I had Friday off, so Mike decided to have Friday off too.
Thursday night, it was really laid back and boring around here and I was thinking "Man I just want to DO something! ANYTHING!" Now that hindsight is 20/20, I'm glad I had at least one evening to relax over the course of the weekend.
Let's start on Friday, shall we?
Wait, let's go back to Wednesday.
I started getting these random red spots on my legs.
On Thursday they started to itch.
On Friday, as Mike was trying to snuggle Pete in bed and failing miserably because Pete wouldn't stop scratching himself, Mike says "I'm pretty sure he has fleas" and I think about the itchy, red spots on my legs and I thought "That guy may be on to something..." So I google what flea bites look like on humans.
Lo and behold.
We had fleas.
This was bad timing. This was very bad timing.
The following were the plans for Friday:
Be in Kyle (a good hour drive or so) to discuss financial planning with a really nice lady
Pick up tickets for concert
Go to Camp Mabry and figure out what's up with our Tricare
Have the entire afternoon to relax before Darius and New Holly arrive (let me explain who New Holly is. Remember how I have a sister named Holly? Well Darius has taken it upon himself to also date a girl named Holly. You can imagine how confusing it gets. As my boss Sam said "Yeah that would be weird if he was talking about making out with Holly and you were like WHAT?!?!" So I refer to my sister as Old Holly and Darius' girlfriend as New Holly. Moving on)
Darius and Holly arrive
Go see Flogging Molly
Proceed to eat doughnuts
So, basically, everything happened as it was supposed to except the morning's activities took FOREVER and we got to stop by Mike's parents house where his mom was kind enough to give us some stuff to put on Pete for the fleas and had also picked up a NINETEEN DOLLAR can of flea cleaning stuff for the apartment. Those people who invent ways to get rid of fleas really think a lot of themselves, charging that much. I guess I can't complain since the fleas are gone now, as far as we know.
At this point, I feel I should tell you that I had worked myself up to feeling like this flea invasion was something like unto a lice invasion. (I'm so ready for kids. I have cleaned up explosive vomiting, explosive diarrhea, and now an unsanitary bug invasion, all because of my dog child. Bring it) I was feeling very stressed, so when we got home at 2 (about 2 hours later than I thought we would) and Darius and New Holly were supposed to be here at 3:30, I was flipping out.
Mike and I (but mostly Mike) proceeded to rearrange the entire apartment, room by room, vacuum the floors and furniture, spray everything with the flea cleaner, let it dry, and vacuum it all again. Also anything and everything that could have had fleas in it went into the washer on the "Hot" setting.
At THIS point, I feel I should tell you I was trying to get too much washed at once, and the last load that I ran was way too much for the washer, so it of course overflowed. So fun. Also a couple of throw pillows became shredded. But whatever. It's just less to pack when it goes into storage, right?
Luckily! Darius and New Holly got stuck in traffic so they were about an hour behind. And even more luckily, Mike and I were amazing and somehow de-flead the entire apartment AND our dog in 2 hours. We were done by 4 and showered and ready to go by the time they showed up at 4:30.
WHEW! I'm exhausted just remembering this.
Just wait, there's more.
So we go downtown to see Flogging Molly right? It was AMAZING. They are so fantastic live. They sound just as good as they do on their albums.
We're having a good time, minus the girls who give New Holly the stink eye when she sits down on the floor to rest between the opening act and the real act, and the show starts. Everything's great until the drunk guy starts pushing Mike around.
Holy cuh-rap. Getting into a fight is not something I've ever really pictured myself doing, and Mike SAYS I tried to swing at someone but I think he's lying or misinterpreted my actions. So this guy starts pulling on Mike, trying to break through and get to the front (we were literally at the front. The only thing separating us from Flogging Molly was a security guard, a railing, and one row of people. It was fantastic). Mike tries to get the guy to leave him alone when it starts to get ugly and that's when I turned around (Mike was behind me the whole time) and start screaming at the dude and his friends. The guy finally stops and his friends look at Mike and are like "Dude what's your problem!" which is when Mike realized the guy was carrying a stick.
People.
He was blind.
BLIND.
What kind of friends let their blind friend not only get drunk but start shoving people around at a concert?
We weren't the only victims. He made his way down to our left and proceeded to harass the people over there too. I think he was eventually thrown out. Blind or not, he was drunk and being very rude.
Anyways, despite that, we had fun and we stayed in the same spot the whole time. We were pretty proud of that. Thanks to the railing in front of us. Darius spent most of the concert with his arm pushed up against it, blocking New Holly from the people shoving themselves around behind us, and I held onto his arm to anchor myself down. Mike continued to just be tall and hold his ground.
Afterwards, we stuck around and got to meet a couple of the band members and they were just nicer than you can even imagine. So. NICE.
Then we went to Gourdough's and taught New Holly and Darius just how awesome food trailers and doughnuts can be. Then THEY drove back to Tyler. At midnight. In case you're keeping count, that's a 4 hour drive.
So that was Friday.
Here comes the next exhausting leg of the weekend.
Mike and I rolled into bed at 1 AM. I was planning on spending the day with Darius and New Holly, but she had to be back to work which is why they left after the show. This opened up my Saturday, which meant Mike wanted me to go with him to his Spartan Race to take pictures.
This closed up my Saturday.
Are you familiar with a Spartan Race? Basically you run a bunch of miles and have the crap beat out of you with obstacles and then you get a medal and a shower. I know. It's all of your wildest dreams coming true.
A few months ago, our friend Ben talked Mike into signing up, so he did. It just happened to be yesterday, so after getting 5 hours of sleep, we were up at 6 to head out to the middle of nowhere for this race, an hour away.
We took Pete with us because their website said we could, as long as he stayed on a leash, and because he'd spent most of Friday in his crate we were ready to have some fun and let him stretch his legs. Ben's brother and his wife also brought along their dog, and when we got to the ranch and were about to walk down to the shuttle that would take us to the race, this lady tells us they aren't allowing dogs.
Julie (Ben's sister in law) and I look at each other as if to say "WHAT THE FREAK!!!"
We told everyone to go on ahead since they were late checking in, and that we'd figure out what to do.
There we were, miles and hours away from home, husbands about to run a ginormous race, and our dogs are just wagging their tails, wondering when the fun was going to start.
Pete, my Petey Pie, my little baby baby, he had to wait in the car.
We were parked by trees so it was shaded, we left them lots of water, and the two of us ran to catch up with everyone else, praying that our fur babies would be okay (did I mention Julie is 7 months pregnant too? It was exciting).
I then spent the morning getting sun burned and mostly waiting for Mike to finally show up in this clearing where he proceeded to do all kinds of fun things like jump over fire, throw a javelin and climb through lots of mud and barbed wire. Don't even worry. There are pictures at the end of the post.
Mike finally finished, he got (most of) the mud washed off, and we all headed back to the cars as fast as we could.
There were Petey Pie and Tucker (that was Julie's dog), sitting there wagging their tails and so happy to see people they knew.
We let them out to run around for a bit, drink even more water, and then headed on our way home.
Here's where the last really bizarre thing happened.
As we're driving home, I get a call from my mom. It sounded like she was crying and excited and honestly I thought she was telling me that someone was hurt or dead, I couldn't figure out what she was saying at first.
Then I realized that she was telling me that Darius had bought tickets to see Celtic Thunder on November 10th. This followed:
Me: So...he got tickets so he and Holly (the new one) could go with us?
Mom: What? NO! He got them for US!
Me: Mom. I already GOT tickets for US to see Celtic Thunder on November 10th.
Mom: WHAT??? I thought you were just SAYING we were going to see them!
Me: NO! I texted you and said "We're going to see Celtic Thunder!" because I actually bought tickets for us to SEE Celtic Thunder! (this was like a month ago by the way)
At this point she was crying not because Darius was so sweet, but because she was laughing so hard.
The moral of this story is, Angie and Old Holly will most likely be going to see Celtic Thunder with us in November. It'll be a mom/daughters weekend! Woo hoo!
When we finally got home yesterday, Mike showered, and we just crashed for a couple of hours. Once I woke up from the nap, I set out running all of the errands that should have been run on Friday but weren't because of flea cleaning, then we went out to eat, followed by coming home and finished cleaning up the aftermath of the Great Flea Epidemic Of 2012.
And then crashed again.
And that was the story of my bizarre weekend. Oh, the phone conversation wasn't the last really bizarre thing that happened.
I dreamt last night that Mike and I went to the premier of "The Nanny, The Movie" you know like Fran Drescher's old TV show (I LOVE "The Nanny) and we sat in front of her for the show. I asked her if we could take a picture together and she said yes, only when I looked at the picture after we took it, her face turned into Ellen Degeneres sticking her tongue out. I remember thinking "Wow, she's really good at making faces."
If any part of this post doesn't make sense, I can't be held accountable. My brain is fried.
Are y'all exhausted from reading this? I am.
Ahhh. It was so fun. SO. FUN.
Here's Dennis. Attacking his guitar.
You had me at 'bodhran.'
Hey! That's us and Bob Schmidt!
And Matt Hensley! He's probably Darius' favorite pro skater of all time (that's skateboarding, people. Skateboarding). See how he KIND OF looks like it's Christmas morning?
Seriously, they were the nicest people to meet EVER.
AND! They threw bottles of water at the end and New Holly and I both got one! Except Darius was really hoping for one of the cans of Guinness. Oh but THEN some guy at the door was all "Sorry you can't take drinks out of here" and New Holly and I were all "BUT THEY GAVE THEM TO US!" and he was all "Who gave them to you?" and we're all "Flogging Molly! Who do you think!" and then Darius and Mike chugged them really fast because who wants to waste water. But not before we got this picture!
Also, New Holly. Love. Her. That girl is a riot and insane. So perfect for Darius.
Moving on to the Spartan Race.
I like this picture because Mike is puffing up his chest to yell and Ben is squinting funny and clapping his hands.
That's Mike in the gray. On a rope. Climbing.
And there he is jumping over fire.
And throwing a javelin (it may LOOK like there are people completely naked, taking showers behind the fence, but they were clothed from the waist down).
And reliving basic training.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand DONE!
The following is my favorite picture of the weekend. We had to search high and low for it. A woman was walking around taking pictures and posting them to Facebook. We didn't know who the heck she represented (turns out it was ACL Live), but what cracked me up is when she told the girls in front of us (the ones giving Holly the stink eye) to pose for a picture, both Holly and I were thinking "PHOTO BOMB!" and we both moved in to crash their picture. It turns out Mike and Darius were thinking the same thing.
I tried real hard to keep a serious face, but it was difficult not to laugh.
