Tag Archive for loris sc

Prelude to an Eve

December 31, 2007 planet3rry 5 comments

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!!!

Yes, it’s the Eve to Christmas Eve and we are ready to shop! Being near Myrtle Beach means one thing… okay it means a few things… but for the womens in the family it mean SHOPPING. And nothing says shopping like OUTLET MALLS. I mean, the beach needs something to do when it’s raining, so the outlet malls have began to fester in the Myrtle Beach area.

I was able to coordinate meeting with Devaney and Andy (DevAndy) to meet us at the Beach. They live in Wilmington, NC which is about an hour away. It had been over a year since I had seen him. Devaney is one of my best friends from Longwood College and also my Big Brother in my fraternity. We met up at Wal-mart (since it’s a good location and EVERYBODY knows where to find Wal-mart) and went to eat over at BoJangles. The Rice Bowls at BoJangles (as far as we know) are Gluten Free Casein Reduced (has some cheese) and are very tasty and filling too. We were pleased.

DevAndy and our gang said our goodbyes and headed off in our own directions. Them, back home; us, OUTLETS. The first thing we did was unleash our Au Pair to go shop. She wasn’t able to arrange anything for Christmas so she came home with us. We instructed her NOT to work, since it was a vacation for her and there were plenty of family members to take care of the kids. Now, when you mention the word “Shopping” to our Au Pair, her eyes light up and a smile grows on her face. Clothes, especially Brand Name, are crazy expensive in Brazil… therefore the Outlet stores are like Crack Houses to her. The regular store price of something might be $100, well, the outlet price might be $50-70 if it’s still in-season… in Brazil it’s like $200-300. So either way she wins and so does her sister and boyfriend and other friends. Let’s just say we were glad we brought the van…

****cousins****

The Elder loved His Cousin when he came to visit a few years back, but now he got to meet his other Cousin too. The Older Cousin is 8yo, with very much the intelligence beyond his years. I’m sure if he’s doing recreational calculus in the school playground, but he’s well read and well spoken. And boy, does he enjoy to speak. The Younger Cousin is 6yo and more of the observer when it came to processing new people. In the first 30 seconds of coming into Lolo & Lola’s house, The Older Cousin was already telling us something while the Younger Cousin was seeing if these new creatures were friendly or not.

It didn’t help that Lola was demanding hugs from the grandsons. The Older Cousin reluctantly gave her a hug and the Younger cousin tried to run away and did the “Hug-My-Back” maneuver. All the kids seemed to hit it off pretty well from what I remember. There wasn’t a trip to Emergency Room, so things worked out okay. At some point in time I think The Cousins became bored with my kids, perhaps do to the fact that The Elder and The Younger were relishing in the brain rotting televisions all over the house. I think they were watching some Christmas Scooby Doo episode.

So, needing an adult conversation, the Older Cousin starts asking about The Elder and what videos and video games he has. We proceed to talk about different things, such as Harry Potter and Star Wars. He had a one sided with me about the Lego Star Wars game along with some other video games that I had never played. I kept throwing curve balls out to him about different topics. I asked him who shot first Han or Greedo.

The Younger Cousin tried to chime in the conversation but he couldn’t talk fast enough to get in what he wanted to say. His dad even stepped in sometimes to help but the Older Cousin would pip in… he did tried to show restraint, but it was very difficult for him. I asked the Younger Cousin questions point blank so that his executive function could catch up with him. It’s not that he didn’t know what he wanted to say, it’s just that getting it from the neurons to the mouth was slower than the Older’s Cousin response time and patience. But I think that Younger Cousin was appreciative of the attention that I gave, which in all respects, he deserves. And with no prompting, the Younger Cousin asked if he could sit on my lap… why sure!

The Cousins became instant best friends and we were one day closer to Christmas.

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Catsup, Ketchup or Catch Up

January 3, 2005 planet3rry No comments

12.23.04 through 12.26.04
We made it through the stomach bug right before Christmas. In fact, I found what turned out to be liquid gold… Propel. As if water wasn’t already healthy, Gatorade, a few years ago, made “fitness water.” you know, water with a little flavor and few minerals, jack up the price and wah-la. [For those of you who read Dilbert, I also buy bags of soil but not bottles of air... yet.] We feared that Jen had become very dehydrated from the stomach bug that she was unable to drink very much. I had gone to Kroger to get some Powerade and while milling around the beverage isle, I saw Propel. Hmmm, I thought, flavored, but not sweet and it’s not carbonated. So, I gambled about $4.5 that these 4 plastic urns would carry the nectar that Jen’s body and Baby Incognito would desire. [Editors Note: Now that is the 2nd trimester, I might changed the name, maybe]

And it turned out to be a success! Propel was what Jen needed. I knew all that schooling would come in handle to make an educated guess. Anyway, on the 23rd, I had to leave work a little earlier than planned so that we wouldn’t leave too late. After all, Eric is handfull these days. We left around 6pm, I had wanted to get through the mountains before dark because I was worried about ice. There was no need. The only thing that was a real problem was Eric’s ears and the change in elevation. We made it to Loris, very very early on the 24th, around 1am or so.

Now the plan at the Palomares household for Christmas is to stay up late until midnight then a frenzy of focused paper tearing commences as you begin to inventory all the loot that you got. We tried to nap Eric a few times during the day since his schedule was all topsy-turvy from the trip.

Eric was a little tired at midnight, but he did enjoy the mayhem around him. He seemed to like ripping the paper, which was evident from back home where he will tear pieces of paper to very small particles.

Christmas morning I ran around Loris in some colder weather. I put on my “almost tights” since it was sooooo cold, in the mid 30s which is arctic for the Beach area. I mapped out my route that I took and found out that I ran 13.8 miles through out town in a time of 2:16. I guess that time is okay, but I was running for 8 minutes and walking for 1 and my pace was only a 9:53 mile. That puts me at a 4:16 marathon which is depressing. I will have to run again today when Jen gets home.

we saw The Jordans (Kip, Joy, Caleb and Rachel) that even which was my first attempt at a pecan pie. I tried to make it with a graham cracker crust and it was a flop. The filling wasn’t that bad, but the crust just sucked. I will have to use my Grandmother’s secret pie crust recipe. Everyone else in household watched a movie.

We went to the new Tanger outlet malls with Mommy P. Our mission was to look for some boots for Jen P. My mission was to go to the Old Navy Outlet and not blow a wad of cash. I only bought one shirt for 6.99, but my weakness was at the GAP outlet. Since Jen has been in Mary Kay, the outward image is important and needless to say, the first chapter of Dr. Phil’s book essentially says the same thing. Oh yeah, and so does the Fly Lady (Sink Reflections). So, I have been trying to also portray a more professional image when I leave the house, as I am a surrogate consultant, but seriously, I am the CEE of the household. That is Chief (because I have some small percentage american indian – blackfoot tribe – in me) Executive (because we have to have important sounding names, I could think of a few fun ones) Encourager (because as a MK husband, that is my biggest contribution that I can make). “My income is your income” – Jen P. So why wouldn’t I want her to be prosperous?? Anyway, I found nice stuff at the Bass Outlet that I really like.

It’s about time for me to pick up Eric, so I have to end this promptly. Jen is at an organizational workshop with some of the other MK directors. We really hope that we can fine tune our systems to be more efficient. We really need to find a babysitter, Eric is currently over at the neighbors who is always so sweet to watch him at the last moment, but it is not fair to her that we rely on her all the time. Although it is nice to be able to walk across the street to get him. Plus we trust her.

Hopefully my next update will be at the home computer… please wifi work this time…

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