Long time, no posts! With vacations, catching up on work (meaning my actual paying  job) between days off, and my youngest getting married in 29 days, blogging has been, like, at the bottom of my list.

So if you can tolerate some random “catch-up” here, read on:

• The first half of my vacation was all about the grandkids — from Chuck E. Cheese night to late-night Disney movies, it was a week’s worth of baby and preschool fun.
• Our future daughter-in-law hung out with us during the second segment of our vacation. We stayed in one of those hotels that have suites with fully-equipped kitchens. Normally, I don’t cook much. But on this trip, we cooked just about every meal and it was so good. The future d-i-l taught me how to make homemade guacamole and it was incredible! I am now a guacamole guru. When it’s done, it looks like a party on a plate.  Take two ripe avocados, cut in half, remove pit, scoop out the flesh onto a plate and smush it with a fork ’till chunky. Chop a couple of tomatoes and some fresh cilantro, mix into the mashed avocado (be sure to use the tomato juice!) and add salt and onion powder to taste. (Lemon or lime juice is optional.) Eat with tortilla chips until you get sick or your pants don’t fit, whichever comes first.
• A bit of advice from one who has been there and done that: When it comes to hotel rooms, chances are you’ll get what you pay for.  In our case, an inexpensive room in a facility that appeared decent on the outside turned out to be a filthy nightmare on the inside. When we arrived at the hotel and opened the door to the room, it not only smelled bad, the bathroom floor was dirty, the kitchenette disgusting, and the hide-a-bed couch mattress was covered in weeks’ worth of filth, crumbs, and grime. We immediately left and found a spotless suite with kitchen (even a dishwasher!) at a Marriott Residence Inn just down the road. It cost twice as much, but it was worth it to be able to lay my head down on the pillow at night.