graduating, wedding, celebrating = tiring!

whew, what a weekend. i don't think we could possibly have squeezed any more into it than we did!

friday:

i spent most of the morning doing some last-minute shopping for "little things" to give the teen (yup, i'm taking your comments to heart) stuff to open on her actual birthday. the tickets to wango tango and next weekend's disneyland extravaganza is her present, but the hub always likes to give her actual presents to open, too. so between a big ass target run and a quickie run through the mall, i ended up with:

• a bag of jonas brothers crap - a tee featuring her future husband, nick jonas, plus four buttons featuring pictures of the band, TWO magazines dedicated to nothing but the jonas brothers, and this awesome toothbrush, which plays "hold on" for two minutes as she keeps the cavities away.
• another bag full of hannah montana stuff. a wireless microphone, the "hannah montana live" CD, and a black tote bag. she really wanted the backpack, but i think she'll be able to use this one more - at least, till she's totally over the whole hannah montana phenomenon. heh.
• we'd walked through target a few days prior and she really, really wanted this silly thing. it's a bath toy/water pitcher shaped like a pelican, and inexplicably, she just thought it was so damn cool.
  
• and something else she wanted - it's an art set with mess-free markers. they only work on the special crayola paper. i know, i know - i sometimes think she's turning 6 instead of 13.
• a copy of juno on dvd. and not just any old dvd, but the one that contains a digital version of the movie that she can put on her iPod. whee - she can watch it anytime, anywhere. yay.
• lastly, a cool pair of converse sneaks. she'd said "mom, i want some red and yellow converse!" so i went through every stinking store in the mall that sold converse looking for these. of course, it wasn't till later that i realized she meant she wanted two separate pairs of shoes - there WAS no one pair of converse that was a red/yellow combo. i thought this was funny anyway, because that color combo reminds me of mcdonald's. heh. so instead, she ended up with a white pair that had red, orange, and hot pink in them. ha!

after i picked her up from school, we spent the afternoon working on the tees she and BFF wanted to wear to wango tango. we ended up with black tees that had pictures of the jonas brothers and "the teen/BFF [heart]s the jonas brothers!" on the front, and "wango tango 2008" and pictures of the other performers on the back.

the hub came home to admire/ridicule our handiwork and then headed back out to fetch some corn dogs and chili cheese fries for us from wienerschnitzel, and then we just hung out before going to bed.

saturday:

we were up nice and early for BIL's graduation from culinary school. we were due at santa anita race track by 10 for the 11:00 ceremony, and after finally getting everyone dressed and in the car, we arrived with 5 minutes to spare. the ILs had secured an entire row of seats right in front of the handicapped section (great-grandma was rockin' the wheelchair that morning), so we settled in and got comfy.

and it was fun to watch the new chefs make their way down to their seats, all dressed in their bright white chef's coats. we giggled as we watched BIL juggle three beers just before the ceremony started - well, we giggled and his folks and grandmother looked on in disbelief. heh. and now we officially have a cordon bleu-trained chef in the family!

afterwards, we went to cheesecake factory (yes, we hit up a CHAIN for a chef's graduation lunch - shut up, he likes all food) and enjoyed a lovely meal all together. well, 10 of us were at a big table and the other 4 of us sat in a booth next to them. the bean got her first taste of avocado, out of the hub's avocado spring rolls, and i was pleased to see that she seemed to enjoy it. let's just hope she isn't allergic to it, like her daddy is. :/

after a round of hugs and kisses, we headed back home, dropping the teen off at BFF's house on the way. BFF's folks were going to take the girls to the concert, since we had my cousin's wedding to attend that night. and somehow, i'd managed to fuck up my time management for the day, because by the time we arrived at home, it was 3:30 and the ceremony was to start at 4:00. i'd gotten all wrinkled from the day, the hub needed to pick something up at home, and we still had to drop the bean off at the grandparents' for the evening. i was a little bummed, because i really wanted to watch her get hitched, but it was not to be.

so we just took our time, freshened up, and finally got to the biltmore for the reception around 6:00. it was beautiful. we joined my family in the tiffany room for cocktail hour and hors d'oeuvres, and munched, chatted and took pictures until it was time to enter the ballroom for the main event.

and it was gorgeous. taking a cue from my cousin, i took a quick video of the room:


and then i got started with the pictures.

we took some silly pictures, too.

by the time we got home, it was midnight. the hub said "hey, it's officially mother's day! that means i can finally tell you where we're going for dinner on friday, right?"

he'd told me to cancel the reservation i'd made at california adventure's vineyard room restaurant, because he had something else in mind. and he wouldn't tell me what it was, even though i was DYING to find out.

and guess what? we're going to club 33!! whee! i'm so excited, i can hardly wait. back when i turned 33 (oh, so long ago. psh), going to club 33 was the only thing i wanted to do. but we didn't have any connections back then, so i had to settle for a day at disneyland and a behind-the-scenes tour, which took us into the entryway of the club. ha! that's as close as i got. so now, i think i'm officially more excited for disneyland now than the teen is. heh.

sunday:

it was yet another early day for us - and the kid's official transformation into "the teen." oh my!

the bean and i were up even before the alarm went off, although i was still sleepy and tired as hell. but she was ready to get up and play, so i got up with her. i got her fed, changed and dressed, and we managed to be out of the house right around 8:00, on our way to pick up the kid (who'd spent the night at BFF's).

she gave me a tired smile when i gave her a birthday hug, and we got back in the car to make our way down to loyola marymount university for my brother and his girlfriend's graduation. they'd dedicated the last two years of their lives to getting through the masters program while working full-time, and they were finally done! yahoo!

during the car ride, i passed the kid her gifts to open, and i was happy to get all the squeal-y, excited reactions i'd hoped for. of course, she loved the bag o'jonas, and laughed her ass off to find the pelican pitcher. it was fun to watch her get so excited, and before we knew it, we were there.

we found our group pretty quickly - my parents, my brother and sister's folks (they're my step-siblings, in case that sounds weird), his girlfriend's parents and sister, and my sister and her husband. a round of hugs, a bunch of pictures, and then the ceremony started.

yay! we're so proud of them.

the bean started fussing towards the end, so we left a little early and drove around marina del rey for a bit before grabbing a starbucks and then making our way to pf chang's for lunch (yes, yes, another chain, shut up).

the grads:

lunch was yummy and before we knew it, it was almost 3:00 and way past time to get the teen back to her dad's house. in rancho cucamonga. oh, yes.

the bean and i were dropped off at home to scoop up our mother's day gifts for the moms in my family, we kissed the teen goodbye, and then she and the hub took off - her to her dad's, and him to meet his parents for dinner. and we weren't far behind them, heading to a local restaurant to celebrate the day with my family.

four generations (the teen belongs in this picture, but she wasn't there, boo).

the bean and her cousin were totally checking each other out:

it was funny to watch the bean try to comfort her cousin as she cried.

and then she looked on when the bean decided she wasn't too happy.

playing with my cousin r, in town just for the weekend:

i didn't eat, since i just had, so we just mingled and chatted with everyone. it was a fun time, and we all exchanged little trinkets (our annual tradition). the bean fell asleep in the car on the way home, and i ended up enjoying a filet o'fish meal for dinner. bwahahahahaha!

all in all, a fun-filled, exhausting weekend. congratulations to the grads and the newlyweds, and yay for the teen being a teen!