One CrAzY Week

This past week Matt worked in Santa Monica like he did the week before. By the end of the week he had put in about 70 hours. Poor Matty. He didn't have much of a week because he was either working, driving to or from Santa Monica, or trying to get some sleep since he was working such long hours.

For Braden and I, this week was absolutely insane . . . does anybody else have a hard time saying "insane" without thinking of "THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!!!!!" or is it just me? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to Blockbuster right now and rent "The Princess Bride."

Go.




Now.







I'll wait.







OR, you can come over to my house and we'll watch it together . . . I'll make brownies . . .

Anywho, this week started out great. Diane Arsenijevic and her sister Karen and all of their kids came out to visit for the week. Diane lives in Illinois and Karen lives in Wisconsin. My mom met Diane through work years ago when my mom used to travel to Green Bay, WI a lot. On Monday, my mom, Braden, and I drove to Balboa Island and had lunch with everyone at Wilma's Patio and walked around the island a bit. We took the ferry to the peninsula and walked around there, too.
Karen, Nadia, Bennet, Derek, Katrina, Diane, and my mom on the ferry. The boys are Karen's and the girls are Diane's.

Diane, Karen, and the kids decided to go whale watching and so my mom, Braden, and I went home. Braden had had enough excitement for the day anyway . . .





On Wednesday, we joined Diane and the family at Disneyland and California Adventure. It was Braden's 8th time to Disneyland and his 7th to California Adventure. I think he'll qualify to be a Disney tour guide by 18 months.






We all went together on Finding Nemo and Braden got to do his favorite thing: hang out with Diane.



Braden's sign of affection is smacking your face. Braden really likes Diane, can't you tell?






Karen and the boys left the group to do all of the wild rides while us girls and Braden hit up the kid rides. As we exited through the castle we saw Cinderella's fairy godmother and had to stop and take a picture. Being the fairy godmother at Disneyland is my mom's dream job.











Diane and the girls in front of the castle. Nadia likes Captain Hook and adventure rides. Katrina loves princesses. They are so different but both are sooo cute and sweet.

We hung out in California Adventure for a few hours. After the Monster's Inc. ride we hit up "A Bug's Land."





Nadia drove Diane around in their bumper car.




But Katrina wanted my mom to drive their bumper car.

This day was also too much excitement for Braden.




Although he only slept for 20 minutes or so. He's really well behaved at Disneyland and California Adventure. Braden, my mom, and I left around 7pm and drove home.

Little did I know what I would discover the next morning . . .







Thursday morning I picked up my wedding ring to put it on and looked down at it to discover that the center diamond was gone!!! My heart still sinks into my stomach just thinking about it. I was convinced I had lost it at Disneyland or California Adventure since the last time I remembered actually looking down at my ring was in California Adventure in the early afternoon. My mom, dad, and I began tearing the house and my car apart. We did this for over an hour. I was prepared to take pipes apart, dig through Braden's poop, and search the Disneyland parking structure when my mom discovered the diamond under the fridge.






No woman should have to endure such torture.





My ring is in the shop getting repaired and I should get it back within the next couple of days.







After that incident, I should have known that I needed to stay at home and let the black cloud over my head pass, but did I? Of course not!






On Friday, Braden, my mom, and I drove to Laguna Beach to have lunch with Diane and her family before they flew home. I drove up the hill on N. Coast Hwy where I normally park and then . . .









Ohhh I'm getting sick to my stomach just thinking about it . . .










And then, this happened:










I had turned on my left turn indicator to go into a parking spot on the opposite side of the street but the woman behind me (for some strange reason) thought I was pulling over to the right and crossed over the yellow line on the left side of me to go around me and she hit my car. Fortunately, no one was hurt. As I pulled over to the side of the road, parts kept falling off of the car but I didn’t realize how much damage there was until I got out of the car . . . and then I burst into tears.

The woman's car took out my headlight, hubcap, one side of the bumper, damaged the strut and wheel, bent the fender down onto the hood, and totaled the fender.

Where's the headlight? Oh yeah, it's on the road 20 feet behind me in a pile of wreckage!

Where the fender and the hood used to meet.

The grill and bumper hanging down off the car.

Crunched fender and missing hubcap.

The lady who hit me actually turned out to be a lovely woman and was extremely apologetic and totally accepted all the blame. She and I both called our insurance companies and got all of that dealt with. There wasn’t too much damage to her car although it will still be expensive. Her front passenger door had three deep scrapes that bent the metal a little and both of her hubcaps on that side of the car were damaged. Her fender was a little crunched, too, but her car was completely drivable, mine was not. My bumper was dragging on the street and I’m not sure how much the damaged strut would have affected the drivability.

We had to get it towed to a repair shop and Braden waved goodbye to the car as it was put onto the tow truck, which was actually really cute.

Diane was so sweet and drove up to keep Braden entertained while I handled all of the insurance stuff. My mom gave Braden snacks, talked a lot with the lady who had hit me, and had to drag the broken wreckage left by my car off of the road.

It was scary but we were so lucky that nobody was hurt and that the damage was mostly cosmetic and didn’t damage the engine or frame. It will still be extremely expensive to repair; thank goodness for insurance and thank goodness I was not at fault.

Needless to say, I kept the weekend pretty low-key. I figure there's no sense in me tempting the fates any more than I already have.

BUT, on a high note, Braden's finally walking! HOORAY!


UPDATE 5/4/2009:

I got a call from the collision repair place this morning and it's going to cost $3493.30 for the repairs (oh how I love my car insurance company right now) and I should get the car back on May 12th.