Just Another Week

I was out of town for the end of last week. I drove down to Anaheim on Thursday and stayed through Sunday. There were a couple authors coming into town that I wanted to meet and it was a nice chance to get away. I haven't been away from both boys overnight, so it's basically been 8 years since I was away on my own.

The boys did fine. Boris planned to take them on all kinds of adventures while I was gone, but with the bad weather, they stayed at home and cleaned most of the time. They cleaned out the boys rooms, including throwing out lots of school items from previous years. I think they counted like 80 stuffed animals in Peter's room, so Boris made Peter clear out half of them.

I tried to call every evening or morning to see how things were going. The first night, after I just got in to my hotel room, I called and when I asked Grady "what are you doing?" he said "Well, I'm mostly just standing here.". Very literal. The boys had a bit of trouble understanding me on the phone, but I got some good stories about their days eventually.

Of course, in the process of cleaning rooms and stuff, Boris did bribe the boys. I think they earned almost $9 each while I was gone. Funny because with me they normally earn a dollar or two a week.

Somehow the three of them are a bit sick now. Peter stayed home from school today because his cough is so metallic sounding. Not that he's coughing all that often, but it was bad sounding enough that I let him stay home and relax.

Tuesday was my first day home with Grady since I got back. The weather was nice and he just wanted to be outside. We played catch and dug holes. After an hour or two, I had to give up. I couldn't keep my ankles happy bending down to dig.

Here are some pictures from my drive too. The driving went really smoothly and it was a nice trip, but after about six hours, I was ready to be done driving. It's an eight hour plus drive, mostly through nothing. Lots of interesting landscape but I really didn't want to stop knowing how long I still had to go. If I go away again, I'll plan to either fly or stay closer so I don't have to use up two whole days with traveling.