Last Weekend: The Great, The BAD and The Ugly

I wish so much I had pictures to document the first part of our weekend.

We had a wonderful day on Friday. We got to spend the whole afternoon and whole night with Kim, Allie, Luke and Kate. Friday morning, Kim called to see if we could help surprise Allie (one of Sarah's bestest friends) for her birthday. Unfortunately, her plan with the cousins fell through when they got sick. Kim's plans were hanging in the balance. She needed help, she needed some party animals to come surprise Allie. Well, we like to do service for others, so we decided to help out! (o: Wasn't that nice of us?

It worked out perfect because we had no plans and I wanted to do something fun with the girls. Bingo! Win-win situation. The girls were so excited. We hid at Kim's house and surprised Allie when she came home from school. Her reaction was so cute it made me tear up. She got a huge grin and hugged Sarah so tight for the longest time. Sarah was laughing and thought it was so funny how long Allie was hugging her. The reason why I got a little teary is because these two girls are such good friends and we recently found out that Kim and her family are moving to Texas. )o: Sarah and Allie are really sad about it and I am REALLY sad about it too. Kim is one of my most bestest friends. Anyway, let's get back to the fun and happy part...

After Allie got over the shock of her surprise she got another surprise - we were all going swimming together! Wahoo! We had such a blast!! Sarah and Allie were little fish and went off on their own most of the time - by the end they were doing somersaults and all kinds of tricks in the water. It reminded me of me and my cousin Megan when we were little - practicing our synchronized swimming routines for the Olympics. (o:

Natalie was very nervous at first - we haven't gone swimming for a while. By the time we left, not only did she go down the waterslide with me (something she has been scared of for a long time) but then she went down about a hundred times with Luke by herself! I was so excited! Those two just went up and down and up and down for about a half hour straight. Kim and I each got a couple turns too - we couldn't let the kids have all the fun. And Angela, even went down - another big triumph. She laughed nervously the whole way down and had a huge grin when we hit the water. She exclaimed, "I didn't cry! I laughing!" I immediately asked, "Do you want to go again?" I got a VERY curt, "NO!"

By the time we were done, we were all wrinkly and waterlogged. But the party STILL wasn't over. It was pizza time! We had a fabulous pizza and movie party at Kim's house until about midnight! The food was awesome (especially Kim's cream puffs - to die for!!), the movie was great (Bedtime Stories - I was very pleasantly surprised - Adam Sandler cracks me up.), but most of all the company was soooo great. I could hang out with Kim all day and all night. Oh wait, I guess I did. What a fun day! The only two sad things about the day were that 1. I left my memory card home and didn't get any pictures and 2. Bill* and Kim's husband both had a horrible day at work. We felt very bad for our poor slaving husbands while we had all the fun.

So that portion was the GREAT part of our weekend. The bad part has to do with that last sentence - the horrible day at work. Actually, by the time Bill* got home from work it was the next day around 11:00 a.m. If my calculations are correct, that is 28 hours straight at work. Oh and did I mention that he was only coming home for a two hour break? That's right. Oh and did I also mention that during his two hour break, Bill* mowed the lawn and then discovered that some little creature ripped off the metal screen over one of our crawlspace vents so he spent the next half hour crawling around in the dirty and hot crawl space to see if we had a raccoon nest down there? Luckily, he didn't find anything and we sealed off the opening with some bricks. But isn't that a great way to spend a break after working 28 hours in a row? After all that fun, Bill* headed back to work for 4 more hours. Poor guy. (He also got to go in Sunday for 6 hours. Yippee. The fun never ends!)

While he was gone, I decided to take on the yard by myself. It was our annual neighborhood barkdust weekend. The HOA orders several truckloads of barkdust for everyone to use in the front yards. Unfortunately, the closest pile to our house was gone - so I had to go on a block and a half trek with the kids back and forth 7 times! My cute neighbor came up with a creative way to transport the barkdust that was much easier than a wheelbarrow. I wish I got a picture of it. He had a cart that I just had to push with two humongous buckets/bins on top. I was so grateful he let me use it.

I worked my butt off (well, it's still there, but I burned a lot of calories off of it) - the entire time Bill* was gone. I wanted to surprise him. I weeded, pruned, planted a couple new bushes, pulled out bulbs of some flowers I HATE and laid out barkdust everywhere in the front yard. I wish I got a before picture, but the pics below show the after. I was sooo exhausted, thirsty, hungry, sore and a little sunburned by the time I was done. The girls were so good almost the whole time and Sarah helped me a lot. We were very excited to see Bill* come home and all got a Slurpee and a well deserved dinner at Pasta Pronto.

We ended the evening with a roller blade around the neighborhood. Our evening was so nice, it almost made up for all the hard work during the day. Our weekend was pretty extreme - we worked hard and played hard.

Our weather last weekend was GLORIOUS!! I can't wait for summer! Actually, if it could just stay exactly as it is now that would be fantastic - not too hot, not too cold.

We get comments from everyone on our beautiful Wisteria in the entryway. It is beautiful this time of year and smells sooo good. It makes me happy.


Our Rhodies are in full bloom and looking beautiful.


Do you like my shaping? Isn't it lovely. (o: And notice the beautiful barkdust.

Our yard AFTER my loooong day of yardwork.