Hurricane Donatelli

Pete made some real progress on moving things around and getting more stuff settled at the house while I traveled back to WV for two weeks of work in the office. For some crazy reason, we planned to have our Housewarming party on September 18, even though I was gone from August 29-September 12. Ambitious, I know :).

So, Pete's father and stepmother decided to come out for the party and Pete needed his dad's help with fixing some things around the house. We were all flying back on the same day, September 12. So, I was a little nervous about just getting back to CA and having Larry and Debbie there already. I was planning to work Monday and Tuesday that week, taking the rest of the week off to visit and prepare for the party. My assignment while the 'boys' were working on the house, was to take Debbie out running around in San Jose. Fun, right? Well, after all the travel and just getting back on Pacific Time, I really only wanted to sleep. But I do love to shop, so I was up for the task. Overall, we had a great time. Very busy, but fun all the same.

We even got to visit Wine Country for the day and I'd love to go back and spend some more time. The wineries are so spread out that it took us almost two hours to drive from the first one we visited and the second. The wine tastings were awesome and I will post pictures from them within a few days. Good wine, nice company and beautiful scenery. AND a 2+ hour drive back to San Jose, through San Francisco traffic was not so much fun :).

Our Housewarming party was a hit. We had about 20 people there all in all and everyone had fun. We had tons of food, I baked, Pete grilled and it seemed like everyone brought wine :). Good stuff! Then Sunday came and we were all exhausted. After my four days off, I was back to work that Tuesday and felt like I could use a vacation to recover from the four days off :). I know that's pretty common, but we did so much work over that time, to get ready to have people over for the party, there wasn't much of a break.

I titled this entry 'Hurricane Donatelli' because I tease Pete's dad about being 'Hurricane Larry'. He doesn't do anything softly. He walks fast and hard, and I see him as something of a bull in a china cabinet :). I love him, but he's 'All Go'. Pete had a short list of things he needed his dad's help with around the house, but almost immediately after Larry got to the house the first day, he insisted they needed to stain the deck. That wasn't even on the list, much less the first thing Pete wanted to tackle. But regardless, the went and spent $100 on stains and sprayers and spent the first afternooon staining the deck. And it looks gorgeous! But Pete had trouble getting past the fact that it wasn't on his To Do list :).

All in all, it was a great week. The party was a success and basically forced us into getting things more settled in the house, so it worked out well. And then the following weekend, I left again, to travel back to WV for another two weeks. That would be my fourth trip back.