Monday, October 27, 2008

Memorable Moments: Packing Them In!


Katie, husband Ben, and Cara were coming home for the weekend. Matt had a Sigma Chi pledge retreat in New Orleans and couldn't come home. This meant planning ahead to have great food, favorite snacks, clean sheets and bath towels, a clean house, candles burning, dogs groomed and sometimes wearing outfits, and a full agenda of activities. We get really excited about the kids coming home. There's nothing better than seeing their headlights turn into the driveway on a Friday night and meeting them at the door. This weekend I had Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas, Mexican Rice and Mexican Cornbread waiting on them. For dessert I made roasted apples filled with cinnamon, butter, brown sugar and pecans wrapped in puff pastry and served with ice cream. After dinner we all put on our pajamas/random drawstring pants, etc. and pile into the den for TV, catching up, playing with the pets, and plan our activities for Saturday. Saturday morning comes quickly and we don't hop out of bed as early as we had planned. We decided to skip the big breakfast and head out. Somehow, Katie, Cara and I end up lapsing into extreme silliness and take turns doing the "model walk." This is where we make fun of the girls on the show "How Do I Look?" After we laugh our heads off and finally get out of the door, we go to a great home consignment sale and then to the Renaissance Fair that is held every Fall in the downtown park. The Fair is always interesting and full of very strange looking people. Ben had never been to the Renaissance Fair and was a little shocked at the unusual outfits, which often have nothing to do with the Renaissance era. We walked over to an old sandwich shop downtown for hot dogs and milkshakes, stopped by our awesome public library to check out the books in the used book store and toured the local art center. Then we drove over to the Cane Creek Preserve, an awesome area for hiking, waterfalls and great views. We hiked for a couple of hours, which included getting lost for about 30 minutes and then headed home. We were running short on time because we had to get home in plenty of time to watch the Alabama v. Tennessee game on TV. We stopped by the Olive Garden for lasagna, salad and bread sticks and then to Sam's for cheesecake. Everyone jumps in the shower, I make a couple of appetizers for us to snack on and company comes over to join us for dinner and football. We watch football, play with the pets, play on our laptops, and finally head off to bed.

Sunday morning we head off to church and then back home for the "big breakfast" as we call it. We made Belgium waffles, scambled eggs, bacon and sausage. Cara takes a nap, we read the newspaper, chill out and play with the pets. Then Larry and I head out for the Symphony with our neighbors and say goodbye to the kids again. It doesn't get any better than this!

2 comments:

A said...

When B first saw the Renaissance Fair, he said, "Don't you find it odd that there are belly dancers coming out of teepees at a Renaissance fair?"

Touche! Gotta love Florence.

Lisa said...

Hilarious! I'm not really sure what the purple haired, body pierced, gothic people have to do with the Resaissance time period! A man was stabbed in the eye with a sword while we were there! At least you could say that some things might be realistic!