Two Free Entrees

I received a letter yesterday that I opened just before we took off on vacation. It was from the taco joint that served me a side of fingernail in my beverage. They took the appropriate tone of being mortified that such a thing occurred in their fine establishment and let me know that the management and crew at that store have been contacted. They included two measly vouchers for free food. Fine by me. It was gross what happened but I'm not going to crusade against them since I've been eating there for years and it is always clean and the employees are very nice. I view it as an isolated incident. The nail could have come mixed in with the lemon - someone could have cut their nail while cutting up the lemon.

The drive down to Keizer was long. Ryan had so much work to get done before leaving that he didn't get home until almost 1:00, then he had to eat lunch, pack and load the car. We hit the Friday rush hour traffic that starts super early in the summer. We got about 5 miles south of the city when everything came to a screeching halt, even the HOV lane was inching along. It stayed slow all the way to Olympia. It took an extra hour to get from our house to Olympia. An hour! It just confirmed for us why we live in the city. Live in city = easy commute. Sure your house is a little (a lot) smaller, you may or may not have a garage, your lot size is small (5,000 ft sq. is a 'decent' size' and many homes are built on 2,500 ft sq lots), the house is older and has knob and tube wiring, old plumbing and maybe asbestos siding and your property taxes are higher BUT you can get to work in under 20 minutes. It's all about minimizing time spent in the car. When I was selling real estate I would preview houses before I showed them to clients to narrow down what I had to show them and unfortunately I took clients who wanted to live in the sticks (Auburn, Renton, Woodinville). I got stuck in traffic so many times while previewing properties I couldn't fathom that people would be willing to put up with spending so much of their precious time in a car going nowhere because they wanted a house that was all new and shiny.

Now for a vacation update.

Ryan's family reunion was today. It's always fun to see his family, they are all so nice and personable. We got to spend a lot of time with Erika, the only grandchild in Ryan's immediate family - my belly was giving her a run for her money though. Her parents are pretty happy that at the next reunion our little guy will deflect some of the attention from her since she is the only toddler in the family right now. Ryan was really enjoying spending time with Erika as he wants to forge a relationship with her. It's kind of hard since we only see her once a year - we will need to fly out to see her more often so our boy will know his cousin. Erika spent two nights at our house and she said Ryan's name once, my name once or twice and Kea's name non-stop. She even says "Kea dog" in her sleep. Kea should be flattered since she also talks about the Wiggles in her sleep.

Tomorrow morning we are going to meet for breakfast in the hotel then head to a storage locker that all of his grandmother's belongings are in. The family had a chance yesterday to take what they wanted and everything that didn't go is going to a local charity. We took a china hutch (goodbye horrible Ikea buffet!) and a dresser that I will paint and use for the baby's room (or not paint and still use in the baby's room). Once we are done at the storage locker we are going to load up Kea with my mother-in-law and send her back to Belfair and her acreage where she can run and run and run some more. When we pick her up after she's been there for a few days she is the most mellow little lab. Her wiggle power is greatly depleted after Gordy has a week of throwing the ball with her and long walks with Mary Jo. When Gordy's granddaughters are out MacKenzie and the dog both get worn out. I'm surprised MacKenzie hasn't worn out her right arm with all the tennis balls she throws for the dog.

Maybe I'll give another update later on if we have wireless Internet where we are staying. Right now I think I need to sneak down to the dining room to grab something to eat before we all meet at 8 since I'm starving! The kid is burning up food faster and faster these days.