Weekend - Whew!

I took Stubby with me to work on Thursday - one of my coworkers has wanted to meet him ever since she saw him in one of our Christmas cards. He wasn't thrilled about being put in a crate, and he was a little nervous in my office, but soon made himself at home.

Thursday night was spent almost entirely packing for our trip to Houston for my cousin's wedding. We packed a lot of stuff for a 3-day trip. We took a break to drop Bandit off at Jan's - he was so excited to be at her place, hanging out with all her dogs.

I stayed up until 1:30 am that night, finishing all my packing, loading last-minute things on my iPad, and doing my nails. We had to wake up at 5:30 am to finish packing and loading things into the car - we then headed off to my 7 am sono appointment.

I had to get bloodwork done again, and it was the same new girl, and this time it was worse, believe it or not. Actually, the pain wasn't quite as bad, but she first tried my left arm (since I had a nice bruise on my right) and couldn't get it. Then she went to the right arm, and still had no luck. She called over the other phlebotomist (the one who gets it on the first try every time), who tried to wiggle the needle in my right arm to get it, but still couldn't hit the vein (I think the new girl goes in at a bad angle or spot or something). So she ended up having to go for a vein in my wrist, which was just lovely.

Fifteen minutes later, I walked out of there with three bandages on my arms.

We then drove to the airport, and got there with enough time to spare to have a quick breakfast. We had one layover in LAX - during the second leg of our trip, we hit some pretty good turbulence. I immediately started having "LOST" flashbacks. On one particularly good bump, you could feel the plane roll to the right a little. I admit it made me a little anxious!

We landed in Houston late in the afternoon - it took forever to get our luggage, but we finally got out of there, drove to the hotel, changed for the rehearsal dinner, headed to the restaurant, and got there just a little bit late. The weather was pretty nice - warm but not hot, but there was decent humidity.

It was fun hanging out with all my cousins (we still sit at a "kids" table. I think we'll be sitting at a "kids" table even when we're like, 50, and our 80-year old parents will still be toddling over making sure we have enough to eat). All but my cousin Kate made it out there, so there were 11 of us plus spouses. Some of them I don't get to see often at all, so it was nice to catch up a little bit, although we were so busy the whole weekend that I didn't really get to talk to anyone an extensive amount.

Saturday morning we all went out for dim sum (at the same restaurant that the reception was going to be held at), then went back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Marc and I ended up being a tad late for the ceremony (we got there just as the bride was about to walk down the aisle) because it took me much longer to do my hair than I expected.

We took some photos after - the wedding photographer was kind of bitchy and she kept asking me if I was sure that I was standing on the first step, and not the second, and I was like yes, I'm not an idiot, I can tell I'm on the first step, and it's possible that I'm not a midget and that I'm wearing heels too. I ended up taking off my shoes to make her happy.

The reception was a couple hours after that, and to my disappointment, there was no dancing. THIS IS WHY I GO TO WEDDINGS, PEOPLE. Well, we managed to entertain ourselves with gossip and whatnot. My cousins are hilarious.

On Sunday, we had planned to go to the NASA space center, but there was literally a monsoon that morning, and we didn't want to drive in that rain, so we went to the ginormous mall instead. I got Sonic for lunch for the first time - I wanted a breakfast burrito, but the wait was too long, so I got the chicken sandwich instead. That was so-so. The tater tots were yummy though, and the Oreo Sonic Blast I got was fantastic. It was amazing, like a party in my mouth.

So we walked for hours around this mall (me, Marc, my brothers, and my cousins Winny and Connie - most everyone else had left earlier in the day). I didn't buy a single thing, amazingly. After we dropped everyone back at the hotel, Marc and I left for the airport.

Side note - the highway system in Houston is a friggin' nightmare. There are toll roads everywhere, and some lanes are what they call EZ Pass only (like our Fast Trak), but by the time you realize you're in that lane, you discover that they've barricaded you in, and you have no choice but to go through the toll without an EZ Pass and await your ticket in the mail. And you have to pay tolls constantly. Inane.

Our GPS was a major fail too - for some reason it works great in the Bay Area, and differentiates between exits and ramps nicely with street-level views, but didn't do any of this in Houston. There would be two ramps next to each other, each going to different freeways, and we would have no idea which one our GPS was telling us to go on, because it gave no details, and it always gave us a different highway name than what was on the road signs. Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare. All of us that had GPS's got lost at least once. My dad, who brought AAA paper maps (even though he has a GPS), never got lost.

Anyways - we got home late Sunday night. As soon as we landed, I had to run to a bathroom to get my shots done on time. We picked Bandit up on our way home, showered, and crashed for the evening.

We had to get up early Monday morning for my sono appointment. Once again, the new girl was doing blood draws. I'd drank some water that morning, hoping it would help, but it didn't. She went for my right arm this time, and after poking around some, got nothing. So then she tried for my wrist, and still nothing. She suggested I go get my sonogram and have some water to drink, and then come back to try again. I decided to just ask if there was someone, anyone, else who could try drawing my blood (the other lady who was usually there wasn't in that day - and I DID have water to drink that morning, and I was pretty sure that wasn't the problem here). I mean, the girl was nice, and I know I'm not always an easy draw, but I'd just about had enough.

So they had another lady come and do my blood draw, and BAM, she got it on the first shot. I have to go in again for more bloodwork on Wednesday, and I swear, if she's the one working that morning, I don't know what I'm going to do. I was hoping to have been set to trigger tonight, but it looks like I'll be stimming for a few more days, so that means probably another two more blood draws at least.

Whew! Bonus cookies to you if you read all this to the end!