1st leg of the journey: California

Since we are flying out of San Francisco, and since every person I know is from Danville, I thought it would be fun to come a few days early and spend some time with the friends. On Wednesday night at 9 pm, Brooke Lensch came over to say goodbye and after realizing I had not put any items into a suitcase yet, she offered her assistance. She shoved everything that I had laying out into one of my suitcases and I told her I would pack the other bag in the morning before going to the airport (for my 8 o'clock flight...awesome logic). 5 am came pretty quickly....and the packing was done poorly. My mom takes me to the airport. My first bag is obviously overweight. The lady express checking us in asks us how many bags we have. Mom says two and pays the fee. Mom says "The one bag is probably overweight by a lot". I give Mom a dirty look. Mom realizes what she has done. The lady was not going to weigh our bags. She does because Mom told her to. The bag is 68 pounds. 18 pounds over. 125 dollar fee. Somehow Mom recovers by telling her I'm leaving the country and we don't have to pay. Mom cries when saying goodbye. I laugh at her. She whispers in my ear "be safe". I laugh harder. She cries more. I proceed through security. I arrived in Danville that afternoon and spend some time with my Aunt Bev who picked me up from the airport and also lives in D-ville. Cortney and Diana drove up from SoCal (southern California for all of those who don't know the west coast lingo). So we go out and hit the local bars (think Al & Gerry's...but a little classier). An old man started grinding on me.....and I let him. Time to go home. The next day, Bev and I went shopping while the girls went to Santa Cruz to the board walk. Diana got her face painted: one side was blue and sparkly and the other side had a single blue tear drop. She left it painted the entire day so I could see it that night when I saw her. I fell to the floor laughing....not just because she looked outrageous, but because she looked that way all day. Our cat from school, Remy, who lives with Brigid now weighs 15 pounds. He's not even a year old. Tonight we're having a bon voyage bbq. This is supposed to be a small shin-dig (like 10-15 people). Her dad came home this morning from grocery shopping with a full trunk of food. I'm probably going to gain a few lbs tonight. But this isn't unusual for Mr. Lambert. Once he took us out to dinner at PF Changs in Colorado and "snuck away to the bathroom".....he actually ordered one of everything from the desert menu. We're always well fed when he's around. Tomorrow night is the big flight.....14 hours to Aussie. Today was spent repacking my bag. Actually it was spent having Diana repack my bags. Now they are both underweight and I do not have to pay the 200 dollar fee for overweight bags on international flights. I'm good to go. Except the fact that we don't have a place to live or jobs yet. Oh well....that's future Mallory's problem. I'll let that chick deal with it.