Busy Weekend

Well, it was another busy weekend - when will the madness end? Actually, for all we did - I do feel like I actually accomplished some things at the house (which is usually what suffers most when we are busy). Friday night, it was a late night at my parents so the kids could swim. Mom cooked dinner on the grill and I had to drag E out of the pool at 9p to head home. I finally had to tell both kids "No Aquarium unless you get out NOW". That got A out of the pool in a hurry so E followed slowly behind. He will usually do anything she tells him to do and she was really looking forward to the Aquarium.

Saturday morning, E came in to find out when we were going "fishing". I explained that I didn't think the folks at the Dallas World Aquarium would appreciate him fishing in their tanks. He was disappointed. The trip to DWA was a lot of fun. I got to catch up with an old friend that I hadn't seen in years and hang out with my good friends N, C & S and their kids. The kids really enjoyed all the exhibits and the DWA does a good job of letting the animals be fairly free. Case in point, there were several birds that just flew down onto people's strollers and hung out with the crowds for awhile. I couldn't get over the size of a couple of gators in the pond below. Yikes - glad they weren't free to roam. My favorite part (besides being with good friends) was the shark tank. Getting to sit on the ledge and look up at all the sharks and stingrays swimming above our heads was pretty cool. It also gave us a chance to sit and relax in a fairly cool and not-so-crowded spot for a few minutes. If it weren't for my desire to chase the Mayan dancers, we might have stayed longer with the sharks. I couldn't believe how reasonable the cost of food was - usually these types of places totally overcharge for meals but the food at Cafe Maya was about the same price as it would be at any Mexican restaurant. Go DWA!! Even the items in the gift shop were not overpriced. It was nice to be able to get both kids a little trinket at the end of the trip and not feel like I was breaking the bank. All in all, it was a very fun outing and I'm really glad we went.

Saturday evening after church, it was back to the pool for the whole family. Even Uncle S hung out with all of us at the pool and his girlfriend came for dinner and brought her adorable baby girl (who is turning 1 this week). A loved playing with the baby in the pool and trying to make her laugh. E just loves having Uncle S in the pool especially because he can throw E up really high in the pool! Although, he doesn't want to learn to swim - E loves going under water now. I think the saltwater in the pool makes a big difference because it doesn't burn his eyes like chlorine did.

Sunday I actually cleaned my house, organized A's closet (well her shoes and and her school work from 5th grade - not her clothes, that is an all day process that neither of us were ready to tackle), and did all the laundry - go ME!! A was a big help because she went thru her Barbie box and basically decided it was time to let them go (except the Wizard of Oz dolls and a few others of special meaning). This freed up the box under the bed for all the other dolls she still plays with (Bratz & My Scene) that were being stored in her closet. Just having those boxes of dolls out of the closet freed up tons of space for school clothes. Don't tell her that though because I'm still making her try on everything so we can purge before back to school shopping. A also hung up all her clean clothes and tried on all her shoes so we could purge those before heading out for lunch. Hubby finished up his golf tournament early so the four of us went out to lunch and then to his office to help set up his new workspace in the new office. My dad rented a new space in the same building w/ more square footage to make room for the new employee starting with the company next week - my brother. That should be interesting......but I digress. So we set up hubby's office the way he wanted it and cleaned out the old space. Then it was back over to my parent's for more swimming. The painters have actually finished all the bedrooms and two bathrooms so my mom is on Cloud 9. Furniture is being arranged, ceiling fans put back up, light switch covers on, it's amazing how much better it already feels in that house just having half of it done. The neighbor came over and put in one of the three new back doors too so there was lots of progress this weekend on the house. Of course, we are usually outside 99% of the time we are there so I'm not sure why they even put all this money into the interior?? I put my foot down last night and told the kids we were not staying til dark in the pool again. I had work to do at home and we were leaving after dinner. I think after 5 consecutive days/evenings in the pool - they were tired too so they both agreed pretty quickly. We were home in time for everyone to take a bath and E was asleep by 8:30!! I was still up too late but I was downloading all the pictures from our vacation to Louisiana, the baptism from last weekend, the trip to the Aquarium and some fun times in the pool. Downloading pics is exhausting work but I feel better for having done it. Now I just need to find some time to sit down and get them printed in preparation for my Scrap Retreat weekend at the end of this month - Can you say HAPPY HEATHER!!!! I cannot wait to get away for that and hopefully get some things actually accomplished and/or caught up!!

So that was my weekend - phew - it went by to fast but it was packed full of fun, cleaning and swimming so what more can I ask for?? Sleep? Oh well, maybe some other weekend.....