Friday the 13th in Reno

I had my monthly business trip to Reno last week.  For once, I was looking forward to it because Roger and Kaelyn were coming too!  They picked me up from work at a little after 3.  Roger had a business meeting of his own at 5 and because it was on the way to Reno, I suggested that we just all drive up there together and I'd wait with Kae in the parking lot.  We were both expecting this to be over in less than an hour, but instead it lasted for an hour and a half!  That meant that we got a much later start to our Reno drive than expected and had to scratch our plans for a sit down dinner at the hotel for a grab and go on the road.

We finally got checked in to the hotel around 9pm.  I was pretty tired and immediately tried to put Kaelyn to bed.  We forgot to bring her pack-n-play, so I made a little bed for her on the floor.  It was actually pretty comfy, but whether Kaelyn didn't love the hotel or just wanted to stay up longer to explore the room, she would not go to sleep.  I moved her to the bed where she played with me and Roger and eventually fell asleep around 10:30.  By then, I was ready to crash too, so Roger took the opportunity to go check out the casino..he came back at midnight, $45 richer and to me, unable to sleep and cranky.  He attempted to move Kaelyn back to her "bed" without waking her up, which just ended in disaster as she screamed for another half hour until she finally went to sleep.

My meeting was at 8:30 the next morning and luckily, not far from the hotel, so I was able to sleep in a little bit.  Also, it was fortunate, that the meeting lasted for just an hour and I was back at the hotel with Roger and Kaelyn well before lunch.  Kaelyn was in a much better mood than she was the night before and we were able to have a nice, long lunch at a small restaurant located by the river.  After that, we walked around downtown and visited the main casinos looking for something to do.  There is only so much you can do in Reno with a baby, and we quickly got bored.  We did some shopping (well browsing, since we didn't buy anything) and decided to head back to Sacramento in the late afternoon.

Our drive home was where the Friday the 13th luck really hit.  We hit major traffic coming out of Reno (due to construction on the California/Nevada border).  Then, when we got to Sacramento, an accident had us stuck for over an hour.  By then, we were all just sick of being on the road and needed to just get out and do something.  We exited the freeway at our first opportunity.  Fortunately, we were pretty close to our friend, Vickie's house.  I called her and we ended up going to her house where Roger grilled some chicken, I made BBQ sauce from scratch, and Vickie made homemade rolls for dinner.  We didn't leave her house until almost 9pm and even though we didn't get home until 10...four hours later than planned, we were much happier after stopping in to visit Vickie.

The rest of the weekend has been pretty relaxing.  Roger decided to start a new mini-project and is installing wainscoting in our hallway.  It looks great!  Next weekend, I'll be painting the hall and the kitchen.  Fun times.

I still haven't made the practice cake, but Vickie volunteered to help me and I'm not as stressed out about it now.  I have to go back to Reno on Tuesday night so that our new commander can tour the project site.  To be honest, I'm not really looking forward to it.  The tour is scheduled to last until 3 on Wednesday and will probably go longer.  It will be a long day.  The positive (I've promised to find one positive in every negative) is that, though the day will be long, the week will go by fast since I'll be spending half of it outside the office.

Till next time.....