Memorial Day Weekend Recap

My bad...yeesh, no post since Friday?! Horrifying.
How about a recap, people.

Friday we headed to NJ to see C's family. Which is always a good time. O bounced off the walls at the promise of Oreos, like usual, and we all filled our bellies with a big ol' meal made by my mother-in-law...which is always a great way to begin a weekend.

(Have I mentioned before how positively in love I am with "starting the weekend" on Friday? Meaning...get out of the house before Saturday morning. It gives you like a whole day. I know, it's not brain surgery...but plan for it and it does feel like you have a bit of a shorter week. I swear. It's all strategy.)

Saturday is going to be a fuzzy recollection of events since (and no, what I have to say next actually has nothing to do with wine, thank you very much) I woke up with a raging sinus headache which quickly spiraled into day-long nausea. Couldn't eat a thing. Didn't get sick...it stuck to the lower digestive system if you get the idea...but miserable. And exhausted. Maybe I ate something on Friday before we went.

Anyhow, we all went to see C's sister, who we haven't seen in a while and has been sick recently. So it was killing us we hadn't seen her, particularly C. M has Rett Syndrome. (This link is to Wikipedia, but there are a ton of other resources out there about it, though it is not an overly well-known condition. I will do a post on Rett's in the near future. Suffice it to say, it is nothing I ever would wish on anyone or their family.)

Regardless of my state, I was really happy that we got to see her, hug her, and most importantly...she got to meet G! First time. And O was so much bigger than last time.

I had to lay down in the car by the end of the visit (a pretty bad sign, no?) and crashed in bed for about three hours once we got home. Whew, that sucked. Ate a half a piece of toast before bed, but I could tell it would pass by morning. And it did. A-men.

Right now I'd like to take this moment to give my husband a big rockstar shout-out for being a great dad and totally pulling it off while I was useless and sick. Love you, honey. Everyone should have a husband like him. Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

Sunday. Well, we sure made up for lost time. We had fresh blueberry pancakes in the morning at the in-laws' house (delicious!) and got on our way home pretty early. We had to take O to one of his girlfriends' birthday parties...a Mad Hatter party. This was a special girlfriend, though...one of our precious neighbors.

(Have I bragged about my neighborhood yet? How we have the best block on THE PLANET? Seriously. Well, you'll hear more about it soon.) O went for the most pimp-tastic hat offered, of course, but ultimately wound up in a black fedora that reminded us all of Sinatra. Note the shades. They are his "Ironman" sunglasses. He uses them for any adventure he deems necessary.

Two things to say about that. First of all, he has not seen Ironman, nor will he until he's much, much older. Secondly, they're actually infant sunglasses he recently dug out of a toy bin. Go figure.

Anyhow, the party was smashing--literally, they had a pinata, ha ha--and so cute. It was so lovely to go to a simple and sweet backyard party, the weather was awesome, the kids were all so good.... We all really enjoyed ourselves. The birthday girl's mom (and sisters!) were great hostesses.

Then we were off to our friends' place in Scaahsdale (yep, go with the phonetic pronunciation for effect...though we love them because they are so not Scaahsdale yet live so close!) for a BBQ, burgers and corn and all sorts of yum. And wine. Kids all got to play together, babies were good, lots of conversation...a really nice night.

Woke up Monday, Memorial Day, with no real plans. The only thing we couldn't miss was the village parade. Turns out I ran into one of O's camp directors and was able to introduce him! Yay. His favorite part was the old-time fire truck they have every year.

We turned down an invite to head to another friends' house for the day and a BBQ to see what we could get done at home. After an hour of trying to dismantle the deck, C gave up and acquiesced that the contractors were going to have to do it. Or, we needed a big hacksaw. We hate to have to pay them more, honestly.

And errands we ran...three stores, in total. Me & G two, C one. O took a nap. Ran into neighbors at CVS and they were like "we've got pork on the grill (yes, while they were at CVS) and why don't you come over for a beer later". Sounded so nice I told them I think we'll take them up on it.

So after said children's naps, we did. O got to play with his best bud and everyone else too. Dads got beer, Moms got wine, baby got fed and a nap in the fresh air. (Photo courtesy of neighbor K.)

We were there for around 4 hours, I think, and it was relaxing and fun and a wonderful Memorial Day. I hope you enjoyed yours.