Trying to stay awake...

This weekend was exhausting, not only in the amount of running around we did, but in the terribly poor amount of sleep I got.

The big event this weekend was that Dina's dad got remarried. The ceremony was Saturday afternoon in Glenwood, MN. That means on Friday we had to pack. Unfortunately, Dina also had a going-away party for a friend of hers Friday night, so she was out until about 11:00. We were up late getting as much packed as we could, so we didn't get much sleep Friday night. Anyway, we got out of the house on Saturday, went and visited Dina's mom in St. Cloud for a while, then drove out to Glenwood for the wedding. After the wedding we had a reception dinner at the Lakeside Ballroom. (The filet mignon special was awesome.) Then we headed over to the Scotwood Motel and played in the pool with the kids for a couple hours. That was fun - all of our boys love the water and had a great time. We thought they'd sleep soundly.

Two thirds of them did. However, Caden was not happy with being away from home, and got stuffed up from the dust in the room's air. He cried almost all night. Between Dina and I, one of us was up all night long. Ugh.

The next day is kinda hazy, but we visited Dina's dad and his new wife, drove to Benson to visit my dad and hisnew girlfriend (but the kids fell asleep on the drive, so we didn't stay long), visited my mom and grandpa (also in Benson), went back to my dad's after the kids were awake, and then headed out of town.

Visiting my dad was...tough. When I was a kid he was a heavy drinker and into various drugs, so my childhood was very much not normal. I wasn't physically abused, but I saw a lot of stuff that kids shouldn't see, and experienced things that have caused a lot of pain. My dad still drinks (don't know about the other stuff), and I've kept a considerable distance between us, especially since my own kids have been born. We normally give my dad lots of notice when we're coming, so there's no crazy stuff when we get there with the kids. Well, when we stopped by with little notice on our way out of town, because Griffin wanted to see his grandpa, my dad had obviously been drinking, and his new girlfriend was altered out of her mind on something...if it was booze, it was a lot. Not a good situation for the kids, so we got out of there. I'm not looking forward to the time when Griffin is old enough to see what's going on, because I'm going to have to deal with this crap again.

Ok, enough with the heavy stuff. On a lighter note, on the way home I was starting to feel tired, so I drank a Bawls energy drink (mostly because of the recent spoof). It actually tasted fairly good. I'd never had one of those before, and wow did it affect me. After getting home at 11:15 pm, I unloaded the kids, and all of our stuff, and put almost all of it away immediately. Usually when we get home that late we carry our stuff into the entryway and leave it until morning. Of course, after doing that I collapsed into a nearly-dead state in bed until morning. I think I'm still recovering today.