My husband accidentally took a week long vacation last week.

He had just pulled a marathon of sorts; 14 days straight, no break. His days are not your typical work days; he works a minimum of 10 hours a day, averages 12, once a week pulls a 14-hour-er. He gets 6 days off a month. We NEVER see him.

Since he worked a months’ worth of hours in two weeks, he took a few days off. And then we celebrated Canada Day. The day before Canada Day, he only had to go in for 5 hours. Voila! One whole week off.

I can’t remember the last time he had a whole week off. I was, honestly, afraid I might be forced to ram the heel of a green glitter plastic Princess high heel into his temple by the end of the week. We just never spend that much one-on-one time, you know?

I am happy to report, all the dress-up shoes are intact, and aside from a few muscles being sore due to overuse (you go right ahead and run with that one) no one is worse for the wear. In fact, I find myself wishing he had a normal-ish schedule. He left for work yesterday, and I missed him. Weird, I know.

There is a point, I promise. We did a lot of stuff over that week. I took a butt-load of pictures, and I have no clue where to start in showing them all to you. I am way behind in the internet loop, I haven’t had to cook dinner once for 7 days straight, and I feel the pressing need to keep the laundry up to date all of a sudden. Pictures, for once in my life, are a the bottom of my priority list.

(I am pretty sure I was stolen and replaced with an exact replica. A pretty decently laid replica. Just sayin’.)

Anyhoo, I think I’ll ease into some highlights of the past few weeks with these lovely shots of my pretend celebrity girlfriend, who I got to spend a ragin’ day with a few weeks ago. Remember how the Dragonboat races came to Vancouver a few weeks back? Yeah, we spent the whole day downtown, crutches be damned.

I’m cute. I’m almost a teen. I’m obnoxious.

We wandered around, ate some corn on the cob, watched a few races, had our picture taken with pop culture icons.

No, it’s not lost and no, we can’t keep it.

We got facepaints, because facepaints are the coolest.

If that isn’t the definitive picture of my sons, I don’t know what is.

And right there next to the facepaint tent, lo and behold, one of the Dragonboat teams. But not just any old team.

They were the only American team to make the top 8.

Recognize anyone? Look closely. Oh, it also helps if you occasionally read this guy’s blog. Right there, 2nd row, 3rd in from the right, that would be Auntie Mei. As in, Fury’s Auntie Mei, of BusyDad fame. Who is awesome. We stalked her up propa, shook hands, nibbled on my adorable baby, and then let her get back to racing.

Then we let the 2 little ones play on the playground, while 1of3 refined his mad Emo Teenager skilz.

I love this picture. Yes, I delight in my children’s misery.

We hung out until that poor boy’s foot couldn’t take it anymore, and then headed home. Before we did, we thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the amazing culinary delights from around the world that Vancouver is so infamous for offering.

Discriminating tastes, that’s us.

And then we hoped on the SkyTrain and headed home, where my daughter who had been a perfect f’ing angel al day decided that right then was a fine time to exfoliate her sun-drentched skin with Blue Rasberry Bonnie Bell lipgloss. I didn’t even know she was doing it until I noticed a woman a few seats down staring at her, gaging a little.

It was way more horrifying than it looks.

Then i was forced to take the obligatory self-portrait, since Mr Rude Cactus is always telling me I’m not narcissistic enough, so here is it, brother.

This really terrible Bud’s for you.

Are you still here? Yeah, I barely am, too. Anyway, next day, downtown, coffeeshop, me and Auntie Mei and 3of3. We met, we wooed, we made exchange of cheesy camera phone pictures.

And that was it. We said goodbye, she hopped on a plane home, and I am happy to have made a new friend. We had a great time, for sure. Which was good, because right after this, Hell Week Little League Championship Week started.

But that’s a whole other story….

See the other Thursday Thirteen’s here.