Last September, the emails flew fast and furious among the various 7 Dayers in Southern California. We tried our best to find a day and a place when we could all meet up and take one big group self-portrait during the week of 7 Days. We thought we had it all figured out and were excited to meet up.

Then one person at a time emailed the news that something had come up—friends coming into town unexpectedly, plans moved to a new day, a last-minute birthday party invitation—and they wouldn’t be able to make it. We cancelled the whole SoCal 7 Days meet-up for that week. We didn’t even attempt it in December, since 7 Days was the week of Christmas. We tried again this time, but it was just a busy week for most people.

In the end, Brenda and Heather and I decided to make our own plans. We happened to be passing through the Sticks today, so we planned to meet up at Brenda’s parents’ house for lunch and then go to see the Cabazon dinosaurs and take our self-portraits with them! My grandma and mom and Aunt Julie all used to work at the Wheel Inn, the truck stop where the dinos are. My mom and Julie knew Claude Bell, and remember when he built the dinos. I have been going there all my life, to see the dinos and eat the peanut butter pie at the Wheel Inn. When we saw Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure my mom and brother and I were all very excited when we recognized the dinosaurs and the Wheel Inn (the place where Large Marge drops Pee-Wee off).

Yet again, our plans sort of fell through. We ended up staying home this morning to take Lily to the vet. We were pretty sure she was okay, but she’s peed outside her litterbox a couple of times recently and wanted to make sure she didn’t have an infection or worse. We didn’t want to come home to a sick cat and ruined carpets. (The vet looked her over, did a blood test, and pronounced Lily quite healthy. The peeing-outside-the-litterbox is apparently a behavioral issue.)

By the time we left our house and headed to the Sticks, it was past lunchtime. We made it in time for dinner but ended up deciding that it wasn’t worth getting stuck in rush-hour traffic just to go see the dinos. We saved that for another day, and just hung out and drank coffee and the grown-ups chatted while the kids played.

We managed to have fun, despite the change in plans. And as a bonus, Brenda’s dad and brother were there! They’re both truck drivers and are rarely at home during the week, but since their truck was having some repairs done they happened to be at home. It was really nice to see Tom again, and to meet Shawn for the first time! Though I’ve heard so much about him from the rest of his family for so long, I felt like I already knew him.

Since Annalie and Superchic are both doing 7 Days this week, they took their self-portrait together. I admit I helped a bit on this one, as they thought doing a photo together was a great idea but they were too busy playing to actually bother doing it. So we compromised. They didn’t have to leave the cardboard box, they just told me where to stand and where to point the camera. Annalie pushed the timer button and Superchic pushed the shutter. I think the resulting photo is great, mainly thanks to some lovely natural light.

We had fun, but are sorry the rest of the SoCal 7 Dayers missed out! We’ll try again this summer.