My Birthday Weekend

This weekend was just as wonderful and simple as they get. Friday, we stayed home and watched my Alegria (Cirque du Soliel) video that Eric and the boys gave me for my birthday. We all enjoyed it quite well, but I think I may have enjoyed LaNouba a little more. I made baked spaghetti for dinner, which was good, but prevented us from eating in front of the TV (one of the boys' favorite things to do), so we pulled out the hide-a-bed, which sufficed as a special treat for the evening. We finally stopped flipping through the bonus features at about 11PM and threw the boys in bed. It was a great little family evening at home - all too rare lately.

Saturday, Eric elected not to go off-road cycling with his friends, partly because he was dog-tired and partly because the rim on one of the tires of his bicycle is bent. We'll have to get that fixed soon. So we all got up and going at about 8:30 or 9:00 and had a french toast breakfast. Yum! We gradually got ready to take Ethan to J-Force rehearsal---this is a musical show he's involved in at church (production on Dec. 4 if you care to see it). While Ethan was at rehearsal, Eric, Seth, and I ran down to Sonic to grab some lunch. Yum! Then we got back, did some miscellaneous work around the church that we needed to get done, finished up at about 3:30 and took the boys to Twila and Randy's house so they could babysit while Eric and I went on a date. We used a gift certificate to Logan's Steakhouse that Jack and Elizabeth Fernandez gave us almost two years ago for Christmas, I think! It doubled nicely as a birthday gift certificate. Then we went to the movie theater across the parking lot to determine if there was any value left on the TWO AMC gift cards I had tucked away in my purse. Between the two cards, we had $45! So we called Twila to make sure she was OK with keeping the kids until almost 10PM. (I won't mention what Seth had done at that point. Suffice it to say, Twila is such a dear friend and she took care of everything.) So we went to see "Good Night and Good Luck" which was an outstanding movie, even if it could have been a little longer to include a bit more information. It was quite good. So we went to pick up the boys at Twila's and Seth fell asleep on the way home. A near-perfect day for the family!

Sunday we woke up and were late for Sunday School. No surprises there. I think we were about 20 minutes late. Pathetic. After church---I actually was able to attend Big Church, thanks to my wonderful Preschool workers who showed up for the most part, we went to a Taco Bell/KFC/Pizza Hut combo restaurant on Armenia Ave. Once we good the food, it was good. Only one mistake on the order and one food item that they didn't have. The combo restaurants like that always confound me. They are a jack-of-all-trades and master of none! So anyway, the boys behaved well and we were able to get back to the church on time for a meeting I had with a bride. Her wedding is on 12/2, so we chatted about that for a while, and we did some more miscellaneous work around the church that needed to get done until about 3:30, then went home and put Seth down for a nap. Ethan and Eric played Risk on the computer while I watched 24 (the only TV I watch - although I watch it on borrowed DVDs - Thanks, Pops!). We had lots of leftovers for dinner and then watched the Food Network and some other miscellaneous TV for a while, then capped our evening off with an Iron Chef battle, which Bobby Flay won. Ethan was quite happy about that. My boys love the food network, especially Emeril and Iron Chef America. Odd, I know.

So then we went to bed and I slept for over five hours straight! Close to a record for me, since my ever-expanded belly keeps me from sleeping soundly most nights. So, it's gonna be a great week! I'm hosting Thanksgiving on Thursday, so I'd better finish the blog and start straightening the house!

Hugs!