What a weekend…

Chris and John surprised Lindsey and I with a trip to Temecula to go wine tasting. We took a half day at work on Friday and enjoyed a rare traffic-free trip up North. We spent Friday and Saturday enjoying the scenery and the beautiful wineries.



Our hotel room:


Chris looking at the floor above trying to figure out who was stomping. John was the guilty party.





Cocktail hour at the hotel:



When they said, 'All you can eat', John-E took them seriously...

Keyways...

John and his sippy cup...

South Coast...

Dude, can you hand me my sunglasses? Or not...

Saturday night, we rushed up to mom and dad’s to visit with James, Stef, and the girls who had flown down from Sacramento. It was good to see all of them, we don’t see quite enough of their beautiful faces.

Sunday, Chris’ family came over for dinner. Mike, Stacy, Steven, Jeremy, Josh, Tim, and Heather all came by for a couple hours to play video games on the new TV and visit. Chris made his smoked chicken while I made focaccia bread and chocolate chip cookies. I accidentally over kneaded the bread and made it a little too solid but hey, at least no one could doubt it was home-made!

You are soooooo not funny...

We met with our tax guy on Friday. We had to pay $2,600 last year in addition to what we had already paid during the year so I was fearful of what this year held for us.

After inputting our information, our tax guy looked at Chris and I and asked if we thought we were going to have to pay or if we were going to get money back. Chris threw out a highball number guessing a refund while I guessed we were going to have to pay $1,000.

‘Let’s make a deal’ he said while leaning over his desk. ‘You can make one of two choices here. A.) You pay me my $200 fee and I’ll file your taxes as usual. Or you can choose B.) If you owe money to the IRS, you don’t pay my fee but if you get a refund more than Chris guessed, every dollar over the random amount he guessed to get refunded back, we split 50/50.’

Chris excitedly responds, ‘B B B B!! We choose B!’ then he looked at me, ‘Come on babe, we won’t even get how much I guessed! We’d get the filing fee for free!’

‘Uuuuh. I guess.’ I responded shakily, secretly just wanting to toss two Benjamin Franklins on the desk and be done with the shenanigans.

The tax guy smiled. Big.


Bad sign.


The office filled with: Click. Click. Click. Ching. Ching. Ching. Click. Click. Click. Ching. Ching. Ching. Tappity Tap Tap. As he typed on his calculator.

‘You guys owe me….

$381.47. Cash, Check, or Charge?’ He said with a smile. ‘You guys REALLY need to change your deductions.’

Silence.



‘Wait. We are going to get $800 MORE than amount he guessed? And, did you seriously just figure out a cruel way to make me depressed about getting a nice tax refund?!?!’ I gasped.



More silence.


‘Ha ha! Gotcha! Suckers! I wouldn’t do that to you but you should have seen the look on your faces!’ The tax guy laughed.


I don’t think he’s funny.



I’ve never been so grateful for a mortgage payment in my life. Those things are such great tax write offs! I consulted with Colegate and she said kids are good write offs too so I’m thinking about popping one out by the end of the year then selling it on e-bay after I get the tax rebate check.



OK, OK, I wouldn't sell the kid on E-bay. Who do you think I am?!??!?!

I’d actually sell it on Amazon, I think they have a lower commission rate.

The rest of the weekend was fantastic. Maybe that’s because I was riding the ‘I don’t have to pay this year’ high.

John-E, Lindsey, Keira, Casey, Beth, Kelly, and I went to SeaWorld on Saturday.

Saturday night the boys went to Supercross while the girls came over to my house to enjoy some ‘interesting’ games and some good wine.

Sunday we relaxed at mom and pops while Chris smoked some chicken. It was great to see Uncle Jack and Shirley there. She is a super cool lady! We didn’t get back home until after midnight (thanks to mom and that stupid addicting show) but all was well.

Weekend Stuff…

Chris and I started our weekend off right by going to see Mamma Mia at the San Diego Civic Theater. Mixed in with the excellent dialog, the cast sang ABBA songs. I, of course, SANG through the whole thing and bobbed my head to ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘S.O.S’, and ‘Mamma Mia’.

I looked at Chris halfway through and asked him why he wasn’t more into the music. He pulled his fingers out of his ears (I didn’t think I sang THAT bad – but of course, I wasn’t exactly hitting the high notes on the ‘Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine oh yeeeaaah. You can dance, you can jiiiiive, having the time of your life’ part) and told me he didn’t know the music.

Didn’t know ABBA?!?!

How the …?!?! What the …?!?! GRR!!

He was robbed.

I’m ordering the CD off Amazon.com today.

In all actuality, he liked it the show. But how could you not? ABBA?!? Hello?!?!



Saturday we had everyone over to the house for a mini-BBQ. The food was fabulous and the four or so bottles of wine were great too. I was ‘researching’ for my wine class mom. ‘Reeeeesearching’.


Sunday we hit up a fabulous Irish pub called ‘The Field’ before the Padre game. I’m not sure what ‘boxty’ is but it was yummy! The service was so so but the food was amazingly good. I miss Ireland.
The Padres lost to the Dodgers but we were sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of the Western Metal Building with amazing seats near third base so I didn’t care.


Monday we worked on the house all day. Had my mom told me to work out in the yard in that kind of heat while I was still at home, I would have threatened to call the Child Abuse Hotline but somehow, when it’s your own place, it’s not so bad. OK. It was awful. It was stinkin’ hot. It was flaming hot and I thought I was going to die! But the yard is looking better. We planted two more Queen Palms (so very California I know) and three more bougainvilleas – the only two plant types I haven’t killed…yet.