Home Alone. Sort of.

Can I really be "home alone" when it's not my home? Regardless of whose home I'm actually in, I'm alone. Well, not quite. Malia's asleep and my mom's puttering around in the house. Given the past week, that's as close to being alone as I'm going to get.

Truong decided to take the big kids bowling after dinner. Since Kael woke up late from his nap (5:30pm and we had to wake him up so he was a grouchy bear for dinner) I told Truong he had to take Kael with him. My sister was taking her kids home (they had been here since Christmas Eve) so what was Kael going to do by himself with me? So the bowling party was Truong, Kael and the big kids (4 of them). Then Jarod and Amelie (the little kids) heard that Kael was going bowling and wanted to go too. They asked my sister and was told NO, that they were going home after dinner. After 5 minutes of begging, it was still an unequivocal N-O. I went to get Malia ready for bed and when we made the good night rounds, I heard loud cheering from the little kids. Turns out after getting a NO from Mom, they went to work on Dad. And since Dad loves bowling, he said YES. Smart kids. Mind you, it's after 7:00pm and that meant they wouldn't get home until 9:30pm.

I sort of smirked at my sister and said: "I hear you guys are going bowling...." She gave me a dirty look and responded with a "Yes, and we're staying another night too because of you! You planned it all! You used bowling to make us stay another night!"

I looked at her like she was crazy (she was, by the way). I guess she decided that by going bowling, it would too late to head back home to Fremont (a mere 20 mintues away so I don't know what she's talking about) so that meant they had to unpack the car that they just packed up. She claimed that I conspired against her to keep her kids at my parents' house to play with my kids and to ensure that they would come to breakfast with us before we leave tomorrow morning. She's nuts, I'm telling you.

In the end, the bowling group was: Truong and Kael, the Big Kids (Jackie, Sean, Daryl, Mitch), my sister's family (2 adults and 3 kids) and my other sister. A total of 12 people. When they left, the house was as quiet as a tomb. It was just Malia and my Dad who were asleep, and me and my mom. I helped my mom clean the house and discovered a whole stash of Ziplock bags. Why was I excited about that, you ask? BOX TOPS! My mother had the motherlode of Box Tops. I searched around for a xacto knife and started carving them out. All 25 coupons. She had 25 boxes of various sized Ziplock bags in the kitchen. Don't ask me why she had so many. Maybe they were on sale. I don't know. Who cares?? That's 25 Tops!

Anyway, I told my mom in the future, to please cut these out for me and keep them until I come back. Do not under any circumstances let my sister find out about them and do NOT let her take them! (She's also collecting Box Tops for her son's school and wouldn't let me have any from her house so I'm a little peeved.) My mom asked about them and I told her we get money for the school, blah blah blah. The whole song and dance. She was impressed and asked how much was I getting from her now (it looked like a nice little stash). I said you had TWENTY-FIVE tops! That's.... $2.50.

The look on her face was comical. All that work for just $2.50, and I wanted her to join my side instead of my sister's. Clearly she thought I was crazy.

But hey! I didn't get to go bowling so I had to have something going on for me, right?