Liz told her side of the story, allow me to elaborate a little more.

Normally I take JE to the dentist on my Friday off, but Liz took him this time so I decided to surprise her by getting rid of the carpet on the garage floor. After all, she'd been complaining all week that she wanted it gone. This meant I had to move everything on the right side of the garage over to the left side, then pull up the carpet on the right side of the garage, then move everything in the garage back to the right side so I could pull up the carpet on the left side. Then I had to cut the carpet up into bite size pieces so I could get them out to the dumpster, and so they'd fit. I also chose to organize the garage, restacking everything neatly (I am the Tetris King) so the garage looked a gazillion percent better.

In the middle of all this Liz called wanting me to redo the shelves in the closet in the family room. The brackets holding the shelves are spaced too far apart, and the shelves are bowing in the middle from the weight of all the books.

So after I got done with the carpet, and fed Amber and put her down for her nap, I hit the family room. First I took out all the books, computer bits, toys, videos, etc, that were all on the shelves, then unscrewed the brackets and moved them several inches in to more evenly distribute the weight across the shelves. Then I restacked the shelves but this time double stacked the books (1 row in front of the other) which opened up space for all of our VHS tapes and DVDs, which had been rendered homeless when our entertainment unit bit the dust last week (Ikea stuff is reasonably study until you move it, and then it collapses).

Around 2pm I was finally finished, and had just enough time for a shower and to plop down in front of the computer, before Liz and JE arrived home, ready to head out to the first of two birthday parties (see Liz's Blog) which was at the Kids Island place I warned everyone about the other week.

We get to Kids Island and are stopped at the door because both Liz and I are wearing shoes without socks, and Kids Island require all adults to wear socks, but not shoes. No shoes (or bare feet) inside Kids Island! They will, however, sell you socks at $2 each (so $4/pair?) I don't know why it's ok for the kids to have bare feet but not the adults, but it is. So while JE and Amber ran in and started playing, I stood outside in the foyer while Liz went next door and bought us each a pair of socks. But of course she didn't just buy two pairs of socks (when any old socks would do) clever, money-conscious wife that she is, she bought socks that we can take home and wash and wear later and not be embarassed to be seen in public in them. No, I'm not faulting her for that, just explaining why it seemed to take her forever to return from the store, which was just next door, where she only went to buy socks.

I then spent the next 2 hours chasing around after Amber, who'd just woken up from the nap she'd had while Daddy was still working his ass off. So while Amber was recharged and ready to go, Daddy was ready to drop. Liz got compliments from all of the other mothers about how good I was with Amber; apparently their husbands would never help out like I was doing...come to think of it, I was the only husband/father there. What's up with that? I know some of the husbands still live and work in China while their wives & children live in the U.S., but not all of them do that. Where were the other husbands? Actually there were only one or two little ones like Amber, so it's not like husbands were really necessary.

At the bottom of Kids Island I discovered a two-years & under enclosed area, where I was able to sit down and still keep an eye on Amber. One of the other mothers brought her little guy in so for a while I watched two little nippers instead of the one. Then another mom came in with her little one, but she stayed instead of taking advantage of Capn John's Handy Dandy Babysitting Service, thank god.

The most amusing moment was when Amber got knocked over by none other than the birthday girl herself, right in front of Liz, bday girl's mom, and another mom. I pointed at bday girl and loudly proclaimed "She did it!". Liz told me to shush. "That's the birthday girl," she said. "Oh, like that makes it ok," I said. I was just being silly. Mainland Chinese are kind of funny though. They like to make jokes and things, but they have their own special brand of humor, and they often don't get jokes made by people who are not Chinese.

At 6pm that party was done and we dropped Amber with the inlaws, then headed to my mate's place for his daughter's 4th birthday party, where I was finally able to kick back, put my feet up, eat pizza, drink beer, and just relax for a few hours.

We made it home at 9:30pm and got JE into bed (Amber stayed with the inlaws) which was when Liz decided she didn't like the way I'd rearranged the garage because she couldn't find anything, like the crockpot, which was never in the garage to begin with. So she had to go through everything, rearranging all of the boxes, and more trips were made to the dumpster.

Saturday we went to the zoo late in the afternoon and ran around finding the six Dodge cars hidden throughout the zoo in some promotion Dodge are having. We saw a few animals but JE just wanted to find the cars. Dodge had painted them with photo mosaics, i.e., thousands of tiny photos of tigers fit together in such a way that when viewed from a distance they made a large picture of a tiger, or thousands of tiny photos of penguins that when viewed from a distance made a large penguin picture, etc. Now also on the cars was another picture, a cartoon of a tiger or a penguin, etc, and you had to find the picture, answer the Dodge Rep's question, and you'd get a small prize. Prize?! Did you say prize?! JE was all over that, of course he didn't care for the animals but just wanted to find the cars. Also the Zoo closes at 5pm, and by 4:30pm most of the animals have been brought in for the night so a lot of the exhibits appeared empty, so it's hardly an interesting place to be late in the afternoon. This would explain why the LA Zoo closes at 5pm, even during summer with Daylight Saving Time, instead of staying open a lot later like other zoos do.

After the zoo we stopped at a park just around the corner from Liz's parents' house. Liz called her parents to see if they wanted us to bring JE to their place, or if they wanted to come to the park and get him and Amber. They said they'd come to the park so Liz hung up, and the kids played for a while longer, but Liz's parents never arrived.

I told Liz they'd gone to the wrong park.

How could they go to the wrong park, she said, we're right around the corner from their house, they bring the kids to this park all the time.

Then her phone rang. It was her parents. They'd gone to the wrong park.

Now I will cut them some slack because the park they drove to is on the same street as the park we were at, but it was in the next city over! The park we were at was just around the corner from their house!

JE was more than willing to stay with his grandparents that night but Amber sometimes has attachment issues, and Saturday night she wanted to stay with Mum and Dad. She'll go to her grandparents when she's in that mood but she refuses to stay with them, and she'll scream for me to come and get her if they hold on to her.

Sunday we managed to sleep in late then did nothing all day, which is very satisfying, but can be very hard to accomplish when you have kids.

Thus endeth another weekend.