impending bliss. And bliss it was…oh coffee how I love thee!
We took the test…it was REALLY hard… 3 weeks for results..What? 3 MF weeks? It’s a scantron… your the state..stick it in one of those little machines you have..cmon! But no, because their the state they receive strict instructions to piss off everyone they come in contact with and to make sure that ALL people are as miserable as possible when their done dealing with them. Well hmph, ugh, *sticking my tongue out*, whatever!
So we decided it was time for a little fun… .to the aquarium we went! We had to grab a little fun on this trip and the poor kiddos were bored out of their mind at this point. We saw seahorsies , jelly fish, otters and fish that I have never seen before. Did you know that there is a species of little jelly fish that have rainbow colors that light up and scroll like a marquise sign? Unbelievable! The Monterey Bay Aquarium was by far one of the most wonderful experiences we have had to date. Siena stayed semi interested (a rare occasion) and Milla just wanted to find Nemo (thanks a lot disney)..so the hunt was on until we finally found him! As you can see we found Nemo and Dori and we had one happy little girl. She could have went home happy right then. We did a little more looking and a lot more shopping!
Unfortunately, every day must come to and end and since we started the trip with a screaming Siena, why not end it with a screaming Siena…she screamed about 1/2 the way home, so loud, that I thought one of our ear drums may burst. My poor MIL had no idea what she was in for when she took this trip with us and I’m so thankful she is as fabulous as she is! She took it with a grain of salt, but she kept thinking something was wrong and their must be a fix for it (Nobody really believes that we have a child that likes to hear her own voice). After 18 months of screaming, I have learned that she is who she is…she doesn’t have a tummy ache or head ache, she’s just Siena and part of Siena is sharing her discontentment with others, through her vocal cords. But thanks for signing up mom and not ducking out on our upcoming trip 😉
Point of this story: We made it out alive!!!..can you believe it?
I’ll keep you posted on our upcoming travels..but for now just cross your fingers that we passed our our state exam so that my “Don’t Kill, Just Chill” bug babysitting/circus business can be up and running shortly 😉