We started July off nice and refreshed having just come back from our week long vacation at Bullard’s Bar Reservoir. If you haven’t been there, I definitely suggest going there. But I would recommend you go when California is not on fire! We didn’t realize how close to the fires were going to be and it was very smoky! Despite the smoke, the boat troubles, and my mom’s hand swelling up the size of Mickey Mouse’s we had a blast! We are definitely going back there!
Our first blog worthy event of July was the 4th of July. We had big plans this year. Actually, we had absolutely nothing planned. Two o’clock rolled around and we were still just lying around the house. Neither one f us was very motivated until my brother called and invited us to Pismo with he and my niece. Since Pismo is always packed on 4th of July, we told my brother we would go and save a spot for the firework show. We went got a great spot and what we thought was a pretty good parking spot. We relaxed on the beach and had dinner as we waited for my brother and niece. I called my brother about 100 times but he never answered, so we just assumed they weren’t gonna come. Those of you that know my brother know that he tends to do that sometimes. But Marlene’s family ended up coming and we had a good time watching the fire work show. As we were walking back to the car, we realized that there was only one way out of the street we parked on and everyone else and their mother’s thought they had found the perfect spot right by us. Marlene’s family was home before we moved two feet! About two hours after the fire work show, we finally made it home.
So, a couple of weeks later was my brother’s chance to make up for standing us up on the 4th. It was the Destruction Derby at the Santa Barbara County Fair. This is a big event for my brother. He has been in it 9 out of the last ten years! He really enjoys spending time building cars and then destroying them. He has done really well a couple years, but for the most part, he has had really bad luck. Last year he had the first and most exciting hit of the derby, but his drive line fell off and that would turn out to be the only hit he had that year. But this year, he built his car stronger than ever! This year he was gonna do good; he had a chance to win it all! Well he would have done good if he didn’t have to pull out before it started! When he was bringing his ca home from the shop the night before, he was tired and just wanted to get home. He was about to blow a stop sign on some back roads and decided to stop last minute, slamming his brakes. Slamming your brakes last minute when you are pulling a huge station wagon behind you isn’t the best idea. The car slid forward on the trailer, and busted his tailgate and tail light. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but something broke on his transmission and they didn’t notice until about ten minutes before the derby was supposed to start and didn’t have enough time to fix it. Oh well, better luck next year! But my brother wasn’t too disappointed because my niece wasn’t able to make it (she HAD to go to Disneyland with her mom) and he had promised her he wouldn’t do it. God saved him from having to explain to her why he broke his promise!
The next weekend was Kathy’s Annual Birthday Bonfire at Avila Beach. Marlene’s family along with some family friends get together every year for Kathy’s birthday at Avila. I didn’t get there until about 7:30, so I missed most of the fun. (I was at the lake with my brother and I lost track of time, oops!) All the kids were there most of the day having a blast! As the evening rolled in there were snacks, BBQ, smores and the Tapia boys playing their guitars around the fire.
We only had two days of work the next week before our next little adventure…John Mayer concert! Woo Hoo! We took the day off and spent the day at the Paso Robles Mid-State Fair. MMM…fair food! Actually we didn’t get as much as I thought we would. I would definitely recommend you stay away from the turkey legs! They look good, but it feels like your biting into rubber. The meat actually looks like ham and taste like…I’m not really sure what it tasted like, but it wasn’t good. We also sat through an hour cooking demonstration for waterless pots. They were pretty cool and if we had an extra $2500 lying around, we might have bought some. We also watched a kids talent show. Some of the kids were pretty good, but some of them were terrible. When we got bored of that, we decided to walk around. As we were walking around we were playing a game of “who will see more people they know”. First to five wins. (There is only so much you can do at a fair before you get bored out of your mind.) We ended up winning one game a piece. Finally it was time for the concert! Our seats were pretty close to the stage, but were parallel to it, so we had kind of a side view. They were much better than our co-worker, Veronica’s seats. Her friend she went with bought binoculars before the concert! Colbie Caillat opened the concert. She sings really good, but it was pretty boring. It gave me a weird feeling that starts in my toes, makes me crinkle my nose…I had to throw that in. John Mayer was good! He has gotta be the best guitar player I have ever seen! Marlene got poked in the eye and elbowed a few times but we had a blast! I screamed at the top of my lungs!
That same weekend it was off to Sacramento! This was a work trip though. Every month, I have to go see kids that are placed out of county. We have kids placed as far south as San Diego and as far north as Hamilton City (about an hour and a half to two hours north of Sacramento). I almost always go on weekends though, so my beautiful wife could go with me. We usually try to do something fun on these monthly visits. (Last month we piggy backed our visits with our vacation.) This month we bought tickets to see comedian, Gabriel Inglesias. I had the day planned perfect. We were going to leave at 6:00, get to Stockton by 10:00, then do the visit. Oroville by 12:30, then do the visit. Hamilton City by 2:00 and do my final visit and get to our hotel in Sacramento by about 4:00. Well, we decided to sleep in a little so we adjusted our schedule a little. We were an hour behind schedule by the time we got on the road, so it wasn’t too bad. I figured I would make up some time driving like a mad man. We ended up getting to Stockton at about 10:30, so we made up some time. I thought, “I know this girls doing good, she talks to her social worker all the time, she’s 17, I’ll just go in and make sure she’s breathing and we’ll be on our way.” (By make sure she’s breathing, I just mean I would make it quick.) Well, when we get there, this nice little Mexican lady was working on the garden in the front yard. She told me to wait so she can hold the dog back. I figured, “oh, cool. I’m not much of a dog person and I won’t have to pretend like I like it.” So I walk in the gate and the little grandma is trying to hold the dog by the collar, she says, “just open the door, they’re inside waiting for you,” as she struggles to hold the dog back. As I open the door, I hear a little shriek so I turned around. I see the dog dragging the little old lady to the ground and the dog running straight for me. Now, this is the part I am a little ashamed of. As I see the dog running towards me and an old woman on the ground…I turn and slam the door behind me so the dog doesn’t jump on me instead of running to the rescue of the moaning old lady on the ground. Let me finish before you begin to judge me! About a split second later I yelled into the house that the grandma has fallen and opened the door back up to go check on her and make sure she was ok. (Marlene saw this from the car and was wondering where the guy she married was when she saw the look of fear in my eyes as I slammed the door. She was getting out of the car to help but saw us come outside and got back in the car.) Apparently, this has happened before. The 17 year old ran to get the neighbor and the old lady’s daughter joined me in comforting the old lady. We asked if she needed an ambulance, and she said, no she just needs to relax as she kept moaning. The neighbor and I helped her up and made sure she was ok. We got her some ice and I we continued to our visit. Finally, one visit down! Then we get into Sacramento and a portion of the I5 is closed. We had to take a detour through town and didn’t arrive in Oroville until about 1:30, not too far behind schedule. Nothing too exciting on this visit. Next is Hamilton City. We get there and no one answers the door. So I decide to call. I was at the wrong house, so I went across the street to the correct house only to find that the foster mother and the child I was going to see were not home! I called the foster mother on her cell phone and she apologizes and said she forgot. I was about to ask when she would be there and the phone cut out. About 5 minutes later I get a hold of her and said, “Sorry, my phone cut out”, but I was wrong. She had answered the phone while backing up and backed into someone. Oops! We waited for about half an hour and they finally showed up after making sure everything was ok, we did the visit. I don’t know how but we somehow got to our hotel in Sacramento at about 5:00. We checked in and took a nap. We went to dinner at Cheese Cake Factory, one of Marlene’s favorite restaurants. Next it was off to wait in line for what felt like for ever in a 100 degree hallway that had one tiny little fan in the corner for about 200 people. A group of inconsiderate people behind us then decided to go and stand directly in front of the fan and block the little air that we were getting. Everyone around us was bickering about how hot it was and how rude it was of those people to block the air, but no one was saying anything. Finally, I went and asked them very politely to move and they did and acted as if they didn’t know they were blocking the air. Finally at about 11:00 they let us in for our 10:30 show. It was definitely worth it. Gabriel Inglesias and friends are very funny! They taught me that I am a paragraph. I didn’t get it at first either. I am half an esse!
That pretty much sums up the month of July for us. I promise the next time I blog, it won’t be this long!
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