I'm afraid of heights, and an award!

You know, I think I may have mentioned that before. In fact, I'm quite sure I did here. So can someone tell me why I purposely put myself in a situation where I feel like I'm going to pass out? Or fall down off the side of the mountain?

Yesterday we went to Cerro San Cristobal. And you can ride cable cars up to the top to see the statue. Well, like I said earlier, I am scared of high places. I am. I don't know how or why this fear developed, it just did. Maybe I need to see a hyponotist or something. I don't know. But I did agree to go on this little excursion, and I know my dh called me out on it while in the cable car.

He could see my face wrought with discomfort. He could also see my eyes as they didn't really stray too far from my son's face, who was sitting directly in front of me. You see, I'm OK sitting there. As long as I don't look down, I'm fine. I felt fine. Mostly. I was just acutely aware of our cable car dangling back and forth from a thin cable, I was thinking of what it might feel like to crash down to the earth. And I wondered how long it would take for paramedics to respond. For them to be called in the first place, and then drive through town, and up the side of the mountain . How long until they found our car amongst the trees. I wondered how bad we would be hurt. I felt fairly sure that we would all survive, but I still worried that we might fall.

Yes. I know. I'm a bit off kilter. But hey. It's my irrational fear we are dealing with. And you see, by me even going, I am and was dealing with it. I wasn't letting the whole fear thing, rule me. So we went. It's not to say that I didn't have a few irrational thoughts in my head. I was even thankful that we were enclosed in the tomb of hot sticky air. For certainly I would have had a whole new set of fears about falling out of the seat and over the railing somehow.

So like I was saying, dh called me out. He could see that I was not at my 100% comfort level. He said, "I know why you came here today." And I was all like, "Oh? You do, do you..." And then he said, "You don't even like this, you just did it so that you can take pictures for your blog." Busted. Well. I have no arguments there. I did it for my readers. (And for my mom.) As I'm certain she would appreciate the pictures.

So here are a few from yesterday. The first one is me, deceivingly happy and unafraid. (And Alexa is holding my specs. So that I may appear to look cooler without them on.)

Look how stinkin' high we were! I'm so proud of me. I did it! I managed the whole trip unscathed.

And last but not least, I received this award the other day from Patrice over at Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.

Thank you, thank you! Patrice you made my day! :) And along with it, I am to name 6 things that make me happy, and then pass it along. Here are those things:

1. My kids. (most of the time. )

2. Chocolate. (all of the time.)

3. watching Grey's Anatomy, uniterrupted.

4. finding a good sale.

5. Great fitting jeans.

6. The day that I fly back to the United States. (It will make me overwhelmingly, like I have yet to experience, happy.)

And I am going to share this super award with my friend Stephanie of Serenity Now! Serenity Now! I have enjoyed reading her blog very much. You see, she has a teenage daughter. And when I read it, I can see what life might be like to have a teenager in the house. (yikes!) Although I am nowhere near ready to even think about those kinds of things, I enjoy her stories. Hop on over and take a peek. She's super nice!

The drive that wasn't meant to be.

{Although posted on Sunday at just after midnight, the events in this post took place on Saturday}

This morning when we woke up, we pretty much were decided that we were going to be taking the car for a spin. We have been without transportation for quite some time. So having just received the plates to the car, we were given a gift. Our freedom to explore this new city (that we have been living in for 4 months and 3 days). But still, a gift.

On our first trip out, before ever leaving the apartment, I had a thought. Or maybe it was a conversation, in my head. So it went something like this, "Self? Yeah... kinda busy right now, what? I know you are cleaning a poopy child who did not use the toilet, and I can see that you were interrupted from trying to get her to sit on the potty because Eddie decided to pour his orange juice on the table on purpose... what are you getting at? I just wanted to say that, when you leave today, why don't you throw an extra set of clothes in the car for Eddie. You know, in case he poops or throws up or something. Huh? Oh OK. But Eddie hasn't really done anything like that in a while. I'm just sayin'. OK. Yeah. Sure."

So we left to take our drive. I forgot the clothes for Eddie. Not to mention that when we turned out onto a main drive, I realized that I had forgotten my camera as well. So we made our leisurely drive a bit shorter than it would have been, because we wanted to get some pictures. We turned back and went to the grocery store to get some food. After the store, we headed home to unload and make some lunch. We hung out here for a while and let the kids play. But once again, we were just itching to drive around. Actually, dh was itching, I was just wanting to get some pictures to share on my blog.

We set out again. Alexa fell asleep in the car, and that was just nice. It was peaceful. Quiet even. Wait a minute. That should have been a warning. Even with one child passed out sleeping, there was sure to be noise coming out of the other one. That still did not make an impression. I was too busy snapping pictures to really pay any attention to the subtlety of that little clue.

In fact, before we ever made it to our destination, we only heard one telltale sign that something was wrong. And it was my son's signature sound he makes right before he vomits. Oh yes. If you have a child who does this, then you know what I'm talking about. You get like 10-15 seconds notice, tops, before it happens. And then my little guy let it go. I tell my dh, "pull over!" and then, "find a McDonald's", like I'm in the freakin' United States. I was just thinking in the moment. I looked at my dh, and he looked at me. Oh. I'm not in the United States. There are no McDonald's "free-standing" restaurants here. Not in the sense that I was looking for, and there wasn't anything of the equivalent either. Ugh!!!! I only had two diapers and not a single stitch of clothing. I did not listen to me. I didn't put a change of clothes in the car like I thought of before, I just didn't. And now I had this pukey kid sitting in the backseat stinking up the car. UGH!! So we basically made a U-turn and headed straight for home. We were in a really old part of town, with terribly old buildings and lots of old bums and a mountain with really rickety old houses sitting on top of each other. There wasn't one single clear or safe place I would even feel comfortable about pulling over to try to clean my son off. Besides, we had nothing anyway to clean him up with. We drove home with the windows down.

Oh and one more funny thing that my child has said. Once we arrived home, Eddie looked down into his lap. He sighed a big hearty sigh. And then he said, "Oh man. How did I throw up on myself?"

Even though our trip was just messed up completely, I did manage to snap a few shots during our drive through the city.

Going into the tunnel. I have no idea how long it is, but it seems to go on forever.

Cerro San Cristobal. You can read a little about it here.

Not a really good picture, but these are the houses that are on the side of the hill. Some of them appear to be stacked on top of one another.

The United States Embassy. It's the short rounded building.