Weekend
I’m back from my short blogging hiatus. We had a nice weekend. I hope you did, too!

On Friday, we watched precious little Ruby for the day. She is the daughter of our friends, Lindsay and Mike. If you recall, Lindsay is on strict bed rest for as long as her baby boy, Burke, will tolerate staying in the womb. She has been successfully doing it, by the grace of God, for 8 weeks now!! She is currently 25 weeks along. Please continue to pray for their family...we love them, dearly.

Anyway, Alex and I had a blast with Ruby. She is such a smart, communicative little girl at 18 months old (she has good genes!). We had some fun outdoors, as pictured at the end of this post.

Mike and Alex had big father-son plans for Friday night. Camping out in the back yard! We bought a tent four years ago for our 1st wedding anniversary. Believe it or not, this was the first time it had been assembled! I’m really not sure what we were thinking when we bought this tent. It holds 7 people!! It’s huge. We were picturing a cozy little tent for the two of them, but oh no. You can stand up in it...there’s a screened in “porch.” (Anyone want to go on an extended camping trip with us? We’ll bring the tent. Really though, I’m not the camping type. The backyard is fine, but I like my running water and decent bathroom facilities, just to name a few things. Oh, and I’m not a fan of bugs). Mike had not put a tent up since he was a kid, so I was quite impressed with his skills. Although the box says it takes 10 minutes to assemble, haha...that’s a joke. It probably took (at least for the first time) about 45 minutes-1 hour and that was with no help from me, but a little assistance from Alex. We grilled out and then enjoyed some homemade Reese’s pieces blizzards. The boys got all of their things together in backpacks, changed in to pajamas, gathered flashlights, and set up the air mattress. They brought some books and the DVD player to watch a short movie, too. When they were all set to stay in for the night, it was so cute when Alex, armed with his flashlight, said, “Good night, Mom” and headed outside. He was very excited to be spending this special time with daddy. I zipped them in and said good night. Pictures of them camping at the end of this post. I liked having the house to myself the rest of the night, but spent most of it picking up/cleaning for my mom’s arrival Saturday morning. Do all daughters do this before their moms’ come for a visit??? I did stay up very late though reading a great book, Love Walked In, by Marisa de los Santos. Have you read it? I love it so far. I’m almost finished with it. The ending better not disappoint!  I borrowed the next book, Belong to Me, from Lindsay and can’t wait to read that, too.

Saturday my mom and I spent the entire afternoon shopping. I use that term loosely. We did not buy a single thing (unless you consider cheese for HER household from Sam’s Club as a purchase!!). We counted how many stores we went to, but I forget now. Anyway, we were in search of three specific items: black bar stools for our kitchen (NOT with some fancy suede or microfiber seat cushions, we want vinyl because of messy kids), artwork for our dining room, and a special cabinet (or chest or set of drawers) to put Lydia’s things in. I know it’s pathetic that I have not looked for this for the beautiful keepsakes before now, but I am just now getting to it. I want something kind of tall and narrow and different or unique looking. I’m not even sure what, but I think I’ll know it when I see it. I may start checking out antique stores. Well, the only good thing that came out of our shopping (besides now knowing where NOT to look for these things) was a Real Fruit Slush from Sonic during Happy Hour (2-4 pm, half off drinks!). I got strawberry and Mom got lemon-berry (thanks for the recommendations, Jessica, they were SO good!).

After we had a nice dinner at home, Mike finally got to do something that he’s been whining about for weeks...seriously, whining :-)  We saw the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. I was not ecstatic about seeing it, but not dreading it either. I was warned (again, by Lindsay—geez, lady, you’re quite popular in this post!) that it is very dark and I really found that to be true. Although it was definitely well- made, I was disturbed by so much of it. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it, but I found it rough. And, to be honest, I cried (a little) in the bathroom stall right afterwards. Oh, and please do NOT take your kids to see it. It really, really bothered me that I saw kids probably as young as 6 years old in that theater. I don’t care how badly the parents want to see it and can’t find a sitter or their kids are begging to see the movie. It’s irresponsible as a parent, in my opinion, to allow a child under teenage years to see that movie. If I, as a grown woman, felt somewhat traumatized by some of the things I saw in it, how do you think it would affect a child? It’s just not appropriate. I’m sorry, but seeing little kids in there really got to me. Anyway, afterwards when I thanked Mike profusely for taking me to see it (being sarcastic here), I reminded him of yet another totally freaking messed up Christian Bale movie (maybe his first big movie?) that Mike took me to while we were dating. It was so bloody and awful....American Psycho. I remember being upset with my boyfriend for taking me to that movie! Although we don’t always see eye-to-eye on flicks, we are happily married today, haha.

Today we went to church and then my mom really wanted to go to the famed Triple XXX in West Lafayette near campus. She saw it featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network with Guy Fieri. Somehow, we had not been to this location yet (has always looked packed), but we’ve been to Route 66 in WL, which is owned by the same family and has an identical menu. So, it was great to finally go to Triple XXX.. Their hamburgers are okay, but I dined on french toast with hash browns and a milk shake today, yum. It was excellent! The atmosphere is definitely fun and unique. Alex had a really good time, too!

P.S. Ooh, I just finished Love Walked In since originally writing this tonight. Mike was tweaking some admin things on the blog before I could post this, so while waiting around, I read the last 30 pages, or so. A quick read that kept my interest...great story and very well-written :-)

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