BREAKING NEWS! The gypsies are loose in TEXAS!

With the first week of the looongest work orientation down we decided we needed to flee Houston for a change of scenery. Soo, all 5 of the new travelers packed it up and headed to the Lonestars state capitol Austin, Tx. The drive down was filled with anxious excitement and stories of eachothers past travel escapades. Imagine this 5 girls from all over the states who have been traveling for years and act as foolish as we do..things could get interesting. Once in Austin we decided how alike these girls are, we had no place to stay and the thought hadn't even come up once on the drive down. We also found out that Americas got talent was doing auditions, we contemplated going but decided we have no talents. Being that we are all cheap gypsies Mariah took out her smart phone and took a gamble. In a gamblers world we pretty much lost everything. What we did win was a cozy Days Inn Motel located conveniently on the high way, the hum guaranteed to put you to sleep at night. Accommodations included a complimentary breakfast (which we never got the chance to sink our teeth into), pop and ice machine,  and an AIDS infested swimming pool.
                                                                    

We broke the seal of our room and the sweet smell of menthol cigarettes and urine quickly reached our noses. PS. the window was already opened. As you gaze into the room you see a large king size bed with 5 pillows..PERFECT. Just as we were commenting on the exact amount of pillows you hear the hum of the cot coming down the sidewalk. Not sure where that was going to go but at this point we needed to head out to West 6th street. So, being responsible we called for a cab. Half of us are in the cab when the nice gentleman tells us it is illegal to have more than 4 passengers at a time. We heckled with him for a minute until he was so pissed he nearly kicked us all out of the cab. Like the room we also lost the cab war and had to take 2. Once the second group made it to the first bar at around 3 PM the first three girls had already ordered a beer, taken a shot, and were in the process of getting free T-Shirts...already a success. Unlike us the other travelers felt a need to eat before more heavy drinking could occur. So a mexican rooftop joint was found and the Margarittas were flowing. Jenn forgot how to swallow hers and was choking so bad she had to excuse herself to the restroom. No one was concerned enough to check on her, but the waitress did see her in there and probably thought she was puking because of the noise coming from the stall. This is shaping up to be a good day..2 places down and we have already made a scene.  With mild screams from the balcony and a group of boys telling us that there is a mechanical bull down the street we were off to the bar. We all took our turn on the bull and then discussed the next stop.

Now, our friend Brittany aka "Squatting Sunshine" decided that she wanted to get a tattoo. At this point we all are feeling the buzz and decide to encourage this idea. So it is off to the local Tat Parlor where Brittany decides on a heart. With the tattoo out of the way we continued to run up and down 6th street and see how much we could drink for free...we were pretty successful expect for at the Chugging Monkey. Here we quickly used the restroom both and male and female and when we came out a couple of cases of Guiness were staring us in the face. Each of us quickly snagged as many we could fit in our purses and casually left. We realized this was wrong but we hope we helped the bar realize that beer should never be unattended when the gypsies are loose.
From here on out the night becomes a blur. Not only did we try to get free drinks we also sampled all the food up and down 6th pretending like it was sample day at the grocery store. When stuffed full we headed back to the comfy king size bed and cot hoping it might have transformed into something beautiful while we were gone! The next morning we headed home only then did we realize that we literally only saw one street in Austin. We must plan another trip in the future!

Another week of work was coming to a close and depression was starting to set in. WE NEEDED A VACATION! With weather promising to be sunny we headed to closest island on the map : Galveston. Basically, people from work gave us a lot of mixed reviews on this island so we had to check it our for ourselves. At first we were not too sure what we got ourselves into, but at the same time we saw the most glorious thing ever...people were walking the streets carrying ice cold beers! We were sold! Literally, the first shop we came too we went in ordered a beer and began cruising the streets.

The next intersection was all hustle and bustle there happened be the annual chili cook off. Being that it felt like 100 degrees and humid as hell we decided we didn't want to eat chili but the folks that were attending this event were much more entertaining. So we refreshed our beers and found the closest stoop to prop ourselves on to do some epic people watching. We also stumbled upon a cruise ship docked on the island. We seriously considered trying to sneak on, but luckily we still had all senses intact. We thought there were no rules on this island, but we realized this was wrong when we got kicked out of the bar for bringing in our own beers. So we found a bench and made some quick new friends. There were 2 "special" horse carriage drivers and their puppy.

We got schooled on the carriage driver lifestyle and we even got some tricks and tips to this lifestyle just in case we ever wanted to dabble in this profession. So we watched her work as she said the "cheesiest shit ever" (her #1 rule to us). They also told us the best place to get fresh seafood, so headed that way. When we walked in we were not sure why we took these 2 peoples advice but hell we gave it a try. We were seated asked what we wanted to drink and given menus. We were parched and wanted ice cold water, but what we got was ice cold toilet water. This is when we new we had to leave as soon as possible. So with that we quickly gathered our things and exited to the nearest taco cabanna knowing that we have never had a bad mexican experience. Galveston was WAY more than we expected, but next time we hope to see the ocean.

Then it was back to work for the week. We figured out a new way to the hospital so we could avoid the daily traffic jam that is all of Houstons highways. This was our first full week of work on our own and we were starting to get the hang of it. We are starting to know the system a little better with their copious amounts of paper and standing orders. Nurse Practioners on duty all night help make our shift go smoothly. Administering chemo has also become less nerve wracking with a little bit of practice! Overall, the entire staff has been very welcoming and extremely helpful!

Again, enough off that work talk..it is time for a vacation! San Antonio is said to be one of the nicest cities in Texas. We decided to give the hotel gamble another shot..this time we won! A plush Holidae In complete with our own personal free shuttle driver...this was going to be a good vacation. With the UV climbing everyday we strapped on our suits and headed to the local Wal-Mart to get all the tanning essentials:


 Oil, Magaznes, and liquor. Then it was down to the pool, at first we thought it was locked but we found a way in and propped ourselves there for all to see for a couple hours. After while we got ourselves ready headed to the shuttle that takes you to the Riverwalk where we thought we would have dinner.



Being the friendly travelers we are, we struck up conversation with the first lonesome person we saw. She taught Jenn how to change her camera settings to night mode and then took a couple quick shots for us. Lynn was so sweet and mentioned a great pub where we could eat...how could we not invite her along. So the three of us ran through the riverwalk to the end where there was a pub called Waxy's. As we walked into the pub Lynn stated the obvious, "man in  smells like an ass in here". The gentleman at the bar said sorry it was her and pointed to his date who was proudly  wearing a dunce cap hat from Dicks Last Resort with devil horns poking out the side. She in return giggled and headed to the bathroom, as she was gone her classy date bought us all a round of drinks perhaps as an apology for releasing a gas mask worthy fart. From this point on we hung out with this odd group. Just as things were warming up Lynn broke the news that she had to be up early for a book signing and TV appearance!        

             

          









We didn't know we were hanging out with a celebrity! We made a huge deal out of this promising to read her book before she left. Before our other two smelly friends left they invited us to her grammas house for a homecooked BBQ, we probably would have gladly taken them up on the offer but our night was just beginning and they were going extremely early in the morning, so we said our good byes and headed to Rita's. With two seats left at the bar we sat down gingerly and ordered the "free" chips and salsa. It was going on 10Pm and all we had eaten that day was a bagel and various liquid products. The two men next to us really became intrigued by us and struck up conversation on the best rita to order. So we casually ordered that not knowing that they were nearly 10 dollas each! They did not stear us wrong they were delish..long story but lets just say these were the only drinks we were forced to pay for. The conversation here was a good one when these men started complimenting us. Now normal guys would compliment our eyes, our hair, our smiles, but not these boys. They really enjoyed our arm hair! We encouraged them by petting our arm hair saying things like "yea it is really soft and smooth". After this they wanted us to come to the club but if you use our arm hair as a pick up line we are not sold.

The next stop was Dick's. Now we know they are supposed to act like Dick's but we were not sure if they were actually being serious when they said we weren't allowed in. So we counted our losses and continued on to the numerous other bars that would love it if we graced them with our presence. The next stop we came to was confusing, Suddenly we were surrounded by sheriffs and we could not decipher which ones were real and which were fake. Sara slyly tried to take a badge from one and found out he was real when he took handcuffs out of his pocket...luckily he was nice and just told me NO.

 

 The next ones were "fake" and willingly just gave us their badges so we would leave them alone. They also let us blow their whistles and somehow still let us into their bar... Here we had a mini dance party and also decided enough was enough and started the walk home. We had no idea where we were or how to get home to the Holidae In, but in the mist of our directionally challenged minds we looked up and there was the ALAMO! Not only were we looking at this famous place but we also had struck gold with a landmark. So we called our friend Pat in Ohio He said he could help but couldn't understand our bantering so to text him where we were. So we sent him a picture of us with sad puppy faces and said we were at the Alamo and needed to get to the hotel motel holidae in. His response: "You guys are idiots I can't help you". At this point we were lost, alone, and starving. So we ate an entire pack of tic tacs while gazing at the alamo until we got enough energy to continue on. So we went over the river and through the woods until we spotted the glowing green Holidae In sign and it was right to bed for us!

Next day, we woke up and it appeared a tornado had went through our hotel and we had slept right on through it. It was 11:15 and checkout was noon and there was simply no way we were going to make this so we did the next best thing and called the hotline that is hotwire and took another gamble.


The man wouldn't give us the same hotel so we took a shot at getting the same place and luckily for everyone involved we WON! We decided that we should see the riverwalk and day time and the tic tacs were wearing off at this point so it was time for some lunch. Then we took a ride on the water taxis to see all that was there. Very Very cool place with a lot of history. We saw the hospital where George Straight was born, saw a couple optical illusions, saw the oldest restaurant here (which we had already happened to eat at), and learned about why things have five bells

around here. We breezed through the Alamo and were headed to a couple local shops when we passed a corner with some mirrors. These were not just any mirrors but mirrors that when you pushed a button they would make you really tall or really small. In case you don't know this about us we have a not so secret obsession with little people aka "nuggets". For literally 20 minutes we played in our fantasy world. When people on the streets walked up to laugh at us we danced around them and joined them  to the mirror party. We had the workers taking pictures of us jackasses. When the mirror happened to get stuck on little person format we were practically in heaven until a little boy came up and punched the magical red button and ruined everything! That is when we decided it was time to go.

When we called our personal shuttle driver he asked if we were just making home from last night. Fortunately, we weren't and we told him we walked home. He was speechless amazed by our talents. Being the excellent shuttle driver he is, Steve, took us on a private tour of San Antonio to the area with all the mansions, lucky us! We freshened up for a nice dinner and headed out for round 2. Ding! Ding! Ding!

We were then walking the streets enjoying the nice evening when we noticed a large nicely dressed group heading inside a local joint. We said hey that looks like fun we should go in. We realized that there was a cover and had to do some quick thinking. So we tapped the last man in line on the shoulders and asked if we could join the group he was super friendly introduced himself saying it was his birthday and told the doorman that they were with me. In return he rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath...Just like that we were in for FREE!

We were not intending to be tag-a-longs but they insisted on us hanging out. At one point the birthday boy had us double fisting Hurricanes..that is NEVER a good thing.

We met all twenty of his closest friends and enjoyed the birthday celebration. We also met some people who wanted to teach us how to twostep. Our bar was closing soon so they enticed us with two of our favorite things: #1 the new place was called drunken monkeys #2 there was live karaoke. Monkeys and Karaoke our weakness and just like that we were sold. Our new friends gave us something to strive for their work puts them up in a Residence Inn for months. They get free breakfast, complimentary dinners and drinks, a cleaning lady, and new neighbors everyday! We are adding a Residents Inn to our wishlist for our next assignment. All in all San Antonio has a lot to offer and really is an awesome city with plenty of Southern Hospitality.

DISCLAIMER: Although this may sound like we are alcoholics, we are not.

T-minus 20 hours..Houston you have a problem

After a long month in Ohio with family and friends it was time to pack our bags, shove 'em in the car (which we have gotten really good at), and tune the GPS to Houston, Texas. We waited alllll day to leave, stuffed our faces with delicious stromboli and headed to our first stop about an hour away, Columbus, OH at the James Cancer Hospital. We made it in approximately 62 minutes (the 2 minutes was a pit stop for our first free Starbucks, mmmhmmhmh). Anyways, Mike promised us an entire bag of chocolate covered espresso beans from West Virginia ..probably the best source of caffeine a night shifter could ask for. When we excitedly found Mike working hard our excitement turned into complete depression, disbelief, disappointment, and a real downer. MIKE FORGOT THE BEANS! Mike was felt so bad when he saw our sad puppy faces that he raced to his locker and scavenged through it to find about 30 beans left in his stash. He handed them over no questions asked and apologized frantically...we are not exaggerating this at all, this really did happen.

It was down to business then being already 8:00PM we had to get on the road for real and get to Houston. So we buckled in and drove on. The first 10 hours were a breeze as we caught up on the last month activites away from each other.. The coffee and chicken pills helped. But soon all hell broke loose...

Around 7AM with five hours to go we made a desperate stop at a McDonalds to refuel not only the car but ourselves. Note to self: when you are bored and need a quick jolt of entertainment stop in the smallest town and find yourself a McDonalds. We just needed to fill our coffee mugs and we were willing to pay a total of only $2 with our 2 McDonalds gift certificates...they had free refills so we couldn;t possibly buy the amount of coffee needed to fill our mugs when you could get it for frree. Soooo the manager didn;t like the plan we proposed to them to just fill us up instead of us having to keep going to the counter for free refills, so we had to get a cup dump it in our mug and then go back and ask for more..at this point everyone is looking at us strangely ..

But as we sipped our coffee (that ended up being about 50% free) we realized that we are strange but everyone else is stranger!
This is what we saw:

1. Miss Queen Latiffa was the manager..and was not friendly
2. Normal towns use Starbucks for free Wi-fi but this towns hot spot happened to be McDonalds
3. We promise there was a lot more things, but we were too delusional to remember them alllll

As the drive down south continued on we noticed that the temperature nicely increased assuring us that we were almost there. We pulled up into our new apartment complex and looked at each other with blood shot eyes, scrubby ass clothes, and matted hair and said "Welcome home! Let's go check in!" Now we hoped that this would be a fast check in but once again we were wrong. We meandered around trying to find a non locked bathroom while the check in man ignored us. After about 15 minutes with our knees locked nearly doing the potty dance he unlocked the restroom, we think he thought we were homeless people off the streets..but we explained to him we are just the traveling nurses. Then he chauffeured us to our new apt and showed us around. And man was it nice!

   

Before we could even think about unpacking we had to address the lack of food consumption. Without changing or cleaning ourselves up we headed to the corner eatery and ordered take out...However, fresh frozen Margaritas were staring us in the face so we were responsible and ordered just one to split. So now we looked like homeless lesbians. This towns first impression of us is a doozy! Feeling a little light headed from our half margarita and lack of sleep we tried to find our way out of the parking lot. Just as we are making headway and we see an exit we get flagged down by none other than the Houston police. In defense mode Jenn rolled down her window and started yelling that we were new to town and we need to get to the apartment complex across the street... She quickly realized how dumb that sounded so she threw in "Are U-Turns legal in this town?" The officer looked baffled and said "O I was just going to help you find a parking spot, but yeah unless marked otherwise you can make a U-Turn". With that we rolled up the window, made it to the apartment, and locked ourselves in. Clearly we should not have been in a public place at this time.

The next four days were consumed by nothing but work..UGH! If you know anything about us you know we don't work 4 days a week or day shift..sooo this was a loooooong week! We basically stared at a computer screen, drank coffee, and made a couple new friends. The only break in the day was watching the monsoon rain fall and hearing all the staff call off...what have we gotten ourselves into?

By the third day, we begged for a tour of the ginormous hospital that is MD Anderson #1 Cancer Hospital in the world. We got the tour and were told that we would not be working with surgical patients but rather Leukemia patients...SURPRISE! Chemo and blood administration here we come! Stay tuned i'm sure there will be good stories to follow...

We have been here for nearly a week and have done nothing but work so we decided it is time for a road trip...look out Austin we are headed your way with some extra travelers!

On the road again...

Our time in Modesto flew by in one big blur of events. Melissa and her gang took us out for one last run around the town. The annual wine tasting event through Ripon stood up to the high praise and we left full and happy at the end of the night. A little too full in the morning for Sara’s liking….

 Anyways after we recovered it was down to business tying up loose ends while we packed, slept, and worked. (What seemed like the most work we had done since we got here.) A quick trip to mall solidified out need to flee this town, now knowing that we had left our mark when we heard “Peanut butter and Jelly” hollered across the way. Work was brutal, we saw things that should only be seen on TV (if that) but we continued to remind each other that the end was near. We had to leave our mark on the hospital so on the billboard dedicated to all the nurses children’s pictures we posted an entire collage of some of our favorite Modesto events. Some were more normal than others and some will hopefully get a quick giggle and a possible “those girls!” comment every once in awhile. On a more serious note we will miss everyone on the 5^th floor. You all were awesome and taught us so much, and we had a lot of fun along the way too!

After a good days sleep we had to cram out whole life into a 2 door Saturn…we were shocked when everything fit! I think we are getting way too good at packing! With that said we were on the road again for a 2500+ roadtrip back to Ohio broken up into 2 full days of driving, and one overnight stop. The first half was rough getting started but once we got into the groove of things it was a painless 20 hours to Amarillo.  Along the way we ran into some type of meteor shower and saw dozens of shooting stars. Honestly, one of the most entertaining drives trying to look for where the next one would appear., don’t worry someone had at least one eye on the road at all times!

Before we get too deep into our first stop here is a little background on Amarillo: It has become one of our favorite halfway points on our cross country drive. A large part of Jenn’s family lives there and was more willing to have us overnight..who wouldn’t be right?!?!  Recently, one of Jenn’s cousins joined an elite group becoming one the newest hero’s born.  He risked his life to save an older man’s life in a house fire. Casey’s (the hero) version is raw and real and ends with someone getting slapped, but no need to go into detail. In the process he badly injured himself and was life flighted to the nearest hospital. We were bummed he wouldn’t be around the house but it caused us to accelerate our trip so we could visit him! Originally we planned on arriving Saturday but on Thursday when we called Jenn’s uncle and he asked when we would be there we both looked at the GPS and said in 10 hours! Surprise!!! Uncle Don asked us to stall a little so he would at least be home, but other than that he was super excited to see us. Once we got there we also got an awesomely amazing surprise! Casey had made a full recovery and was on his way home! Those doctors must have known two of the best nurses were in town anxiously waiting to take care of Casey! Now we had to be extra careful with this patient because this little nugget was still a falls risk! And boy did we learn a thing or two about falls risks patients in Modesto! 

Having not slept in over 24 hours we thought we put our patient safely to bed and get a little shut eye ourselves, but we were completely wrong! Before you knew it the whole house was filled with cousins, daughters, brothers, sisters, crumbsnatchers, and whatever else you can imagine. The jury is still out as to whether all these people came to see us girls or Casey, but regardless it was an awesome welcome and we had just gotten our 14^th wind for the day! We would like to say we woke up the next morning but that would be false because no one in the house woke up until “evening” approximately 4PM…Whaaaaat our baby eyes were tired! With ample amounts of rest we took showers, ate an awesome meal, and heaed to the “clubs” with some of the cousins. Here we were wined and dined with the local cowboys. We also learned a thing or two about dancing in Texas...moves we now will never forget! 

The next day was set for rest and relaxation so that we could head out early for our next 20 hour drive… However, rumor on the street was that copious amounts of fajitas with all the fixings were on the way over. If you know anything about us it is we don’t turn down food, especially Mexican.  So, we stayed and stuffed ourselves enough to have a little extra padding for the next 20 hour ride home. Delicious!

These people are some of the best family anyone could ask for and we are truly thankful they lets us stay with them for a couple days. We are especially lucky to be in the presence of such a HERO! We left Texas loudly singing....

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

The final 20 hours of our drive was filled with coffee, double shots, and mountain dew slurps. We made a quick pit stop at Sara's uncles house where a birthday party full with cake, pizza, crowns, and presents was waiting for Sara. Had we known we would have cleaned ourselves up a bit and dressed for the occasion...so sneaky those Boeckls are. We still had the hardest 3 hour leg to go so we crammed back in the car and trudged on. The temperature continued to drop and our eyes felt like weights were tied to the lids, but we made it! Being home never felt so good. A bed with fresh sheets, a clean room, and open arms anxiously waiting for the most prized child to be home ;) j/k. 

This year has been a blast but us world travelers are exhausted! With the cold and the snow we will be on a hybernating vacation at home for about a month. Thankfully we have a new job lined up for the new year. Somehow we got a job in the #1 cancer hospital in the US and CANNOT wait to start the next adventure. California has been fun but it is time to overturn yet another state. The only thing left to say is to look out and see you all in the new year in TEXAS, we are coming your way....

HOUSTON YOU HAVE A PROBLEM!

These 2 snow birds headed south for the holidays : San Diego!

It only took us about 10 weeks, but we finally convinced our employers that we are one person and need the exact same schedule...Not only do we have the same schedule we also coaxed them into giving us 6 whole days off together!! Needless to say we planned a trip down to San Diego to see some of our favorite people for Thanksgiving. We did something we have not done in a loooooong time, we worked FOUR days in a row! Exhaustion was setting in but the excitement of San Diego was kicking in as we began the 7 hour treck down the coast. We were in rare form by the time we reached our old stomping grounds: The Cow Shed.

Our bartender friend was informed there was a "surprise" coming to town for him. When we walked through the door, Will, somehow contained his excitement when he saw us. Direct quote, "What are you whores doing here". Trust us coming from Will that is a compliment. Before we could even warm our bar stools there were 2 beers popped for us and they just kept flowing. About an hour into the night we realized that the chips on the way down to SD were not cutting it for dinner. So Will, being the best bartender in the world, made us his signiture nachos and cheese! Yes! This was a great dinner choice for us. However, what is a good homecooked meal without a glass of milk...so we washed the nachos down with an Irish Car Bomb and headed to the beach with our bagged up beers from the bar. BTW Will forgot to charge us for anything! Again, this showed how much he really did miss us!

On to the beach! We were chauffered to the beach by our good friend Daniel and the "friendly neighborhood black guy" also known as Jah. We realized how much we missed the sound of the waves and the water and the sand and excitement took over. Sara, lacking depth perception on a regualr basis , took off running down the path less traveled. Needless to say the hills and plants tripped her up a bit and she ate a little sand, maybe she was just still a little hungry! Once recovered from that the others had made it safetly down the hill on the nicely laid path, we continued to the water. However, the tide was going out so anther hill tripped Sara up and she ate yet another mouthfull of sand. Jenn stated "You need to go to the car". So Sara without a word put her head down and went to the car..the beach adventure was over for the night. We cruised home to the Lion King soundtrack to show our new motto "Hakuna Matata" it means "No Worries" in case you don't know!

The friendly neighborhood black guy

Fatigue was setting in and it was time to let our baby eyes go to sleep. We didn't know what to expect for the bed we were promised at Daniels house, but man o man it was good! For all you Ohionans out there you need to invest in a California King. Not only is it spacious being slightly larger than a normal King, it also has the softness warmth you can only get in California.

We were jolted awake by a crumbsnatcher screaming for the ice cream truck at 1PM. Reality set in and we realized that we had to do some interviews today, but first we headed straight to the closest restaurant that ended in "tos" for some carne asada. Sitting in the parking lot, smells of delishousness wafting in the windows, we decided to give Hawaii a call back. Sara interviewed here and there were some tricky questions. Whenever she couldn't think of a good answer she restated the question and Jenn quickly came up with a goood answer. She loved us BUT she wanted us to work FIVE, I repeat FIVE days a week...We don't play that game! With one interview completed we needed nourishment so into Albertos we went. Just as we were about to taek our first bite of carne asada fries (only the most delishous treat ever!) we realized there was NO carne asada!!!! Soo we had to take it back!

 With a good meal in our bellies and no worries on our minds, Jenn's phone rang. Houston, Texas and the #1 oncology hospital in the states was calling for an interview (didn't they know we had a late night last night!) Anyways, Jenn swiftly answered all the questions to the best of her ability mostly stating "to be completely honest, I don't know".  Perhaps the icing on this interview cake came when the lady asked if she would take the job if Sara didn't get an offer too. Jenn's response was priceless, "Honestly, no, we are a two for one if you will". Yup that interview went well!!  Little did we know they liked us and the contract for Houston, Texas is in the works as we type. Look out Texas here we come!! YEEEHAW!

With nowhere to go we called our old neighbors to make plans for the evening. They were scared we would pop our tent on their lawn so they quickly invited us over. Before we headed there we stopped at our old apartment to see our good friend Eric. He was a little dumbfounded when he saw he saw our faces sitting by the fountain, but he was thrilled to see us. We think we made his year! (Whaaaaat! he loved us!)

We thought that Maria's kids would be gone for the week, but as we pulled we saw 2 crumbsnatchers out and about and realized we were for a hefty dose of birth control. The 11 year old boy Daniel was out the door before we could even say hi..he is a lil shy. But Gracie the 7 year old girl quickly became our best friend. We painted nails, rode bikes, karaoked to Justin Beiber, learned some hand clapping songs, and chewed gum. Being that we act like children on a regular basis all this stuff was right up our alley...but she is exhausting so the wine bottles started flowing.

We also got introduced to dream dinners, what a concept. You basically go to a place where food is prepared and you test it all out and then make a purchase of a complete meal to make at home. Good thing we didn't know about this place when we lived here because we would have been doing a lot of "taste testing" and NOT a lot of buying..what can we say we are cheapos! We were surprised by another set of neighbors stopping over, Jay and Megan! Dreamdinners really bring a family together. Six bottles of wine later it was time to call it a night and make good use of the couch. We really missed Tom and Maria...thanks for putting a roof over our head and food in our bellies!

We had to kill some time while our Mom, Gorgetta slept so we did some shopping and drinking our specialties. We had to fufill all our favorite SD hot spots and cravings so onto Margaronas we went! As we were enjoying these we ran into an old coworker and her family. Then it was off to Mom and Dads house!

Bill and Gorgetta aka Mom and Dad are our adopted parents from our time spent in SD. These are possibly two of the nicest, coolest people in southern Cali. We brought the beer and they got the pizza and we caught up the rest of the evening. Before Dad went to bed he gave us one rule: He said we must wear these jerseys for Thanksgiving Day. We thought Perfect! Plenty of room to eat!

Dad did all the cooking early the next morning while all the girls slept in until 1PM. So by the time we got ready sporting our perfectly pressed Jerseys it was time to take an afternoon stroll on the beach. It was a BEAutiful day, we looked like quite the family with Jenn and Sara in their jerseys, Gorgetta in a winter coat and Bill in a straw sun hat. Dad stopped to pet every dog that came our way, one was even wearing a turkey costume, which really made us miss Airy :( Hopefully the nighbor is taking good care of her. Mom packed us snacks for the walk, nutritous and delishous chocolate covered cookies. Mom's always know best.

When we got home the smell of turkey roasting filled the air. The table was set and the food looked amazing!! We all joined hands and Dad thanked God for bringing his two children home for the holidays. Sara was so touched she cried, later Jenn said "I didn't know that was the plan, next time tell me don't leave me hanging again! I looked so ungraitful!" Hahha Sara jsut felt so loved and completely happy that her emotions got the best of here. We brushed this little scene aside and scarfed down tons of goood food! Compliments to the chef, You are the best Dad! Food coma set in and we chilled by the TV for the rest of the night. Just when you thought we were done eating Mom made us icecream sundaes for dessert. That was the end of us so we headed to bed.

The next day we strolled the beaches and all the little shops, ate some more mexican, and met a coworker for what was supposed to be one glass of wine becasue mom and dad were leaving the key under the mat and we said we would be home "early"....

That one glass of wine turned into 2 when more cowrkers randomly showed up too! Which then turned into beer at the local Escondido bar. The bartenders parents turned out to be our new best friends and from there the night spun dangerously out of control. We sang some Toby Keith Red Solo Cup together, learned whip cream tricks, danced and had some blow jobs (the shots...get your heads out of the gutter!). Richelle, our coworker, did some celebrity bartending and we got to spin the shot wheel...we won 2 delishous semen chasers and with that it was time to head home. We made a pit stop at the cow shed to say hi to the owner Ray, who corned Sara with a birthday syringe shot. We also picked up a new addiction..SMokING. Now, you may be turning up your nose but this is not your normal cig smoking...We were sitting in the cow shed and whipped out our CANDY cigs!! These turned into a conversation piece and a great addition to our night out! People thought we were nuts! It was getting even later but for some reason we needed to head to the boys house. Here we got ourselves some hats, these hats are apparently a big deal and all week we have been getting hate mail from the friendly neighborhood black guy that he wants them back. Eventually Jah don't you worry we will get them back!

We headed home shortly after that because JAh was chasing us down the road and for some reason we needed these seedless hats. At home we found the key perfectly placed under the mat and we did our best to be as quiet as we could. As we layed in bed our bellies started grumbling and the thanksgiving leftovers were calling our name. Now, Mom said all week that Dad wears a CPAP and cannot hear anything so we talked ourselves into making dinner at 4:53 AM. Ten tupperware containers later our plates were full and we sadi the microwave would too loud so we took out cold plates back to bed and devoured our food. With the grumbellies out of the way we fell asleep only to wake up 2 hours later when mom got off work so that we could say our goodbyes.

With bloodshot eyes and a goal to do some Christmas shopping we headed to the Mexican border. This day turned out to be a disaster. People were EVERYWHERE, it was HOT, and imagine this we were HUNGRY! Sooooo we went into a couple stores and called it a day. We headed to the cheese shop for the best sandwhich around town and then decided it was time to head to Modesto. '

We had to make a quick stop at Maria's for Jenn's sweatshirt and apparently Sara left half her hair on the bathroom floor! oops! Then it was on the road again....

On a normal day this would have been an easy breezy drive, but today it was a challenge. We had to make numerous stops, there was tons of traffic and Jenn was hallucinating. She saw an ape with an axe chopping people up on the highway. Yes we were on the highway but there was not one car even remotely close to us let alone people. So we got off the highway for a pit stop, but it was short lived when the creepiest homeless man decided to stand near the corner gas station we were parked at. We were close to home but the back roads were completely fogged over. We were tired and sick of driving so the fog was playing tricks on us big time! Fortunately, we made it home in one piece and crashed for the night and next day.

San Diego: although it is a ton of fun it can be deadly. The food and drinks it offers will make you a fat drunk and we realized how lucky we were to move when we did. But don't you worry we will be back because our friends and parents in San Diego are the best in the west!