la crapetta

oh, la torretta, how i will always think of you as la crapetta. our relaxing weekend turned into one disaster after another. after confirming twice that the hotel allowed pets, we decided the place was perfect for a last minute retreat from all the crazy we've had going on. i had to work saturday morning, so we could we had to meet em's cousins a little later. upon checking in, the lady at the front desk informed us that pets were not allowed at the hotel, but were welcome at the "golf villas" at the front of the property. and they have some excellent doggie boarding facilities in town if i didn't want to go that route. excuse me?! to say i was livid is an understatement. (i am pretty sure i have never been so rude to a complete stranger in my entire life. poor front desk lady. there is no way they pay her enough to deal with unhappy patrons like myself). not only was the golf villa inconvenient and not where the rest of my family was staying, it was more expensive and required a $250 deposit that was not completely refundable. not to mention that no one thought this was important information to relay to me when i called to make sure we'd have no problem getting 3 rooms together, etc. after demanding our money back and deciding to return home, the hotel made us a deal (that we only accepted so that we could avoid disappointing our baby girl, who had been so, so excited). i may or may not have had a fit or 3 that almost included angry tears, too. they gave us a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom villa for no extra charge and waved the pet fee/deposit. they even threw in some lake bugs "that do not bite" as well as a 1980 white windowless van, complete with creepy man and dried throw up on the back of the chair to transport us back and forth between the villa and the hotel. i'm lying about the windowless part. but windows did not make a difference.

2.5 hours later, we finally made it out to the pool to meet up with the rest of my family. (did i mention that i spent saturday morning working? in a suit? having to be pleasant? to strangers?) it was not 15 minutes later that a lady in a bandeau bikini came running up to us looking for a doctor. thinking it was just a random call for a doctor, like they do in movies, of course, i paid little attention. that is until i heard "accident" and my sister saying, "um, that's my husband!" he somehow slipped while climbing out of the lazy river (i think) and gashed his shin open. no big deal, right? wrong! my brother ended up driving him to his office and giving him 40 stitches. on his shin. i know! i heard mention of some bone and a torn muscle and tuned the rest of that discussion out. while brother and BIL were in houston taking care of that, my sister took aaron up to the room since he had not had a nap (it was now about 4:30) and that was the last we saw of them for the rest of the trip (minus the few minutes i stopped by the room to give my sweet, sleeping nephew a kiss).

needless to say, i was far from impressed with the "lake resort" in montgomery, texas. not even em was fooled. "i yike the odder hotel better," (speaking of la cantera) as she cried and told us she wanted to go home instead of going to bed there. i could not agree with her more. that said, the lady at the front desk was very nice and did feel very bad about the misunderstanding (or so she said). and room service was cheap and edible, so i couldn't complain much about that.

when we got back home on sunday, we took emily to see the wiggles live. can you believe that that was the highlight of our weekend? seriously. the wiggles. we were all a bit grumpy, but the show made us smile a few times. and that was a few times more than we had smiled all weekend at the you-could-not-pay-me-enough-money-to-go-back-there-again-sh!th0!e known as la crapetta. and that's not even how i really feel about it. (i spared you details about (1) how we discovered how toxic sunscreen can be to blackberry and iphone covers as well as most other plastic (trust me on this), (2) the clientele at la crapetta, (3) the golf course that had little green grass and no golfers, and (4) other details that would divulge exactly how snobby, high maintenance, and even ridiculous i can be, and thus, give away my true personality).

moving on, but not really, here's some evidence of our awesome weekend. cute little toddlers make everything better.

he's telling her a secret
they got to pick their treat: em chose chocolate ice cream and dylan wanted dry cereal.
heading to breakfast. i've already forgotten why she's pointing at me. but how big does she look here! :(

the wiggles put on a really fun show

and collected all the roses and dog bones that kids brought. they also read every single poster in the audience.