Dude, your neighbors have a monkey!

The weekend started off fun traveling up to the Bay Area to stay at Nikki's house. We got on the road sooner than we thought and made our way up through the traffic. Instead of the typical pizza pie on the dashboard, we opted for healthier homemade sandos. Cousin Coleson was still awake and the dynamic duo were happy to see each other. Running around, diving under sofa pillows, playing on the piano...until about 9pm. The two boys are at a great age and minus the occasional Gavin bully pushing Coleson factor, they have a blast.

We woke up on Saturday and made our way downtown to the Farmers market. Gotta love the Intense Dark Mocha coffee drink (decaf for me) on a Saturday afternoon. Nik and I dressed up our "ghett-toes" at Bollinger, this awesome no plastic, no "you pick colla", matching furniture, awesome chairs and hot towel leg wrap" nail salon. It was a treat. The boys played around downtown and hit a park. They had fun later in the day in the pool. Nik and I had things going on in the afternoon but when we came home we had another round of pool time. We ended the day with a delicious pizza pie, some wine that I picked up that afternoon, and we chilled.....until..........

3:30am.... I wake up to a noise.... It was Gavin........ wait...no it stopped...... maybe it is just Steve snoring weird.......no... wasn't that. It sounded like a teradactyl.... this loud schreeching down with repetitive, annoying, tone. It stopped... there it was again. Was it a possum outside? or a bird in the palm tree. I wake up Steve.... what the heck is that? I open the window...eeeeeeh, eeeeeeeeh, eeeeeeeh. again and again and again. There is no way I can sleep with that noise. I yell out the window. "Shut up". Still sounding off again. I go to the slider, open the door and look for something. Nothing but dark. What the heck is this freakin noise. I want to sleep!!! We look for a flashlight. Steve says "I will go try to find it". After about 5 minutes trying to find a flashlight with batteries, we go to my car and get my trusty Maglite my dad gave me a million years ago to fight off intruders who may try to get me while I am in my car. We figure out the sound is coming from next door. Steve gets out the ladder and climbs up... He peeks over the fence and sees a cage. "It's a monkey!". "A MONKEY??? I SAID. What the hell are the neighbors doing with a freakin monkey?". "Dude, shut that thing up!" "How can they not hear that stupid thing". Steve says, "there are two little hands coming out of the cage".

Its past 4am and we are officially awake and the annoying noise is still going strong. I search for a fan to drown out the sound. I find one. Yeah. Now I remember...Gavin might hear it. So I go upstairs and close his window. Of course he wakes up and now I have to lay on his bed for 10minutes until he falls back to sleep.

Around 4:30, I crawl back into bed and Steve has the tv going.. he can't sleep. Ugh. Dude, all I want to do is sleep. I probably fell back to sleep around 5am and at 5:45 I hear Gavin on the stair landing... crying b/c he doesn't know where we are. Ahhhh, what a lovely Sunday morning.

I walk out of my room and tell Nik who is on the sofa.. "Dude, your neighbors have a monkey!" She says "WHAT?!!". "I am calling animal control. What would they do with a monkey. I knoew the neighbors were a bit odd, but why would they have a monkey?". She goes upstairs to tell peek through the bathroom window so we can see next door into the neighbors yard. Gavin and Coleson follows saying "let's see the monkey". As we peer through the window we see......... A RACOON! The neighbors put out a trap but the racoons where eating their garden. UGGGGH. Dude, it was such a better story with the monkey!

With the doctor's orders of less caffeine, I don't get a jolt of my morning coffee so I slowly get up and we get ready to go to the Sunol train. Gavin and Coleson ate their waffles and sang at the table. They did the full pantomime of Blue Clues..."sit in our thinking chairs and think, think, think....". Guess you had to be there.

We made it to the train station on time. We all piled into the old fashion train and make our way to Fremont. The old school conductors in their hats and fun clothes come through asking for our tickets. Coleson hung out and played with toys and ate, while Gavin ran from car to car. Oh joy. Sleepiness and motion sickness are in full force. FUN! We drive back to Nikki's and Gavin is passed out so we pack the car and make our way back to SLO.

We ended the weekend with some yummy sushi and Gavin's first showing of the TOY story. Good times, good times.