Holy crap, we are back in California, but not back in our house, because our house has no power. NO FREAKING POWER. Apparently our energy bill hasn’t been paid in two months and I never noticed. I am so smart, S-M-R-T. It seems the power was shut off on Thursday or maybe Friday and we found out about this on Saturday, while we were in San Francisco for a wedding. After taking a few deep breathes to help me calm the fuck down, I realized that having no power is not the end of the world and that it means extending our vacation by one more day when while we stayed with friends. Plus, knowing that I would shortly be in a bar with a mighty strong drink in my hand, helped too.

I bet you’re wondering what my final verdict is about our Adventure by Disney. (Shut up and play along, of course you’ve been waiting for this!) I’m going to give the trip a thumbs up and would even go so far as to recommend it to other folks. We made some great friends on the trip (click through and behold the Duke of Dill aka: the King of Pickles and Kevin, the only guy that can make jparks look like a saint), saw some amazing sites, stayed in magnificent hotels, drank good Guinness and whiskey, and came home with tons of stories to tell. If all of that isn’t the mark of a great vacation then I don’t know what is.

Since returning home, we’ve been smacked hard in the face my real life and it has not been pretty. But anytime I look at my Ireland pictures I smile and laugh about jparks being a dumbass and suddenly am ready to call Disney to book my next Adventure. Dorky? Yes, but it simply was an awesome vacation. Like for reals. And in Ireland I had electricity in all my hotel rooms. Well, except for the one room where I tried to use my hair dryer. Who knew that a power converter doesn’t actually convert all appliances?

And if I’m not doing that then I’m eating chocolate whiskey ice cream.

I love Ireland.

you might have already read most of this post. When I opened my blog this morning something was up with it. This post had disappeared and when I finally found it, the last half was missing. I blame the weird Irish internet.

I’m sorry to report that my plan failed. Big Fail Whale, in fact. (I saw a guy wearing a Fail Whale shirt today and wanted to introduce myself to him. An Irish Fail Whale! So exciting!) I did sleep on the plane, but jparks did not. When we got to the hotel at 9:30am, we immediately went to the room and jparks decided to nap. I stayed up for awhile reading, but then finally caved in. I set an alarm to go off an hour later, but it didn’t work. We slept for 8 hours. So yeah, that first day here, not much happened. We did wake up in time to get dinner and drinks from a real Irish Pub. I had cider and ended up a bit tipsy, but since tipsy was my only goal for this trip, it’s safe to say I had a good time.

Today jparks and I woke up at 3am (fucking jet lag) and after trying to go back to sleep unsuccessfully, we watched tv until 5. After a quick run (running on vacation, I am so awesome) we headed out for the day. First we hit St. Stephens Green where I found the Oscar Wilde memorial and took a dorky picture:

After that we went to the Dublin Google office and I gorged on European chocolate bars. All I’m going to say is that the Dublin mini-kitchens kick the Mountain View mini-kitchens asses. And that we are dorks for visiting Google while on vacation:

After that we did some other stuff (that I can’t currently think of because I’m tired. And have been drinking) and then met the rest of our tour group for a dinner. I was a bit nervous about this because really, what kind of people go on Disney tours (I mean besides jparks and I), but the people at our table were nice. Older than us by about 20 years, but still nice. One of the guys owns a pickle company in New York and I was so excited by this that I proclaimed “I love pickles!” I’m hoping to have a pickle hook up by the end of this trip.

And that’s all I’ve got for now because I’m tried. And maybe my buzz is dying. And the jet lag is still kicking my ass a tiny bit.

If you care, there’s more pictures over here (although not many because uploading takes forever on our wifi here) and more being uploaded shortly.

It’s almost 2am and I am still awake! My plan is going according to, eh, plan! (Sorry folks, words are apparently not my strong suit this late at night)

See, our flight leaves tomorrow, er, TODAY at 2:35pm. And since it’s an overnight flight my plan is make myself so damn tired that I have no choice but to sleep on during the bulk of it. I think this is a brilliant idea. Jparks does not agree. He thinks I’ll be tired and cranky and not able to fall asleep. He has not met my new best friend forever, Mr. Benadryl. My new friend is really good at knocking me out. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll have jparks read to me from one of his new Dungeons and Dragons books. The ten hour flight will fly by. (fly, flight. dude, at 2am I am cracking myself up)

I am mostly packed right now, with only toiletries and power cords for various electronic gadgets to toss into a bag in the morning. I have my airplane books picked out (in case I really can’t sleep): The Audacity Of Hope and In The Woods. I have dvd’s queued up for when I just can’t read another word (good, fluffy dvds too. The first and second season of Beverly Hills, 90210. I’m kicking it old skool). Ireland, here I come. Lock up your whiskey and beer. And potatoes. mmm, potatoes.

I am ready for this damn vacation to start.

(On a side note, did you guys know today, er, yesterday was Monday. I did not. Seriously. I took today off to finish packing and totally forgot that other people had to work. I didn’t realize that it was an actual work day until just a few minutes ago, even though I talked to some friends while they were at work. Am so smart.)

((Also, I went to see these shoes in person and the store was sold out of them in my size. Bitches. I could order them online, but they were on sale in the store and I now feel kinda dumb paying full price. le sigh))

Today I noticed that one of our neighbors just put their Christmas tree out for garbage pick up. Why have I not met these neighbors yet?!? People that keep their Christmas tree up until MARCH are my kind of people.

Also, today I registered to register for the Nike Women’s Marathon. Because I am dumb. And hate myself. Part of me really hopes I get picked to register. And part of me really likes watching tv on the couch while eating peanut butter and honey on crackers. I guess destiny will l decide what road I’m running down. (Get it, running down? I am so funny)

Last week jparks and I booked a trip to Ireland for September. We booked with a tour group because we are 90 years old. No, really we booked with a tour group because I hate vacation planning and jparks is too busy with work to properly research an international trip. And the tour group we booked with is um, well, god we are dorks, the trip is booked through Adventures by Disney. Like I said, we don’t want to plan a vacation so tour group it was. And tour groups can be hit or miss but Disney’s Disney, they’ve got to keep up their reputation, so their trip has to be good. Right? RIGHT? And the dates that we picked are adults only, so hopefully it’ll be full of other couples around our age and not groups of grandparents. And look at all the places we’ll get to go. Yay for vacation!

If you guys don’t stop laughing at us for booking through Disney I’ll go make new friends. New friends with Christmas trees still up.

Tomorrow morning jparks and I will be boarding a plane for a vacation at the Happiest Place on Earth. I’m pretty excited:

The last time we were there I started this towards the end of the trip. This time I’m going in with my camera at the ready so I don’t miss any of the trashy outfits. The weather channel says it will be cool while we are there, but I have faith that the sluts won’t let me down!

Holy crap, I’ve never been so excited to be home. Of course, my luggage wasn’t ready to come home just yet, and has decided to take a vacation in Chicago. Dear luggage, I hope you are enjoying your stay! Please come home soon! Maybe bring some deep dish pizza with you!

And while I am so excited to be home, where all my lovely shoes are, I’m definitely going to miss being around family. Especially the goofy 5 year old family member in the video below teaching me and my sister in law how to crack up like a pig (please turn your head to the side as I am dumb and forgot that the digital camera doesn’t auto rotate video):

Also, if anyone wants to buy or give me a real video camera, I would totally be cool with that.

oh my god, this vacation WILL NOT END. I can has flight home, plz?

Is there anyone out there that thought I was still young, cool, and hip? Yeah? Heh, let me provide just how silly of a thought that is.

Last night, on New Year’s Eve, the biggest party night of the year, jparks and I hung out with some good friends and welcomed the new year by watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and playing Guitar Hero. And I totally enjoyed every minute of it. Sometimes staying in and doing dorky things while consuming champagne is more fun that being out at a crowded bar. Plus, bars don’t like it if you light RoboDog at midnight. And it’s not a party without RoboDog.

Happy 2008 ya’ll. May you stick to your resolutions for longer than I stick to mine.

Once upon a time there was a boy and he was in lurve with a girl. They both had their own flickr accounts but when the girl posted pictures of the boy she only selected ones where he didn’t look bad. The boy, on the other hand, posted any picture of the girl that he could. He didn’t care if she looked bad, if her eyes were closed, or if every picture was exactly the same. He didn’t care if she begged him not to give those pictures to the public, the bastard boy still posted them.

One night the girl came up with a plan. “I have a bunch of pictures of my love on the beach and in ponds without his shirt on. I could threaten to post them and then he would understand why I don’t like it when he posts all those crappy pictures of me!”

Thrilled that she had come up with a way to stop the posting of unflattering pictures of her, the girl floated through the rest of her day. That night she laid down the law for the boy and he scoffed at her idea. Then he told his secret lover best friend “She won’t do it.”

The girl responded with a hearty “Not only am I posting them, I’m sending links to TONS OF PEOPLE!”

This, dear friends, is where the story turns into a picture book.

“I wonder if she really will post those pictures of me?” thinks the boy.

“Uh oh, I think she really is posting those pictures. Maybe if I flex my guns and show her I’m a sexy beast she’ll change her mind”

After recovering from a laughing fit over the boy’s “guns”, the girl continued to upload pictures.

“This picture is pretty identical to that other picture” the girl thought as she posted it.

“Sexy!” thought the girl.

“hmm, this picture of the boy running and jumping in the forest is best viewed at the large size so people can see his facial expression,” thought the girl but she posted it anyway.

And finally the girl posted the last picture of the boy, a closeup of him lounging on the beach. “Hmm, he seems to have forgotten to take off his sweater,” the girl thought.

As the girl finished uploading the pictures a great feeling of satisfaction washed over her. “HA!” she thought as she waited for the boy’s reaction…