So Long, Old Friend

Well, our visting friend, Vacation, has left us. It was really good to have him around for a whole week, and it's really sad to see him go. *sigh* Oh well... at least he left a lot of fun memories and at least a few good pictures. We did a lot of fun things this week. We spent a lot of time up at the river, a lot of time eating watermelon, and we took many visits to K.Dee's coffee shop. There's something about walking down to the coffee shop early in the morning that makes me look forward to retirement. Maybe I should focus more on next summer's vacation though. Anyway, it was loads of fun.

Last Saturday I "drove the girls to sleep" (that was the lie I told to get out of the house) and picked up Martin's birthday present: a year membership to the Linden Conservation Club. So far it's been a very successful present! I gave it to him early (his birthday is this Wednesday) because our friends Clare and Nick came to visit on Sunday and I knew he would want to take Nick shooting. While the boys went out to play with guns Clare and I and all of our baby girls took a walk around town and just kind of hung out. We love them! It was a really fun day and a perfect way to start out our vacation. Sadly, I got no pictures.

We visited the Columbian Park petting zoo (no pictures) and followed it up with a trip to the Frozen Custard.

Martin's sister and nephew came down for a visit on Tuesday and we brought a watermelon to that little gathering. Much like with Anja and PeterXavier, it's funny to see the close-in-age cousins interacting. Anja and Aurelio colored pictures together and pretended to be "wild beasts." (Aurelio suggests we all pretend to be "wild beasts" and then I ask him what wild beast he is pretending to be and he says, "I'm a COW!!") Anja ate a slice of watermelon, and I thought there might be nothing cuter. ...except for maybe two toddlers with a slice each. Letsee, what else did we do? My mom watched the girls one chilly, rainy day while Martin and I took a lunch date at The Black Sparrow, a cute little downtown pub where we'd never been. I had a very interesting sandwich and we each had a beer, and it was a perfect day for a cozy pub date. (If it had been sunny, we would've gone to Olive House and sat outside.)

Our friend Joel happened to be on vacation this week as well, so he was in town and we visited with him a few times. Martin even took him shooting!

Friday was a very fun day--we went to coffee at K.Dee's in the morning, then spontaneously decided to go shoot guns at the Conservation Club. We dropped the girls off at my mom's and went out there. I shot Martin's pistol! That thing is a monster. Martin killed a Bad Guyand we both did a number on this poor, skinny Squirrel. We were going to have a picnic lunch out at the Hort Park, but that kind of didn't happen. However, Uncle Kim did drop off half a watermelon to us and it was SO DELICIOUS, and kind of picnicky. We ate a little lunch at home then went to my uncle's house to swim with my sister's family! It was very fun, even though Anja never got in the water and Greta slept the whole time. From there we went to have dinner at Budge's and it was delicious. Then we went home, changed clothes, and walked to Vienna for an art opening. Joel came and brought his mom and it's always fun to talk to her.

On Saturday we walked to the Farmers Market and saw lots of friends. It was my mother-in-law's birthday so I made a cherry pie (which I promptly spilled all over myself as soon as I got into the car) and we had a little family get-together. One thing that I do love about living downtown is that I bought a pint of cherries for my pie at the Farmers Market, but it wasn't really enough... so I just called out the door to Martin, who was at the grill making venison burgers for our lunch, that I needed more and would he run down and get me some please? And he was able to leave the grill and hurry the few blocks back to the Farmers Market and pick me up another pint of cherries. The 5th Street Farmers Market is as good as a convenience store!

And now it's another Sunday and Martin goes back to work tomorrow and that's a little bit poopy. However, it's a little less poopy-seeming today since BOTH GIRLS ARE NAPPING AT THE SAME TIME RIGHT NOW. This is practically a miracle, considering Anja went pretty much the entire week with zero naps. Her going down easily today gives me hope for getting back to our old routine starting tomorrow.

Thanks for voting on my poll, everyone!!!!! I was interested to see how other people care for their cast iron.

My parents just brought us a ton of food. Deer brats, homemade strawberry jelly, a giant zucchini, buns, chips, and a twelve pack of coke. What a nice way to close up our vacay! Happy lunching!