Cheers to our Fourth Summer Together!

So for Martin and me, this end of May marks the beginning of our 4th summer spending literally all of our time together. The first was in 2005, before we were dating, when we took daily and nightly walks over to campus and back, I got really fat on Vanilla Chais, and he worked at Cajun and we were introduced to The Decemberists, and we spent all our time apart text messaging each other random lines from songs. It was awesome! The next summer we got engaged and I had lost all the weight I'd put on from those daily chais and was able to wear my favorite skirt--which I wore the night we got engaged!! If we're being honest, I spent most of that summer staring at my engagement ring so I don't remember much of what was going on around me. The summer after that was our first summer being married and I was pregnant with Anja, which cut down on our super long walks, but didn't cut down on the vanilla chai consumption, which might explain a few of those extra pounds put on in the first and second trimester...



And now here we are, at the beginning of another summer. And I have a feeling it's going to be GREAT. We celebrated last night by going to La Scala--the first place Martin ever took me on a date, at the end of May, 2005. He was "thanking me" for getting him his job at Cajun Connection. Such a sneaky devil. We had white wine that night, and we also had it on this date, except neither of us got to finish our glass because Anja had a meltdown and we had to leave in a hurry. Ah, how the times have changed!



Friday evening we ate a quick pasta dinner and then drove over to our friend Alison's house (of Alison & JC, aka The Prices) to check up on things, take in some packages from the porch, and watch the developing storms on TV. Good old Mike Prangley! He got us through yet another bout with severe weather. Alison and JC have a super cute little house. When we left, I took with me "Empire Records" one of my all time favorite movies that Martin had never seen. Anja fell asleep in the car on the way home so we stopped by the grocery and I ran in for some of that good fresh salsa from Payless because we had a random unopened bag of tortilla chips at home. It wasn't long before Anja woke up (a matter of minutes after walking in the door) so the whole family sat out on the porch eating chips and salsa and watching the thunderstorms. It was really nice, a perfect beginning to the weekend and to summer. Anja ended up staying awake until about 11:00. So we watched the first half of Empire Records while she was awake and crazy.



Saturday morning we woke up early (this looneytoon daughter of ours goes to sleep at 11:00 and STILL wakes up at 7:30!) got dressed in a hurry and set off with Anja in the Ergo (she LOVES it!) to Farmers Market. Well, in a roundabout way... you see, we didn't want to get money out of the bank, but I had $26 in winning lottery tickets from Mother's Day and all we wanted from Farmers Market were some basil and cilantro plants, so we went up to the VP to cash in the tickets. Unfortunately, the lady working didn't know how to do that. So she said another person would be there in about ten minutes, so we took a walk up 9th Street Hill to kill time. We made a circle back to home to get Anja's toucan, then went back to the store, where the lady admitted that ten minutes was just a guess as to when the next lady would be coming in, and that really she had no idea. Hmph. We didn't feel like driving anyplace, so we walked down to the bank and got cash from our account. Booooo. But we did buy 6 little basil plants, and they are so cute!! I came home and planted them and they are VERY adorable. And we only spent $4!



From there the day was mainly fun in the sun. Martin wanted to go to Sunrise for breakfast, but it was full. (Actually, that's not entirely true. There was one booth left when we got there, but Martin held the door for the people behind us, so they went in first--and took the booth. So then it was full.) We went home and I made us omlettes and toast, then Anja went down for a good nap and I did a small amount of yard work while Martin took the dog for a little walk. When Anja woke up, we walked up to Vienna with the stroller and met our friend Benjamin Ezra, as we always do! We stopped into Von's for a few minutes, then headed home.

We walked down to dinner and afterward Anja fell asleep. It was only 7:00 and we thought this was a good sign of her getting back on a normal sleep schedule. WRONG! She woke up about an hour later. But she was a huge grump. I gave her a bath and dressed her in nice PJs, and Martin suggested another walk. So we put her in the stroller and as soon as we were outside, she was immediately happy. We walked up to Vienna where we split a Chocolate Cherry Tart. Yay for walks! Anja didn't fall asleep on the way up, nor did she fall asleep on the way back. So once again, she went to sleep after 10:00. Maybe tonight she'll get back on track since we had to wake her up early to get to 7:30 mass, and she went down for a nap at her usual time of 11:00. Here's hoping!