Weekend

I am one of the few people who look forward to the middle parts of the week (as opposed to the weekends). Typically we have a variety of things to do during the weekend, maybe I have to work, etc and so Monday is usually the day that marks my five days of rest. Don't get me wrong, we have our share of errands and such, but for the most part we're in no rush for any of these.

This weekend was no different in that we were busy, busy, busy.

We started the weekend on Friday with a little quality family time. My brother Bryan was watching my younger brother Scott and so them and Katy came over for a little fire pit action. I don't see my brother Scott too frequently, so when I do, it's always nice to catch up (on things such as school, girlfriends, etc). This time though he kept telling me how 'grandma' I was :(





Either way, it was a good time. At one point one of our neighbors came over and complained about the fire. He didn't think it was a 'good idea' to have it and since he hadn't seen anyone with a fire pit before he assumed they weren't allowed? It bothered him so much, that he decided to call the cops... who showed up and told us we were fine.

After a wonderful evening, we woke up bright and early. I was invited to go to a "whale of a sale" in Wilmington with Meghan. I really didn't know what to expect, so brought a little cash a long just in case I came along something. When we got there, there was a huge line (that moved quickly) just to get in. When we got in though, we quickly determined that it was nothing more than a one day goodwill. However, others were unaware of this. There were people staking out huge piles of goods. I specifically was checking out one little item in a stack of goods and was advised that the entire pile belong to one woman. WOW.

Between the three of us (me, meghan and her mom) we found maybe 10 dollars worth of stuff and as we headed to the end of the line we decided it wasn't worth it. We would have had to waited in about 45 minutes worth of a line... so we just put our goods back and headed home.

After arriving home, I decided to make some 'homemade' spaghetti. A couple of weeks ago, I made meatballs for the Halloween party. Unfortunately most of them went to waste and so Ryan has been asking me to make more. I figured if I'd be making meatballs, why not do the whole she-bang. Once in the past I tried this and it was a huge failure. This time I seemed to get the double thumbs up (for any one who cares to know, 3 cans of tomato paste, 2 cans of crushed tomatoes, 1 can of tomato puree, 7 cloves of garlic, a bundle of oregano, salt, pepper, basil and parsley gave it the perfect flavor. Meatballs were a blend of the same spices, about 3 pounds of ground beef and 2 cups of Italian style breadcrumbs fried in veggie oil, then added to the sauce).

In addition to making a fancy little dinner, we had a birthday party to go to that afternoon. Our little buddy Trent was turning one! It was a lovely party at the Woodland's. There was delicious cake, oodles of presents and plenty 'o food (unfortunately I think I ate too much considering the big pot of spaghetti sitting at home).

Jude and the b-day boy.

Trent (as with any 1 year old I'm sure) was very easily distracted during present time.

Yummmm

One of the cutest cakes I've ever seen

I was a HUGE fan of the doggy ears.

and so was Ryan...

After spending some time, we headed home to do a little yard work (blah). ALL of our neighbors rake their leaves... we never did last year, and used the "we just moved in" excuse to get away with it. This year, it was really on Ryan as to whether or not to do it. We did. Not exactly the whole front yard, but we cleaned up the driveway a little and some of the leaves around a tree in the front yard. Lucky for me, this allowed me to mark another item off my list! Jude and I did a little leaf playing/jumping!! I put items like this on my list of 101, not specifically to do it just ONCE, but to hopefully make these things part of our lives... I'm very eager to do such little things like this with Jude as he gets older and can do them on his own.

I can't really tell if he loved it or hated it. I was a new feeling, he was hungry and it was noisy...

but he sure thought they were delicious...(no I didn't let him eat them... but he sure got close)

Here I am "jumping" with Jude:

So, a birthday party, leaves, and yummm spaghetti dinner!

Finally came Sunday. I had to go to work and so Ryan was left to tackle some projects around the house. A few weeks ago we picked up some electrical goods and so he was attacking those projects today. I was glad I wasn't here, because these projects require a NUMBER of holes to be cut in the walls. Basically to get wires into our first floor walls, we need to come up from the basement. So, to get to the ceiling we need to cut holes to get there. I came home to a swiss cheese house. However, the good part of this is we will soon have hardwired smoke detectors, new receptacles, possibly some new lighting and much more. Even more exciting is that one of the main reasons I have not decorated most of the rooms in our house is because I knew these holes were coming. So, once the rewiring is done, we'll be able to patch the holes and I can begin picking out paints and decorating! I don't see it all being finished at once, but we're headed in the right direction!

In conclusion: it was a busy/lovely weekend mostly spent with the loves of my life and some dear friends.