Seriously. No particular subject on this one, just a lot of “what’s going on in our family” right now.

Let’s see. Friday was my birthday and also the ONLY weekend between February and June that I had available to spend a weekend at the beach with my sister. Jim’s work schedule and our upcoming Disneyland vacation were mostly to blame.

Friday was also the ONLY day between then and our Disneyland trip to get my Expedition in for it’s 60K service and get the air conditioner fixed. Jim drove it to work that day and took it into Landmark. I was car-less.

My mom came over around noon to sub for me, and my sister came and picked me up and we headed to the beach! The goal: scrapbooking. I desperately wanted to finish our 2009 family album.

One of her friends joined us and between the three of us we brought two ipods and seven movies. And yes, during our time at the beach we heard every song on the two ipods and watched (sort of) all seven movies! Two of us completely finished the albums we were working on, the books are ready to send off to the printer! YAY! A major task I can cross off my list!

We went out to dinner the first night at Dos Rocas (the only mexican restaurant in Rockaway) and brought home leftovers to eat the next night. We learned this trick on our last trip there, the portions are HUGE! They also treated us to a Flan in honor of my birthday! It was really good- I’d never tried it before.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast at the Cowbell Cafe, ordering omelettes, only eating half and taking the rest back to eat for breakfast on Sunday. It really works out well. All we need to bring for our beach weekends are beverages and something light for lunch on Saturday, and snacking items, a must when scrapbooking!

Sadly, we never set foot on the beach and it was wonderful sunny 65-degree weather! We were ocean-front though, so got to watch all the people walking on the beach and playing in the water. We lived vicariously through them.

OK, so Elisa had a good time at the beach. Well, not exactly. The ending was a little rough. The driver lost her keys at some point, although we aren’t sure what happened because she had her keys when we were carrying our luggage up to our room, but nobody saw the keys after that and we never used the car and she never touched the keys after we initially arrived. It wasn’t until thirty minutes before we were leaving that we realized there was a problem. Our 3pm departure time ended up being 7pm because we had to wait for her husband to get home from his weekend activity, grab the spare key, then make the drive to bring it to us! “Stranded at the beach!” Last I heard she still hasn’t found her keys! We think maybe they got left outside our room and someone picked them up. Yikes. (Everyone- get a hide-a-key or keep a spare key in your wallet!)

I was exhausted by the time we got home, mostly from the emotional drain of the afternoon not going as planned. Fortunately, I came home to a clean house- hubby had taken care of the vacuuming and bathroom cleaning that I like to have done every Sunday afternoon in preparation for daycare on Monday. So that was nice!

And over the weekend, Trevor made his first ever batch of cookies from scratch! They turned out pretty good and he had fun making them. He’s excited to try making them again sometime (oatmeal raisin). And I’m proud that he was able to do it all by himself!

So now we’re at Monday.

Jim informs me that his truck isn’t shifting properly and that there may be a transmission problem. Again. I think this is his 3rd transmission? I don’t know. I just know it’s a pain because he takes it out to some guy in Oregon City who specializes in the Dodge Ram Cummins trucks. That means whenever we drop it off, or pick it up, it’s a 2-hour ordeal.

To further complicate things, we have something going on every night this week. Jim doesn’t get home from work now until after 6:00. And Thursday we have split duty: Jim is supposed to pick Riley up from Soccer practice and I’m supposed to take Trevor to baseball practice. Kind of hard with one car. And if we’re supposed to pick up the truck that night, too, by 6:00, even more of a challenge! I’m not sure how it will all work out yet. Worst case scenario, the kids miss their practice. No biggie.

Friday I have a massage scheduled after I drop the kids off at preschool. I might need to cancel that and instead take Jim to go pick up his truck. So much for my “free time”.

Go with the flow. That’s all I can do. Be a passenger in my life and follow the path that has been laid out before me. I can’t see past 3 feet, but that’s OK!

Our big trip is coming up in a few weeks. I’m starting to collect my thoughts and formulate our itinerary and work on our packing lists. My goal for this week is to have the girls try on their summer clothing so I can start packing the things that fit. I also need to go through my summer clothing and make sure everything still works. Shoes are going to be a challenge for the girls because they wear different shoes every day and I don’t know how well any of them will hold up to wear for 10-hours straight….walking however many miles it ends up being around Disneyland!

I went to Costco last night (during baseball practice- using my time management skills!) to stock up on snack items for the trip, and also stock up on the much-needed groceries for this week! We go through 4 gallons of milk, 2 bunches of bananas and 1 bag of apples every week. Can’t beat Costco’s prices…plus I can fill up the car with gas and get a 4% rebate on it at the end of the year!

For fun, I added up how many miles we are driving every week due to our current sports schedule. Take a guess. And know that I drive a vehicle that gets 12 miles to the gallon. We really need to pick up a fuel economical vehicle at some point!

Did you make your guess yet?

Here’s the answer:

one hundred miles.

And that’s assuming we miss one of the practices, and that Jim swings by to pick up one of the kids on his way home from work (and someone else drives the kid to practice). And that does not take into account any driving that I do while the kids are at practice (banking, grocery shopping, etc.)

100 miles. Every week. Shuttling kids to/from sports. At 12 miles to the gallon that is 8.33 gallons of gas which means we’re spending $24 every week just for gas due to sports. $100 a month. Thank goodness our sports are local and we’re not driving to Bend or Yamhill or Gresham for tournaments!!

The other thing running through the back of my mind is my new sewing machine. I want to use it! I have jeans to hem, for both Jim and I. I have some pillowcases I want to make. I have some shirts that need mending. I want to learn how to use my machine and knock those projects off my list. No time.

No time. Grrrrrr…….