Weekend, Illustrated

Weekends that start with a prank are always the best. Occassionally on Fridays, the partners of the firm go out for lunch leaving the office at the merciless hands of the staff. The past couple times they have left us alone in the office, we took advantage of the opportunity for some fun, all orchestrated by yours truly. One time, I got a group shot of us all taking naps in my boss' office. I got really into it and sprawled out on the floor under his desk. He told us all we were fired.

Last week, when the bosses left, we posed in front of a new piece of art work my boss had acquired for the office. The general consensus was that the artwork, featuring people sitting around a table, was really ugly and we made him hang it in the kitchen. So when he went out for lunch, we took a photo of the entire staff posing like characters in the photo. We were all fired again.

This last Friday, my boss gave the staff some cash and sent us loose on the town for lunch. It was a rare and unexpected treat. We said our thanks by taking a photo of all of us taking shots (of water). I was fired for the third time this month. But it was worth it.

Saturday, we had a family day at the YMCA. The kids played in childwatch center while I introduced my husband to his first spin class. I was sad to discover (1) he was just as good as me even though it was his first time (I nearly died my first time), and (2) he wasn't impressed. He wasn't even impressed by the fact that we had burned over 600 calories and biked 23 miles in one hour. That cast a sad shadow on the morning as I threw a mini tantrum in my mind. I love spin and I want everyone in the world to love it too. Poop. Oh well, more bikes for me.

Ryan got to practice his free throw.

Then, we loaded the kids in the car and ran errands which included our beloved monthly trip to Costco. Hunting for samples:

Mission accomplished:

It's a depressing moment of your adult life when you realize the highlight of your Saturday is free Costco samples.

Sunday was a little more exciting. I had been promising to take Jacob to an indoor playland for two weeks. Plans kept changing thanks to surprise motions that needed to be responded to and my general hatred for leaving the house because that means I have to put on real pants. We invited grandma to come with us and, to my surprise, she said yes! My mom is Jacob's absolute favorite person in the entire world. And I think she feels the same way about him. I shouldn't have been so surprised, I guess.

At the playland, Ryan enjoyed a little bit of baby heaven. I let him play in the germy ball-pit of viral doom. It's pretty much a required part of childhood. Along with eating cake on your first birthday, falling for the "I got your nose" trick, riding a yellow school bus, eating so much junk food that you puke, and being sent to detention. (Side note: in highschool I was a straight-A, goody two-shoes student. Other kids did illegal drugs and took their parents' cars for joy-rides. The worst thing I did was to purposefully skip class ONCE so I would receive a detention. I did this solely for the purpose of being able to say that I had been to detention. So, yeah....).

Making friends:

Ryan is absolutely obsessed with balls. He grabs them, throws them, catches them, crawls after them, passes them from hand to hand, and even crawls with them:

I'm not trying to pressure the kid or anything, but he's going to be my professional ball player. Ryan Palmer....has an MVP, Hall-of-Fame ring to it.

Then we took a break for the greasiest pizza on earth. Maybe grease kills ball-pit germs?

And we ended our trip by playing arcade games and winning tickets to be exchanged for nominal prizes that would be 500% cheaper if we just went to the dollar store and bought them flat-out. But you know, a 50 cent hacky-sack is so much more awesome when you have to spend $10.00 to "win" it. Grandma and Jacob had a blast.

A mother's love means lending your son a leg to help him reach the gas pedal.

 

Poor monkey had to watch from the sidelines.

Jacob discovered that I have a gambling problem. I spent more money playing arcade games in 30 minutes than I spent during my entire three-day trip to Vegas last year. I had such a hard time gambling all of $11 during my Vegas trip but I could EASILY go broke in a children's arcade.

After all that excitement, we returned home in time for me to get dinner started. On the menu tonight was homemade mac-n-cheese with cheddar, jack, and gryure cheese (to my astonishment, Jacob loved gryure cheese so much that he kept sneaking pieces of it before I got the dish assembled) and baked, brown-sugar chicken. I have made several version of mac-n-cheese and this version was one of the best, topped only by my favorite recipe for crab mac-n-cheese.

After dinner, I snuck out of the house just in time to get a workout in before the gym closed. I cranked out 4 miles in under 7:30 minute mile pace. I was shocked at my times because I haven't been running in forever. My speedy times are purely a tribute to my four times a week spin class and the three times a week that my commute includes walking 4 round-trip miles.

Phew! What a busy weekend!