Sorry about that...

So, yesterday I attempted to send a truckload of photos to my computer and the internet crashed like a train without brakes.

Today, I have endeavored to save the pictures until I'm home and have some real internet, but I thought I could share a few moments from the vacation thus far:

*  The kids went on the drysuit dive at the aquarium and had a very good time! They were also really tired at the end and we came back to the hotel room a little early. Don't know what to tell you about that-- they were tuckered!

*  Cute things about the dive-- ZoomBoy's feet. Seriously, they were so big they slowed everything down. Squish's hair-- it was a bright red rope leading us to her.  Like I said, cute.

*  Chicken has had a very good time with her siblings. Today, as Mate and I were getting out of the car to go check out an overlook we heard her tell her brother and sister, "You were awful, awful people as small children. You have no idea."

* We were walking down Cannery Row today at the end of our stay, when the kids ran into an arcade. "I'm noping out of this," I said, and Chicken and I went and got cookies while I told her about the last time they'd been to one of those places and Squish had won 500 tickets.

"So your dad texts me about wtf are you, and Squish is just watching mounds of mounds of tickets print out. And then they had to buy their prize, and they chose the classic Disney Channel ploy of combining their tickets for one big prize, and of course that ended in bloodshed, pain, and recriminations that continue on to this day."

She laughed.

We went to join the kids and ZoomBoy walked by the exact same game from Santa Cruz. "Look! This is the same game Squish won before she betrayed me with a knife in the back."

And then Chicken really laughed.

*  Of course, at some point I had to pee. I ended up in a Starbucks line, in front of their one working bathroom, while a bunch of us stared yearningly at the bathroom that was out of order.  Three young people, two girls and a young man were in line behind me.

"I can't wait," said one of the girls.

"Please let me go first!" begged the boy.

"No!" said the other girl. "I'm a very fast pee-er, you told me that once. You said I was a freak of nature."

"You'd better be!" the young man practically wept.

"Hey!" the first girl said. "I just have to pee. I'm not laying a deuce. And--" She ripped off the sign.  "It's not like I saw a sign or--" she pushed at the trash can in front of the door, "anything that said this bathroom wouldn't work!"  And then she disappeared, leaving her two friends doing the pee pee dance behind me.

"Here," I said, putting away my phone.  "I can go really fast. See? Old-lady stretch jeans. I'll blow your mind, I swear."  The next person left the bathroom and I took my turn, coming out while drying my hands.  "There you go!" I said brightly.

The girl "eeped" and disappeared into the bathroom, while her young male friend said, "Oh my God, that was amazing. I'm so impressed."

"Four kids," I said calmly. "Do you think I don't know how to put a rush on it?"

*  Mate is once again impressed with the aquarium. We saw the Vive Baja exhibit, and they had fighting garden eels and a couple of very fat and friendly lizards who apparently loved us enough to stalk Squish from one end of the enclosure to another.

So there you go-- we get home tomorrow and I promise some pictures then!