Home at Last!

Well, we made it home safe and sound rolling into our driveway at 7:00pm last night. Man, yesterday was a long day. Why do the trips home seem longer than the trips TO vacation?

First, we got lost in LA on the way to return the rental car. Got there on time, thankfully - but managed to leave Nathan's cell phone in the rental car which we didn't realize until sitting in the airport terminal. So they're FedEx'ing that back to us.

We get to the airport and Maysen starts doing the "I'm going to reject anything you want me to do" attitude. Throwing himself down, going opposite ways than us, screaming when he's redirected. Yea, let's just say that the 100ft walk to the terminal seemed like 100 miles. We get there, sit down and Maysen (the ham he is) starts just chaaaaatting away with everyone seated. There were two girls in particular he was making them gut-bust with various cheesy smiles, "tricks", counting. One girl even commented "Oh my, what's next? Somersaults?" Well, it just so happens that Maysen DOES indeed know how to do somersaults, so he proceeds to do repeated somersaults down the stretch of clear pathway through chairs. Afterward he stood up, walked over to a sleeping woman, patted her (not so gently) on the leg and said "See?!" One gruff man talking on the cell phone had to get up and walk away because the business associate he was talking to only could hear "HELLLLLO???" as Maysen walked up to the man and insisted on being let in on the conversation ...

Our flight was fine. Maysen slept the first hour, so that was good. We landed, got picked up by the hotel shuttle, and I've never been so happy to see our van. We met Jenn for dinner and headed home. "Hmmm" we thought, "should we pay Delmar $25 or $30 for watching Bailey and Bird this week?" Delmar is our neighbor boy, who comes over feeds, waters, and walks Bailey when we're gone. He's about 11 and thinks $10 is super-cool cash. We get home, immediately walk over to Delmar and Jackie's house to get our key. "Bailey's been a good girl, but we did have a few accidents". Here is what "a few" entailed:

1. Tearing down one of our fence gates (literally the whole thing), which had to be rescrewed onto our fence by Delmar, Jackie and Brian in an all-three effort.
2. Ripping down 3 of our fence boards. Didn't escape mind you, it was just the act that she wanted the fence tore up.
3. Bailey having 3 bouts of diarrhea on our carpet, so they had to go get carpet deodorizer to help mask the pleasant odor, scrub my carpet, then vacuum.
4. Bailey found the Costco-size StoveTop Stuffing in my pantry, helped herself and ripped 3 bags open up and down my hallway/livingroom. #3 time Jackie had to vacuum my house.
5. Tore up remainder (just a few kleenexes) in my bathroom trash
6. Day #6 peed in my living room.

Uhhh ... we quickly said thank you, handed them $50 (not the measly $25 we had originally pondered) and couldn't have said "thank you" enough. I have wonderful neighbors to withstand my "I'm going to pay my parents back" dog, Bailey.

Needless to say we're pooped, Stanley Steemer is coming this afternoon to clean ALL my carpets, Maysen is going to Bob and Bonnie's so Nathan and I can sneak away for a breather- movie, Fracture. Looks great! I'll give you the review. Welcome home, Leslie!