From Green Beans and Tears to Dirt and Shitters

So it's now Wednesday and I am still recovering from my Thanksgiving weekend! Of course this nasty ass cold I have come down with certainly isn't helping matters. UGH! There's nothing worse than being sick! Anyways, as usual Michael and I had our fair share of running around and totally not relaxing this past holiday weekend. Of course it wouldn't be Michael and I if we weren't committed to doing a million different things all at once, I am not sure how well that's going to fly once baby Squishy Sprout comes in 6 months. (Ohhh and Squishy Sprout is the babies nickname thanks to Brittany and Kim.. LOL.. at least until we start coming up with names)

Since Michael and I got the 5th wheel trailer back in September we hadn't had an opportunity to use it yet. His friends go every year up to Dove Springs, which is off 14 in the desert past Mojave, for Thanksgiving weekend with their bikes and trailers to go camping and riding. Now, to be honest with you, I am usually very gung-ho about doing stuff like this, but considering we're constantly on the go and I am also 3 months pregnant, the idea of staying at home, this holiday weekend, and just relaxing and getting the house all ready for Christmas sounded pretty enticing to me. In fact, Michael and I had a bit of a "tiff" as you would call it, about it. But, I felt bad because he does a lot for me and he really loves to go riding and he hasn't been in 2 years and once the baby comes we probably won't be able to do this kinda stuff for a while, so I apologized for being overemotional and insensitive and was on board with the trip. (Hey... I can admit when I am wrong or being a little overboard)

Anyways, so we spent the majority of the weekend before and the days before getting everything ready to go camping from Thursday night till Sunday morning. We were going to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family and then head to Duarte to have dessert with Michael's nieces and then head out to the desert. Thanksgiving morning comes along and I am a little on the emotional side for some reason or another. I was going to be bringing a Green Bean Casserole to Thanksgiving and decided that the traditional Green Bean Casserole wasn't good enough and that I needed to re-invite the Green Bean Casserole with a recipe I saw on the Food Network(of course!) It was a bit complex because I had to make the roux as well as make my own french fried onion toppings, but in the days before Thanksgiving, I was confident enough I could make it work like the Champion Head Chef in Training I was... well... maybe in my own mind.

So I get started on my amazingly different Green Bean Casserole about an hour later than I had originally planned and some how guilted Michael into helping me with it. Making the roux was really tough, because you have to mix the flour and milk really fast and make sure it thickens... well.... it took me 3 times before I could make it to the right consistency.... but.... No tears.... I was frustrated as all hell, especially since it was 12pm and I was still in my PJ's and we had to be at my Aunts house around 1pm. So I finally get everything all together and get my Casserole in the oven and start working on my french fried onions.... that's when I lost it. Those stupid little things were not frying up for the life of me and I couldn't figure out why. They were just turning this awful looking dark dark brown color, without getting fried at all. That's when the water works hit. Here it was, a quarter to 1pm, I am standing in my kitchen in my blue PJ pants and white wife beater, hair all over the place, a spatula in one hand, dirty pots and pans all over the place, flour spread from one inch of my kitchen to the other with tidbits of mushrooms and green beans and red peppers in the mix and crying like a friggin baby that my Green Bean Casserole was going to, in fact, "SUCK". At that point Michael took the spatula out of my hand, told me to go upstairs and start getting ready and he'd finish the rest. So after a good bawl in the shower, I came downstairs to find that he had salvaged what was left of my french fried onion topping and finished the Casserole as well as washed all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. What a hero. I should buy that man a cape if it wouldn't stroke his ego too much. So off we went to Thanksgiving dinner... only about an hour late... LOL.

After our dinner with my family(oh and by the way, my Green Bean Casserole was a big hit, I was even asked to bring it to Christmas dinner... I think I saw Michael take a shot of Jack Daniels after that though...LOL) and a really nice visit with Michael's nieces, we were finally on our way to the desert at about 11:00pm at night, putting us in Dove Springs at about 1:30 AM. It was so beautiful when we got there though. I have never seen so many stars in my life and it's not like I've lived in the City my whole life either, it was just so amazing!! Cold... but beautiful!!

Now I am not the type of woman that just likes to sit around, I have to be in the middle of things, so even though we were in the desert, I somehow managed to finagle my way into doing things that some doctors would probably shake there heads at, seeing a 3 month pregnant woman doing. It was nothing bad!! I just took the kids in Michael's truck, off-roading to this little bar/store/deli where a live band plays... and I took Michael's quad on a very smooth ride to check out the scenery.... AND I sweet-talked my way into being passenger in a Polaris Ranger for a ride up the mountains to an old cabin.... AND Michael took me off-roading to this cool old mining tunnel. Let me tell you though... that mining tunnel was a little creepy but I toughed it out! We get there, right at sunset, and mind you, we're out in the middle of nowhere. So we get out of the truck and Michael instantly grabs his 9mm hand gun and puts it in the back of his pants to protect us from any wild animals or crazy derelicts that might be habituating in the tunnel. I don't know about you..... but there is NOTHING sexier than a serious man with a gun... LOL... I am not kidding you. it took everything I had not to throw my man on the ground and have my way with him out in the middle of the wilderness when he got that serious look on his face, loaded his gun, shoved it sexily in the back of his pants, and grabbed my arm protectively as he led me to this dark tunnel. I felt like one of those women in those cheesy dime store novels, being protected by some sexy serious stranger, with a dark haunted past, and having him lead me into some unknown tunnel for protection while we're being chased by a crazy man who's stalking me and then... you know how the books always turn out... "Broc shoved me hard against the tunnel wall and kissed me roughly... and I could feel his member stiff against my trembling thighs....." LMAO.... Ok.. maybe I am getting a little too carried away here.... Anyways... I am not going lie... my little dirty imagination was running wild as we headed in to that tunnel.... but that was short lived once we got in there. Good God this thing was creepy, all I could think about was the wild animals that could be lurking around every corner of this 1 mile long mine in the middle of this mountain... the view, once we got to other side was totally worth it, except my big tough protector said we should probably head back through the tunnel before it got much darker... So I took my two pictures and clasped on the back of "Broc's" rippled muscular back clinging my barely there nightie to my cold body as we trudged back through the tunnel to make mad passionate love on the old mining rails....... LMAO... (Totally joking by the way)

The morning we left to go home, I woke up so sick. Michael and I thought that maybe I had overdone it this weekend and this was the baby getting it's revenge on me, because I woke up throwing up and feeling all kinds of ick. We finally headed on our journey home and boy oh boy was THAT an adventure in itself. Those of you who've been camping in a trailer know that after your done, you need to empty the dirty water and the shitter out of the trailer. Well... at one point in the weekend this overly obnoxious friend of a friend thought it would be nice to just pollute our bathroom and fill up our toilet.... let me tell you it was foul. What was even more foul was the fact that would could not get the toilet to empty at the dump station. Michael poured some chemicals down it and bought a plunger and hoped it would work its way down and then we could pull into another dump station and empty it and alls well. Right?? WRONG!!! We couldn't find a dump station for the life of us, after having to pull over several times so I could throw up, we found ourselves traveling down the 10 freeway in search of a dump station to clear out our clogged toilet. We got all the way to Coachella, which mind you is about an hour and a half PAST our house in Loma Linda, before we finally found a dump station.... and Guess what? As luck would have it.. in the famous words of Randy Quaid in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation... "The shitters full!" Yes.. the shitter was STILL full and would not empty in the dump station. Now at this point it was now 7pm and we were sitting in Thanksgiving weekend traffic on the 10 freeway as I am throwing up in an empty Carls Jr. bag. Needless to say.... our scheduled 3 hour journey home turned into a nice little 12 hour jaunt across Southern California's deserts. I sure love camping, it's a lot of fun, but goodness, I forgot how much freakin work it is! Michael and I leave for Vegas on Sunday and I am looking forward to staying in a hotel where the shitters flush, thank you very much! Excuse me while I go pay hommage to my indoor plumbing.