Peaches Winner And Why I Didn't Post This Before Now

I accidentally hit publish on this post earlier, way before I was finished with it, so disregard the earlier version in your blog reader. Oopsies!

First the winner of the peaches! So I went to Random.org to pick a winner of the quart of peaches, BUT since I once again couldn't figure out how to save the little box that shows the result, you'll have to take my word for it. And after I explain it, you'll know I'm telling the truth. I had 16 comments on last week's post and the random number generator chose 7. Now, quick open the comments window from last week's post and look who #7 is. Ali's mom. I'm Ali. My mom won. Sorry, Mom, but you're disqualified. I know it must have taken you the better part of an evening to figure out how to leave a comment on my blog, and bravo for that, but I can't let you win. Or at least you can't be the ONLY winner. (You can pick up a jar of peaches on your next visit.) So, I did it again and this time #5, True Blue Texan was the winner. Congrats, True Blue! I'm hoping to mail the peaches out to you this week.

Now on to the excuse of why I didn't get to this yesterday and why I'm still so incredibly tired today yet.
A big, flat, treeless excuse called North Dakota. As soon as the bus picked up the girls for school Friday morning, my brothers and I climbed into the car and started the 10 hour drive to visit our grandparents in Grand Forks, North Dakota. My grandparents are pretty much the only people I will sit in the car that long for... especially with these two chuckle-heads as company.


The drive was gorgeous but the stupid temperature display kept taunting us the whole way reading at or above 80 degrees for most of the day while we were stuck inside the car. And apparently farting in the car and refusing to open a window while your sister is gagging in the seat next to you never gets old. That's alright, I made my other brother take pictures of our younger brother while he was sleeping, with the sole intention of putting them on the Internet. I tried to get him to bust out a sharpie and draw on younger bro, or stick something in his mouth, but he wouldn't do it, predicting it would make the weekend even more miserable for the rest of us since younger brother is a bit cranky to begin with.

More driving...And junk food...Finally around 7pm Friday evening, just as the sun was starting to set, we arrived in GF. Not a moment too soon either. Our bodies were so sore from sitting so long that when we finally opened the car doors and got out, it took a lot of stretching and mumbling, 'holy fuck, my ass hurts' in order to stand upright.

We checked into our hotel (The only room available in the whole Grand Forks area. Not until I went online last week to book a room, did any of us realize that we were going on the same weekend as the University of North Dakota's homecoming, and a Brad Paisley concert. We actually couldn't even get a room anywhere for Saturday night.) and look what was in my room! The boys got a 2 bed room but since the hotel was so booked up, they upgraded me to a whirlpool suite. Too bad I didn't have time to use the giant tub. I did however, take advantage of the large bathroom mirror and took a self portrait, after I showered off 660 miles of road trip funk and ran a curling iron through my hair. I had big plans to spend every moment in my very own hotel room watching trashy cable reality shows, but as soon as I located TLC and MTV on my TV, the boys invaded my room with pizza and beer to watch a baseball game in my big room. After dinner, younger bro and I went out for a few drinks with our cousin and some of his friends. Big bro passed the hell out fell asleep on the sofa in my room so we let him sleep and went out for the evening. We had a good time and the weather was perfect for a drunken night out in a college town. Don't freak out, Mom. We took a cab home.

The next morning I woke up early to indulge in a Teen Mom marathon on MTV while I ate my complimentary hotel breakfast of frosted flakes and strong coffee. I had a raging headache so I didn't feel like listening to the whirlpool tub fill for an hour, otherwise I would have climbed in. I considered it the night before but changed my mind when I thought about the possible news headline:

Intoxicated Wisconsin woman drowns in Grand Forks hotel room. Details on page 8A.

After we checked out of the hotel, we went to see our grandparents.
After being hospitalized twice and spending 3 weeks in a nursing home this summer, Grandpa Conrad is doing great, especially for a guy who turns 93 next month! My brothers and I decided that since he doesn't have any of his musical instruments in North Dakota and probably won't get much of their stuff from their Arizona home until next summer (they recently moved back to ND to be closer to family), we wanted to get him a new keyboard to keep him busy. Off to Target...
After some assembly... Grandpa was back in business and playing songs for us.
We spent the rest of the afternoon outside enjoying the beautiful fall weather.
The boys played hackey sack (sp?) in the front yard...I took off my shoes...
And Grandpa drank a beer.
After we said a tearful goodbye to my grandparents, we headed out across the border into Minnesota (since there were no hotels available) to stay the night at my brother-in-law's house. Uncle B and his girlfriend were out of town for the weekend anyway, so we had the whole place to ourselves. The boys had never been and had a good old time checking out all of Uncle B's junk toys.Later that evening, younger Bro solidified his status (once again) as a crabby son of a bitch. I'm not going to elaborate too much but I will say that he wanted to watch some (stupid) baseball game and didn't feel like asking the guy behind the bar at the restaurant I chose to change the channel. I was so hungry and confused at the whole situation at that point that if our older brother hadn't been along, I may have strangled younger bro. We then found a bar that was airing the game and they actually had a decent menu beyond typical bar food. I'm still a little pissed though that he insisted on being such a big baby. No wonder he's still single!

The next morning we got up and headed for home. Another long day of driving...
It's good to finally be home, but visiting our grandparents was well worth the trip. We may even do it again...