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.

What is the best website I have never heard of? Please, share in the comments.

Also? Hell yeah. (Found and followed at Mommy’s Martini)

Who is Your Ideal TV Boyfriend?

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See, this year I just so happened to get a little nod.

I never, ever win anything. Once, I won $100 on scratch tickets and I had a heart attack and died. Other than that, nada. Never first place in the three-legged-race, No Spelling Bee victories, not one heart of one fair maiden, nothing. And I won’t win those two up there, either. But the one I could win, the one I have IN THE BAG, is the Hottest Mommy Blogger. They invented that category FOR ME. I’m easy like Sunday morning.

And heck, that Blogitzer one wouldn’t suck, either.

And so, the first people to go over to Blogger’s Choice and nominate me for ones of those damn categories already will receive one totally naked picture of me in their inbox. Prizes for subsequent votes will be happily negotiated.

Why yes, I have thought this through. Why do you ask?

Now that it’s all over, and I actually pulled it off, I feel like it’s safe to tell you that I signed up for this craziness in November:This is actually my 46th post in December, and I bet my drunk ass will have one more coming tonight. My drunk head. If I manage to get my ass drunk, I think I’ll have a bit of soul-searching to do.

And now that I have gone since October 28th with at least one post a day (it’s quantity, not so much quality, they’re going for) I can also tell you that I signed up for even more fabulous fun.As much as I’d love to say all 365 glorious, witty, and mildly questionable posts will show up here, I imagine that at some point in the near future I will get a job have a torrid love affair join a playgroup take up drinking get a freaking life already. My hope is to post one picture every day of my sweet, lovely, clean, pleasant children* on My Own Private Idaho.

I hope that explains why you have been forced to listen to such an astonishing amount of pure dribble from me, or at least warns you to delete me from your readers before tomorrow, when I’m going to hit it. Hard.

*If you’re buying that, I have some beach-front property in Denver I’m looking to unload, too.

You know what is the best bestest ever? When you meet a girl out for a playdate that you’ve never met before and you aren’t even sure you want to go because you have horrid social issues that make you an uber dork in public settings but you force yourself to go anyway and the girl turns out to be cooler than cool and brutally hot and her kids are seriously seriously SERIOUSLY cute and you don’t even need to get coffee to mask awkward pauses or anything because their aren’t any and the WMD was totally (almost) well behaved and you think that maybe you might just have made your first real life friend in the foreign country you call home and as you’re heading home feeling very good about your brave self indeed but just a little worried that you talked too much or maybe interrupted somewhere while totally second-guessing your choice to not blowdry your hair so that you’d be on time and you glimpse in the mirror and realize that you have a hugemungous zit on your chin?

Yeah, I like that, too.